Chapter 3 - THE FIRST WORD
Victor stopped breathing.
I did too.
Mia’s eyes widened as if the sound had frightened her more than the thunder.
Victor’s hands shook.
“Mia?”
She immediately covered her mouth.
I crouched in front of her.
“You don’t have to say anything else.”
Victor looked at me sharply.
“She spoke.”
“I know.”
“We need to ask her—”
“No.”
His expression hardened.
“She may know what happened.”
“And if you push her now, she may never speak again.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
He hated that.
Not because he disagreed.
Because he knew I was right.
Mia reached for my hand.
I took hers.
Then she pointed toward the photograph again.
Carlo.
Victor knelt several feet away.
“Did you see him?”
Mia froze.
I looked at Victor.
“Choice.”
He understood.
He lowered his voice.
“You can nod. You can shake your head. Or you can do nothing.”
Mia stared at him.
Slowly, she nodded.
Victor’s face changed.
“When?”
She tapped the date.
The night before the bombing.
Victor stood.
His chair nearly overturned.
“If Carlo was alive the night before the explosion…”
“He may not have died in it,” I said.
Victor looked toward the hall.
Then something else occurred to me.
“Where was he supposed to be when the bomb went off?”
“In the car with my parents.”
“Was a body identified?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Victor went silent.
That answer told me enough.
Later, his security chief, Marco, brought the original investigation file.
I sat at Victor’s desk while he read.
Three bodies had been recovered.
His parents.
And a third male victim.
Identification based on dental records.
No DNA.
The dentist who provided the records disappeared six months later.
I felt a chill.
“This was staged.”
Victor’s face was unreadable.
“Maybe.”
“That’s not a maybe.”
He looked at Mia.
She had fallen asleep on the sofa beside me.
Victor lowered his voice.
“If Carlo survived, he let us believe he died for two years.”
“Why?”
Victor did not answer.
Instead, he opened another folder.
Bomb fragments.
Security reports.
A list of employees who had access to the garage.
One name caught my eye.
Rebecca Brooks.
My mother.
I stared.
Victor noticed.
“Your mother entered the estate the morning of the bombing.”
My heart started pounding.
“No.”
“Security logged her at 8:12.”
“She was in Connecticut.”
“According to you.”
I stood.
“You think my mother planted that bomb?”
Victor’s expression sharpened.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He stepped closer.
“I think your mother knew something.”
“Then ask her.”
“I intend to.”
My stomach twisted.
“My mother is in a neurological care facility.”
Victor stopped.
“What?”
“She had a stroke two years ago.”
The timing landed between us.
Two years.
The bombing.
Mia’s silence.
My mother’s stroke.
Victor’s eyes changed.
“When exactly?”
“Four days after the explosion.”
He looked at the security file again.
Then at me.
“Hannah…”
I already knew.
My mother had not merely known the Romano family.
She had been at the estate days before her stroke.
May you like
And the last voicemail she ever left me before losing most of her speech had contained one sentence I never understood.
If they ask, tell them I never saw the red car.
