Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO PAID FOR THE FLOWERS
Allison Romano arrived at my apartment carrying a box of soup containers and a quiet confession.
"I paid for the engagement flowers," she said.
I stared at her. "You did?"
"Not knowingly. That's the peculiar part. Adrian put an expense through our joint business account in August. It was described as event hospitality. His office said it covered a charitable reception. I thought it sounded dull, so I approved it."
She set the soup on my kitchen table. My mother looked up from a crossword, curious but careful not to eavesdrop.
"The amount was thirteen thousand eight hundred dollars?" I asked.
Allison nodded. "I thought someone was asking about flowers. Now I suspect they were asking who authorized a payment under a false description."
She showed me copies she'd given her lawyer. Briarbridge Advisory had received the payment, then sent part of it to an entity called Westward Events. North Star Blooms appeared as a vendor in a reimbursement schedule, even though the florist insisted no second invoice existed. At first it looked like accounting clutter. I had spent enough evenings balancing our household expenses to know that clutter could hide a deliberate choice.
"Why come to me?" I asked.
"Because the note was sent to you, and I don't want to decide what it means for you. I also wanted to tell you that I shared the documents with the financial-crimes unit, not with Adrian."
My mother stood carefully and offered her tea. Allison accepted and sat as though she had never once attended a dinner where a chair cost more than our rent.
"I'm sorry for what happened to your daughter," my mother told her.
Allison smiled sadly. "I don't have children. But thank you for the thought."
"I meant Emily. You watched somebody hurt her and refused to call it an accident. Some days that is more care than relatives manage."
Allison's eyes filled. She looked away quickly.
After we ate, Allison told me about her marriage. She and Adrian had met when she was twenty-three and working as a logistics analyst. She had helped him reorganize one of his first restaurant suppliers. They married young, worked long hours, and told themselves success meant they were building something together. Slowly, she stopped asking to see bank statements because Adrian said the details made her anxious.
"He used that word," she said. "Anxious. Then emotional. Then unstable. I began wondering whether having questions proved him right."
"It doesn't," I said.
"I know that intellectually. Learning to feel it is taking longer."
She told me she was filing for legal separation and arranging her own financial audit. The affair was one betrayal; the use of her accounts for unexplained transfers could affect her rights and liability. She wanted a clear record more than revenge.
"And the pregnancy?" I asked cautiously.
"A baby deserves protection from the adults' dishonesty," she said. "I won't turn a child into another weapon between us. But I won't sign false statements to make the situation easier for Adrian."
I admired her for that. Vanessa had been cruel to us, and I was angry with her, but the prospect of a child entering the world inside the mess felt different. No baby had written an email, forged a signature, or watched me hit the banister. A child should not inherit punishment for any of those things.
That afternoon Investigator Brooks called to say the courier company had produced clearer images. Celeste Morrow's face appeared in a security-camera sequence at the kiosk, but the pass she presented had my employee number. A second timestamp from the mansion placed me with Mrs. Navarro just after my injury.
"Will you arrest her?" I asked.
"We're arranging an interview. We need her account, the original access logs, and evidence of who instructed her. A photograph is important, not the whole case."
He asked whether Celeste had contacted me. She hadn't.
An hour later, she did.
Her message arrived from an unfamiliar number: I know you think I did this. I have been trying to find a safe way to explain. I can send everything to the police, but I need you to know I didn't want you hurt.
My first impulse was to call her and demand answers. Instead, I forwarded the message to Brooks. He advised me not to arrange a private meeting, but said I could tell her she had his contact information through the official investigator line. I did.
She replied almost immediately: Thank you. Then: Vanessa kept a folder called Second Family. Ask Mara about the purple seal.
I sent that too.
I couldn't imagine what a folder called Second Family would contain. The name sounded like a cruel joke about what Vanessa had been planning to do to Allison and Luca. But Celeste's hint was specific enough that Mara found the reference in Adrian's schedules: a project coded SF-2, with attachments hidden behind a password-protected document room.
That night Luca came by, accompanied by his driver, and asked permission to speak on our front steps. I was able to stand a few minutes with the help of a cane the physical therapist had recommended. He watched me lower myself into a chair, visibly unhappy, and resisted the urge to reach for my arm without asking.
"You're not working tomorrow," he said.
"I know. I told you I was taking medical leave."
"Good." He looked embarrassed. "I keep sounding like I'm giving orders."
"It's a habit."
"An ugly one."
I leaned back carefully. In the street, a delivery cyclist passed with a green insulated bag. Somewhere upstairs, a baby was crying and a tired parent was singing a lullaby off-key. It was so different from the mansion that I felt protective of the noise.
"Did you know about Allison's financial worries?" I asked.
"Adrian told me his wife was becoming suspicious about the business. I thought it was a marital problem. I didn't ask why she was suspicious."
"She had reasons."
"Yes."
He drew a breath. "Celeste has agreed to give investigators the access codes she used. She says Vanessa ordered her to collect documents and threaten to fire you, but she denies knowing you were injured when she obtained the extra badge."
"She took my apron after the injury."
"That is what the timestamps suggest. She'll have to account for it."
I appreciated that he didn't promise she would be punished in whatever manner he preferred. In the old stories about Luca Moretti, the answer to betrayal was always whispered and final. I wanted a record instead. A record that the next employee could point to without needing to beg a man in a black suit for protection.
"What is Second Family?" I asked.
His face tightened. "Mara believes it's the title of a draft trust amendment. Someone prepared a collection of documents proposing new future beneficiaries, financial representatives, and voting procedures. None of it has been approved."
"So they wrote a family on paper to move your money."
"That's a harsh way of saying it."
"Is it wrong?"
"No," he admitted. "That's almost exactly what they tried."
He took a photograph from his pocket and showed it to me. It was an image of a purple wax seal embossed with a crescent shape. The same mark appeared on the courier envelope and on a binder in a photograph from Vanessa's dressing table.
"We think these came from Adrian's private document service," he said. "It has an office across from the trust's building. Mara is seeking the originals."
"Did your attorneys approve a private document service?"
"No. That's another question I should have asked months ago."
I studied the purple crescent. Then I remembered the afternoon of the injury. Vanessa had been clutching a paper when she entered the sitting room. After she pushed me, she stepped over me to retrieve it before she asked whether I could stand. Her priorities had been terrifyingly clear.
"That folder Allison was carrying," I said. "Vanessa tried to take it before she hurt me. Maybe she wasn't afraid of the clinic record. Maybe she was afraid Allison would see what else had been attached."
Luca sat with that thought for a long time. "I'll tell Mara."
He rose to leave, then turned back. "Emily, you asked me whether I had believed Adrian when he called Allison unstable. I did. I want you to know I've told the investigators that. It makes me look negligent, perhaps foolish. But it's true."
"I didn't ask you to look good," I answered. "I asked you to notice when someone needed help."
He nodded. "I'm learning the difference."
After he left, I sat on the steps until my back insisted I go inside. When I opened my phone, there was one more message from Celeste, sent before Brooks could interview her.
May you like
The papers in Second Family aren't about inheritance after a wedding. They're about a vote before a wedding. Watch the deadline in the footer.
I forwarded it and turned off the screen. Somewhere in Chicago, a clock was counting toward a deadline somebody had invented to make a lie seem irreversible. But clocks weren't laws, and I had stopped believing that a deadline made wrongdoing inevitable.
