Chapter 2 - THE IMPRESSION IN THE WAX
By six the next morning, Dante had decided not to confront Isabella. Accusations were useful only when they ended a problem. He needed to learn how far the problem reached.
He asked Carlo Ricci to bring him every shipping authorization issued during the previous forty-eight hours. Carlo arrived with two leather binders and an expression that suggested he had slept less than his employer.
"There's something else," Carlo said. "A courier collected a sealed envelope from the east wing yesterday. Mrs. Costa's driver signed for it."
"Isabella isn't Mrs. Costa."
"Her father's driver, then."
Dante opened the first binder. The authorization for a container shipment departing Newark at midnight bore the Moretti hawk pressed into dark red wax. The scratch across the right wing was there. The document authorized a transfer of freight insurance liability to a company Dante had never heard of.
"I didn't sign this."
Carlo leaned over the desk. "Then someone made you sign it."
"Someone made the paper say I did. That's different."
The insurance company was incorporated in Delaware two weeks earlier. Its listed director was a retired accountant who had died in April. Dante recognized the structure: not a simple theft but a deliberate effort to make a disputed shipment legally appear to belong to him.
Downstairs, Elena was making chicken stock when Isabella entered the kitchen. She wore a cream cashmere sweater and the gold necklace Sophia had described. The letter I flashed at her throat.
"Your daughter has an imagination," Isabella said.
Elena continued slicing carrots. "She's three."
"Three is old enough to learn not to invent stories about her betters."
Elena set down the knife. "She said what she saw."
Isabella smiled without warmth. "Then you should teach her the difference between seeing and understanding."
When Isabella left, Elena discovered that her hands were trembling. She had accepted this job because it offered a safe place to raise Sophia. Now the mansion felt less like a home than a building whose exits could be locked without warning.
That afternoon, Dante found Sophia in the rose garden with Mr. Whiskers. He returned the toy, which he had kept safe in his study. She accepted it gravely.
"Did he help?" she asked.
"More than you know."
Sophia pointed at the yellow roses. "Mama says those are the brave ones."
Dante knelt beside her. "Your mama sounds wise."
"She cries when she thinks I sleep."
He looked toward the kitchen windows. He had noticed Elena's exhaustion but never asked what it cost her to work here. His father's household had trained him to see competence as something that appeared automatically, like hot coffee or clean linen.
Sophia pressed the stuffed cat against his knee. "You can borrow him again."
"I think you should keep him close."
That evening Dante ordered the Newark shipment stopped. Someone called his private number nine minutes later. No one spoke when he answered. He heard breathing, then the metallic clang of a loading crane.
May you like
A man's voice finally said, "Your brother should have minded his own business too."
The line went dead.
