Chapter 7 - THE MAID THEY BLAMED
By nine the next morning, half the Costa organization knew my name.
Not because I had done anything impressive.
Because blaming a maid was apparently easier than admitting powerful men had lied for eleven years.
The kitchen staff stopped talking when I entered.
Two guards avoided looking at me.
A nurse named Celeste quietly asked whether I was being fired.
“I don’t know.”
She looked frightened for me.
“Maybe you should leave.”
That was probably good advice.
Unfortunately, Beatrice had thrown breakfast at everyone except me.
So I went upstairs.
She sat by the window wearing Ava’s red scarf.
The moment she saw me, her shoulders loosened.
“Mara.”
“Good morning.”
“Applesauce?”
“Not unless you’ve committed a serious crime.”
She smiled.
Small.
Real.
I almost cried.
Instead, I sat beside her.
Downstairs, men were deciding whether I had somehow manipulated a seventy-two-year-old woman with advanced Alzheimer’s into inventing photographs, watches, union tokens, truck stamps, and eleven years of family history.
Upstairs, Beatrice wanted toast.
The contrast was almost insulting.
At ten, Damian entered.
“You need to pack a bag.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
His face hardened.
“This isn’t a debate.”
“That sentence usually means it definitely is.”
“Carlo has men outside two of my properties.”
“And?”
“He believes you’re being used by Bellandi.”
“I’ve never met a Bellandi.”
“I know.”
“Then tell him.”
“I intend to.”
“Good.”
I turned back to Beatrice.
Damian did not leave.
“Mara.”
I hated how different my name sounded in his voice now.
Not staff.
Not invisible.
Personal.
“They have your apartment address.”
That changed things.
I looked at him.
“How?”
“We’re finding out.”
“My landlord?”
“Guarded.”
“The diner?”
“Covered.”
I thought about the cheap apartment containing Ava’s sweaters.
Her ceramic mug.
The medical bills I still could not make myself throw away.
“You searched my place?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I had Marco secure it.”
“That is uncomfortably close.”
His jaw tightened.
“You can be angry later.”
“I’m talented enough to be angry now.”
Beatrice touched my arm.
“No fighting.”
I looked at her.
“We’re not.”
Damian said, “We are.”
She pointed at him.
“Stop.”
I smiled despite myself.
Damian did not.
But he listened.
I agreed to stay at the estate.
Not because he ordered it.
Because leaving would bring the problem closer to people who had nothing to do with the Costas.
At noon, the captains began arriving.
I recognized some.
Victor.
Silvio.
Renato.
Men from warehouses.
Restaurants.
Trucking.
A union liaison.
And Carlo Serrano.
He looked like Victor had fifteen years earlier.
Same shoulders.
Same eyes.
But his anger belonged to someone younger.
Someone who had inherited a story and never questioned it.
He saw me near the staircase.
“That’s her.”
Damian stepped between us.
Carlo stopped.
“Boss.”
“Say what you came to say.”
Carlo looked at me anyway.
“My father served this family thirty-two years. Silvio served longer. Renato helped build it.”
“And Gabriel?” Damian asked.
Carlo faltered.
“That’s different.”
“No.”
Damian’s voice stayed quiet.
“It isn’t.”
Carlo looked around.
“This started because she got inside Beatrice’s head.”
I actually laughed.
Every man turned.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at Carlo.
“Have you ever spent ten minutes with someone who has Alzheimer’s?”
His face hardened.
“That isn’t the point.”
“It is exactly the point.”
Damian looked at me.
He did not stop me.
So I continued.
“You think I can make Beatrice remember whatever I want?”
Silence.
“Most mornings she doesn’t know what year it is. Yesterday she called me by my dead sister’s name for twenty minutes.”
My voice nearly broke.
I steadied it.
“She remembers pieces because pieces are what the disease leaves her. I don’t control which ones.”
Carlo glanced toward Damian.
“She could be feeding her names.”
“Then explain the coat,” Damian said.
“The photograph.”
Renato placed it on the table.
“The truck stamp,” Victor added.
Silvio looked at the floor.
“The account.”
Carlo stared at his father.
“You believe her?”
Victor’s answer came quietly.
“I believe what I did.”
That shook Carlo.
Victor continued.
“I started the rumor about Gabriel.”
“Dad.”
“I was afraid for you.”
Carlo’s face changed.
“For me?”
“Yes.”
Victor told him about the threats.
The truck switch.
The money.
The promise he made to dying Gabriel.
Carlo sat down.
For the first time, his anger lost direction.
“You never told me.”
“No.”
“So I spent my whole life hating Gabriel because you were protecting me.”
Victor closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Carlo looked sick.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I know.”
That sentence sounded familiar.
People deciding silence was love.
Carlo’s men had stopped trucks because he believed Damian was dismantling family loyalty.
Now he learned the loyalty had been built on his father’s fear.
But another problem remained.
“Who gave you Mara’s address?” Damian asked.
Carlo hesitated.
“A nurse.”
I felt cold.
“Which nurse?”
He looked toward the staircase.
“Celeste.”
The woman who had warned me to leave.
Damian’s face hardened.
Marco brought her downstairs.
Celeste was forty-seven.
Divorced.
Two sons.
One worked at a Serrano warehouse.
She took one look at Carlo and began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
Carlo looked shocked.
“You told me she was working for Bellandi.”
Celeste shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why give me her address?”
“My son.”
There it was.
Again.
Family.
Her oldest son had been caught stealing inventory from a Serrano warehouse.
Not millions.
Nothing glamorous.
About eighteen thousand dollars in electronics.
Carlo had agreed not to ruin him if Celeste reported anything unusual Beatrice said.
Carlo looked horrified.
“I told you to tell me if Bellandi people came around.”
“You said anything unusual.”
“I didn’t tell you to follow Mara.”
“No.”
Celeste looked toward Victor.
“Someone else did.”
Victor frowned.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Celeste had been receiving cash envelopes for six months.
All she had to do was note when Beatrice said Gabriel’s name.
When she became unusually lucid.
When Damian visited.
She assumed Carlo arranged it.
He had not.
Damian looked at Marco.
“Security footage.”
“Already checking.”
Twenty minutes later, Marco returned with still photographs.
A man leaving envelopes inside Celeste’s locker.
Older.
Heavyset.
Gray hair.
Renato stared.
“No.”
Damian looked at him.
“Who?”
Renato whispered, “Thomas Vale.”
The name meant nothing to me.
It meant everything to them.
Victor stood.
“He’s alive?”
Marco frowned.
“Who is Thomas Vale?”
Renato looked at Damian.
“Your father’s former accountant.”
Damian’s expression changed.
“The man who handled R-47?”
Renato nodded.
Thomas Vale had disappeared from Costa operations ten years ago.
Not dead.
Not missing.
Retired, supposedly.
Marco enlarged the image.
Vale had been inside Damian’s house six days earlier.
The same day security began watching me more closely.
Damian stared at the screen.
“Why would my father’s accountant be paying a nurse to monitor my mother?”
Renato’s answer was quiet.
“Because if Silvio only moved part of Victor’s money…”
Victor understood.
“The rest went through Vale.”
Marco searched older files.
Then stopped.
A current photograph appeared.
Thomas Vale.
Board member of a trucking cooperative.
One that controlled contracts at Pier Nineteen.
The same cooperative now threatening to shut down Costa freight.
Carlo looked at Damian.
“He’s using this to split us.”
“Yes.”
I stared at Vale’s face.
Something about him bothered me.
I had seen him.
Not at the estate.
Somewhere else.
Then it came back.
The diner.
Sunday mornings.
Booth six.
Black coffee.
Two eggs.
Always tipped exactly twenty percent.
I looked at Damian.
“I know him.”
His eyes sharpened.
“From where?”
“My weekend job.”
“How long?”
“Months.”
The room went silent.
Vale had not merely been watching Beatrice.
He had been watching me before I ever calmed her.
Damian asked, “Why?”
I suddenly remembered the last Sunday Ava had been alive.
A gray-haired man standing near the hospital elevator while I argued with billing.
Same face.
Older now.
But him.
May you like
My stomach dropped.
“He knew my sister.”
