Chapter 3
The next morning, I took Sophie to Graham's sister's house.
We didn't tell her the truth. We said there'd been a break-in near the hospital and needed a few days to update our home security system.
Sophie didn't believe us. She stood beside the car, clutching her backpack.
"Is this because of the man yesterday?"
"No."
I could barely look at her as I lied.
"He made me feel weird," she said quietly. "He knew my name and that my cake was chocolate, but I'd never met him."
I pulled her into my arms. "If anyone comes for you, don't go with them. Don't take anyone's word for it except mine, Dad's, or your aunt's."
"Not even a police officer?"
I hesitated. "Call us first."
No mother should have to teach her twelve-year-old that rule. But on the second day after Dario's return, I couldn't trust a uniform to mean safety.
Graham drove me back to the medical examiner's office. He'd barely slept; there were dark shadows beneath his eyes.
"I took three days off," he said. "I'll drive Sophie and stay with you on your commute."
"Your pediatric clinic is fully booked."
"My patients can see another doctor. You and Sophie can't."
I didn't argue.
The detective was waiting at my office. He told me to avoid the press and not handle the evidence alone. They would document last night's threat, but without a recording, a witness, or an overt act, they couldn't hold Dario on an implied threat.
"And his last name?" Graham asked. "Being a Bellandi isn't enough?"
The detective looked tired. "A surname isn't grounds for an arrest."
Dario had counted on that.
I examined the remains again. The pelvis and teeth were consistent with Vivian's age when she disappeared. There was an old, healed fracture in the left collarbone. In our second year of college, she'd fallen skiing and worn her arm in a sling for six weeks.
Getting her old dental records would require her family's authorization. DNA comparison would take time.
I no longer had any doubt.
Three ribs bore thin, parallel cuts. They didn't look like damage from an ordinary fall. Something like a fast-spinning metal blade had passed over her body. A trace of dark blue coating remained in the bone.
My assistant leaned closer. "A boat propeller?"
"Possibly. Send it to the lab. Don't put a conclusion in the preliminary notes."
I took a small piece from the rib with the clearest marks and sealed it in a separate evidence container. It was a routine sample, not something I was concealing.
Still, when I signed it out, I did one thing differently. Instead of placing it in the regular secured storage, I locked it in the internal safe that only my supervisor and I could open.
At four, Graham went to pick up Sophie. I walked to the underground parking garage alone.
Dario was leaning against my car.
He wore a dark gray coat. I saw no weapon or bodyguards. He didn't need them. His presence made the empty garage feel cramped.
"You shouldn't be here," I said, stopping a few steps away.
"You haven't given me an answer."
"My answer is no."
"You don't even know what kind of person you're defending."
"I know someone hid her in a water tank for seventeen years."
He let out a short laugh. "She wasn't as innocent as you remember."
"It's easy to accuse a dead woman. She can't argue back."
His smile vanished.
"Vivian followed my brother and took pictures she shouldn't have. Then she asked for money. She didn't come to you because she cared about you. She wanted to use your relationship with me as leverage."
"So your family killed her?"
"I didn't say that."
"What are you so afraid of, then?"
He came closer. I stepped back on instinct and hit the car door. He didn't touch me. He braced a hand on the roof and lowered his voice.
"I'm afraid you'll believe her first, like you did seventeen years ago, and destroy your own life."
"Seventeen years ago, you didn't even leave me an explanation."
He watched me for a long moment.
"Some explanations get the people who hear them killed."
The words found a place in me I thought had healed.
He knew what I'd wanted all those years. Not an apology. A reason to believe I hadn't simply been thrown away.
I turned my face so he couldn't see it. "You don't get to decide her cause of death."
"Change it to accidental drowning by eight tomorrow morning."
"Or what?"
He held up his phone. A live video showed Sophie doing homework at her aunt's dining table while Graham poured her juice in the kitchen.
The camera was across the street.
"Or I can't promise it'll always be my people watching them," he said.
I slapped him.
The sound cracked against the concrete walls. His face turned to one side. After a few seconds, he touched the split at the corner of his mouth with his tongue and looked back at me. His eyes had gone cold.
"Was that for your daughter or for Vivian?"
"For the woman I was seventeen years ago. The one who trusted you."
He watched me, then stepped aside and gave me access to my car.
"Don't make me remind you again."
As soon as he left, I called Graham and told him to get Sophie away from the windows. I gave the video to the detective, but the streaming account had been deleted and its signal routed through multiple servers.
At 7:12 that evening, the power went out at the medical examiner's office.
The backup generator came on seconds later. I ran from my office as the alarm sounded in the evidence area downstairs. Vivian's refrigerated storage unit stood open. The white body bag had been dragged into the hall.
The service elevator doors were closing.
At the other end of the bag stood a stranger in a hospital transport uniform.