Chapter 10 - The Woman Valentina Never Knew
Valentina watched Isabella’s recording three times.
On the third, she stopped pretending it did not affect her.
“She knew my father?”
Domenico nodded.
“Apparently.”
“She was trying to help us.”
“Yes.”
Valentina looked down at her hands.
“And I did that to her daughter.”
Nobody rushed to comfort her.
Some pain was supposed to stay where it landed.
Marcus signed a limited cooperation agreement that afternoon.
The original amendment page arrived in a sealed evidence bag.
Carver read it aloud.
“Upon execution of this amendment, Cesare Rinaldi is removed as trust protector. Interim authority shall transfer to Nora Hale, independent fiduciary, with no family relationship to the beneficiary.”
Domenico frowned.
“Nora Hale?”
Carver nodded. “Former probate judge. Retired.”
“Find her.”
Maya did.
Nora lived in Santa Barbara.
She answered the phone herself.
When Domenico introduced himself, she sighed.
“I wondered how long it would take.”
“You knew?”
“I knew Isabella intended to appoint me. I signed the acceptance. Then she died, and your family counsel informed me the amendment had been withdrawn.”
Carver looked horrified.
“I never sent that notice.”
Nora replied, “It came on your letterhead.”
Another forged document.
Domenico leaned toward the phone.
“Will you testify?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Isabella asked me one question before I signed.”
“What question?”
Nora paused.
“She asked whether I would protect Ruby even if protecting Ruby made the Rinaldi family angry.”
Domenico closed his eyes.
Isabella had prepared for a future he had refused to imagine.
That evening, he sat with Ruby on the floor of the library.
She was building a crooked tower from wooden blocks.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Valentina coming back?”
Domenico took his time.
“Not to live here.”
Ruby nodded.
“Is she going to jail?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Did she do bad things because she’s bad?”
The question was harder than anything the lawyers had asked.
Domenico set down a block.
“She did bad things because she made bad choices. Sometimes people have reasons for choices. Reasons don’t make the choices okay.”
Ruby considered that.
“Like when I color on the wall because I’m mad?”
“Smaller scale, but yes.”
She looked toward the hallway.
“Marcus told her she had to be mean.”
Domenico went still.
“When?”
“Lots.”
“What did he say?”
Ruby pressed two blocks together.
“He said if you got mad, Uncle Cesare would fix everything.”
“Uncle Cesare?”
Ruby nodded.
Domenico had never introduced Cesare that way around her.
“Did Cesare come here when I wasn’t home?”
Ruby’s hand stopped.
“Sometimes.”
“How many times?”
She shrugged.
“After school.”
Domenico felt the room change.
“Where did he go?”
Ruby pointed toward the dining room.
“To Mommy’s chair.”
The gold chair.
The hidden key.
The wall safe.
Cesare had not only known about Isabella’s hiding place.
He had been inside Domenico’s home, searching for it while Domenico traveled.
Ruby added one more block to her tower.
Then she said, almost casually, “He always wore the little blue key.”
Domenico looked at her.
“What blue key?”
“The one that opens the downstairs room.”
There was no downstairs room on the house plans.
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