Chapter 9 - Two Women Vanished
Vittorio’s wife had been named Helena.
Official family history said Helena left him after a short marriage.
Nobody discussed her.
There were no photographs of her in the Caruso mansion.
No portraits.
No holiday pictures.
No name in the family room.
Another woman erased.
Samuel explained that Helena had discovered what Vittorio was doing before Maria did.
The payments.
The information.
The betrayal that eventually cost Gabriel his life.
Helena wanted to leave.
Vittorio would not allow it.
Maria helped her.
That was the real beginning of everything.
“Helena was in the car behind Maria the night of the crash,” Samuel said.
“She saw the vehicle go off the road.”
“She pulled Maria out before the second car arrived.”
Dominic looked at him.
“What second car?”
“The men sent to make sure she didn’t survive.”
Marco’s expression darkened.
Samuel continued.
“They thought Maria had died.”
“Helena and Evelyn hid her.”
“Then the funeral was arranged.”
The room became very still.
I looked at Dominic.
He had gone from angry to frighteningly calm.
“Where did Helena go?”
Samuel shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“And my mother?”
“I know where she went after leaving here.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Where?”
Samuel gave him an address.
New Hampshire.
A small town near the mountains.
Dominic immediately entered it into his phone.
Marco glanced at the map.
“That’s seventeen hours by car.”
“We’ll fly.”
Samuel lifted one hand.
“There’s more.”
Dominic stopped.
“Maria contacted me one last time in 2004.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to know whether Vittorio was still alive.”
“Did she tell you where she was?”
“No.”
“She said she had built another life.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“With another family?”
Samuel looked down.
“I don’t know.”
Dominic opened Maria’s envelope in the SUV.
I tried not to watch.
The letter was six pages.
He read all of it silently.
Then he handed me the final page.
I hesitated.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Maria had written that leaving Dominic had destroyed her.
She had tried twice to return.
The first time, men appeared near Samuel’s house.
The second time, someone sent her a photograph of twelve-year-old Dominic walking home from school.
Written across the back:
COME BACK AND HE DIES NEXT.
She believed Vittorio had found her.
So she stayed away.
At the bottom of the letter was another sentence.
Franco knows the truth now.
He still refuses to act.
Dominic stared out the window for nearly an hour.
Then his phone rang.
Vittorio.
The name appeared on the screen.
Nobody spoke.
Dominic answered.
“Uncle.”
Vittorio’s voice was warm enough to make me uncomfortable even from several feet away.
“I heard you came home early.”
Dominic looked at me.
“Storm damage.”
“So Rosa said.”
A pause.
“Is the house all right?”
Dominic answered calmly.
“One portrait got moved.”
Silence.
Only two seconds.
Maybe three.
But I saw Dominic notice it.
Then Vittorio said,
“Which portrait?”
Dominic’s eyes became ice.
“My mother’s.”
Another pause.
Vittorio laughed softly.
“Some things are better left exactly where they were, Dominic.”
Dominic ended the call.
Marco looked at him.
“He knows.”
Dominic nodded.
Then my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
A photograph loaded.
It showed me standing outside Samuel’s house thirty minutes earlier.
May you like
Beneath it were six words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT THE POKER.
