Chapter 2 - THE SONG HE TAUGHT THEM TO FEAR
My hand stayed beneath my coat.
Grace saw it.
Her eyes hardened.
“Don’t.”
One word.
Nobody in my house spoke to me that way.
Nobody except, apparently, the woman my daughters trusted more than me.
I looked behind her.
Olivia had stopped swinging her legs.
Sophie stood frozen beside the kitchen chair.
Nora pressed herself against the back of Grace’s skirt and stared at my coat.
At the gun.
Or rather, where she knew the gun was.
Something inside me cracked.
For fourteen months, I had told myself my daughters stopped speaking because they watched their mother die.
Maybe that was only half the truth.
I slowly removed my hand.
“Tell me what Sophie said.”
Grace lowered her voice.
“She didn’t say she saw the person shoot Isabelle.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did she say?”
“She said the man who made Mommy die still sleeps here.”
Made Mommy die.
Not shot.
Not killed.
Children choose strange words when adults haven’t supplied them.
That mattered.
I crouched several feet away.
“Sophie.”
She immediately turned her face into Grace’s arm.
I stopped.
No questions.
Grace whispered:
“They’ve been talking for almost three weeks.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“Only around me.”
Rage moved through me so fast I nearly stood.
“You kept that from me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the first time Nora accidentally said ‘cookie,’ she looked terrified and asked if Daddy would make her tell the police everything.”
I stopped breathing.
Grace continued.
“She thought speaking meant questions.”
“She thought questions meant somebody would get hurt.”
“Who taught her that?”
Grace’s face changed.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to understand.”
She walked to the refrigerator.
Several drawings were stuck beneath magnets.
I had never noticed them.
I noticed nothing in my own house anymore unless it carried a threat.
Grace removed one page.
Three girls beneath a yellow sun.
A woman in blue.
A black figure near a car.
The figure had a hand drawn absurdly large.
Around one finger was a black circle.
“What is that?”
“A ring.”
My eyes narrowed.
Grace showed me another drawing.
Same circle.
Same hand.
Another.
In this one, the figure stood inside a hallway.
Above him, Sophie had drawn brown spirals.
“What are those?”
“Smell.”
I looked at Grace.
“What?”
“She says the man smells like trees.”
Cedar.
The realization came before I wanted it.
A handful of men close to me wore cedar-based cologne.
One wore it so consistently that it entered rooms before he did.
My uncle.
Vincent Romano.
My father’s younger brother.
Sixty-two.
Family adviser.
The man who moved into the east wing after Isabelle’s murder because he said I should not be alone.
The man who carried Nora into the church at Isabelle’s funeral because I could not.
The man who kissed my daughters’ foreheads every night.
I looked down at the black circle.
Vincent wore my father’s old onyx signet ring.
He had worn it for thirty years.
My mouth went dry.
“No.”
Grace did not say anything.
“Vincent loved Isabelle.”
She remained silent.
“He carried her coffin.”
Still nothing.
“He helped me look for the shooter.”
Grace’s voice was careful.
“I’m not telling you he killed her.”
“What are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you what three frightened children keep drawing.”
Then Nora whispered:
“Uncle Vin sings it wrong.”
My eyes moved toward her.
She buried her face again.
I looked at Grace.
“Sings what wrong?”
Grace hesitated.
Then softly hummed:
“You Are My Sunshine.”
My stomach turned.
Isabelle had sung that song every night.
Vincent knew.
Everyone knew.
Grace continued:
“Nora says after their mother died, Vincent sang it to them.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“He changed the words.”
I stopped.
Grace looked at Nora.
“You don’t have to say it.”
Nora shook her head.
Grace whispered for her.
“‘If you tell Daddy, Daddy goes away too.’”
The kitchen disappeared around me.
“What?”
Grace repeated it.
I remembered the nights after the murder.
Vincent sitting outside their room.
Telling me:
“They’re asleep. Go handle what you need to handle.”
And I did.
I chased enemies across New York.
While he remained here.
My daughters had not stopped speaking because grief took their voices.
Someone had convinced them silence kept me alive.
Then footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Slow.
Measured.
The scent reached the doorway first.
Cedar.
Vincent Romano entered the kitchen smiling.
Then saw me.
“Dominic.”
His smile changed.
“You’re home early.”
Nora began trembling.
Vincent noticed.
“Everything all right?”
I looked at his right hand.
Black onyx ring.
Same shape Sophie drew.
My gun felt suddenly heavy beneath my coat.
Grace stepped between my daughters and the doorway.
Vincent looked at her.
Then at me.
“Something wrong?”
Fourteen months earlier, I would have drawn the weapon.
Demanded answers.
Made blood solve uncertainty.
But Isabelle was already dead because somebody believed violence could solve a problem.
I smiled.
“Nothing.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
I continued:
“Warehouse issue.”
“Handled.”
He relaxed slightly.
Then he noticed the drawing in my hand.
For less than a second, his expression disappeared.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Then he smiled again.
“What’s that?”
I folded it.
“Kid stuff.”
He nodded.
But his gaze moved to Sophie.
And Sophie looked away.
That was when I knew one thing for certain.
Whether Vincent killed Isabelle or not—
my daughters were afraid of him.
And starting that night, nobody who frightened my daughters was going to sleep under the same roof as them.
Even if his last name was Romano.
May you like
Especially then.
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