273.💍 THE LAST SUNDAY TABLE

Chapter 02 - The Girl in the White Apron

Emma had not intended to speak. In four months at the Moretti house, she'd broken enough of her own rules: looking inside the study, listening when the family lawyer came to dinner, quietly asking about records no maid ought to need. She had never intended to tell Luca anything about her mother.

But she had just watched Vanessa Bellini call the destruction of a restaurant a business decision, and the words had escaped her before caution could catch them.

Luca shut the morning-room door. He didn't turn the lock.

"Who was already dead?"

"A woman named Florence Baird. She worked for your father. The document said she'd approved a transfer in May 2015. She died the previous February."

Luca stood very still. "Why would your mother have that document?"

"She kept the books for one of his charitable accounts. Before she was dismissed."

"Your mother's name?"

"Teresa Reed."

He recognized it. Not from a person, but from a file whose tab he had seen too many times: REED — SETTLEMENT. In his early twenties, overwhelmed after Angelo's death, he had allowed the family's attorney to clear old disputes. Teresa Reed had been listed as an unreliable employee who claimed money was missing. He had signed off on her settlement without meeting her.

"My father accused her of stealing?"

"Someone did. She never received a settlement."

Emma's answer came cleanly. No dramatics, no tearful appeal. That made Luca more uncomfortable than an accusation would have.

"Did you take this job to investigate my family?"

She took a breath. "Yes."

He almost laughed at the honesty of it. "You might have started with an appointment."

"My mother asked for one thirteen times."

The number surprised him. Emma reached into her pocket and withdrew a small folded sheet. There were thirteen dates written in blue ink. Some had notes beside them: message left, receptionist promised callback, lawyer declined.

"She stopped asking last year," Emma said. "Then I saw this job advertised."

He had hired her through an agency. He hadn't known her name until tonight. The thought was humiliating in a way he couldn't easily explain.

"I want to speak to Teresa."

"She won't come here."

"Then I'll go to her."

"Not in one of your black cars, with three men following. She has had enough people arrive at her door."

That was when Luca realized Emma was not frightened of his anger. She was frightened of his reach.

He left her in the morning room and went to the library, where Dorian Vale, the Moretti family's attorney, had already appeared as though summoned by the disturbance. Dorian was fifty-eight, wore understated spectacles, and cultivated a manner that suggested all human emergencies could be resolved with a suitable folder.

"Unfortunate timing," Dorian said.

"Find the lease termination for Caruso's. Full recorded instrument, exhibits and notary page."

"It's straightforward."

"Then it'll be easy to find."

"Vanessa had delegated authority under the acquisition plan you approved in March."

"I approved a plan to review underperforming assets. I didn't approve her putting Gianni Caruso on the sidewalk."

Dorian adjusted his glasses. "You signed the umbrella authorization."

Luca remembered the stack of documents. Vanessa had been sitting on his desk, telling him they could finally stop losing money on small parcels his father had purchased for sentimental reasons. He had skimmed the executive summary and signed because he trusted the person who gave it to him.

"Email the entire file," Luca said.

"Certainly. After I check privilege and confidentiality."

"You're my lawyer."

"I'm counsel to Moretti Holdings, Luca. That's not necessarily the same thing."

It was the first useful thing Dorian had said all evening.

By midnight, most of the guests were gone. Luca found Vanessa in the blue sitting room, removing her earrings before a mirror. Her red dress looked almost black in the dim light.

"You put your name on his eviction," he said.

"My name is on hundreds of documents. That's what you asked me to do."

"I asked you to help clean up the company."

"And when I do, you embarrass me in front of my mother because some old man tells a touching story about lasagna."

"His family fed mine for thirty years."

Vanessa set an earring down too hard. "Your family has also supported people it couldn't afford to support. Your father made promises with money other people had to earn."

Luca could have answered that his father had earned money in ways polite families preferred not to name. But that was not the subject, and Vanessa knew it.

"Did you know a dead woman's signature is in our property files?" he asked.

For a moment she looked genuinely startled. "What woman?"

He watched her closely and decided that surprise, at least, was real.

"I want every document relating to Caruso's by eight tomorrow. And we're postponing the announcement."

"The wedding?"

"The announcement. I'll decide what else after I've seen the papers."

Her expression settled into something colder. "My mother has put thirty million dollars into this redevelopment. She will not enjoy being made a fool of."

"Tell her to call me."

"She doesn't call people when she's angry, Luca."

He left before Vanessa could explain what she meant.

At seven the following morning, Luca drove alone to Bridgeport. Caruso's stood between a hardware shop and an empty storefront, its green awning faded at the seams. A handwritten sign in the front window advertised Thursday chicken soup. Someone had drawn a crooked smile beside the price.

Rosa Caruso was inside stripping leaves from a bunch of basil. Fifty-eight, gray showing through her dark hair, she looked up and immediately went back to work.

"We're not open," she said.

"I know."

"If you're here to apologize, you can start by washing your hands."

She pointed toward the sink and handed him a clean towel. Ten minutes later, the man who had dismissed half the city's business elite from his house was peeling potatoes under Rosa's supervision.

"Your father did this," she said. "Badly. He took half the potato away with the skin."

"I remember."

"Then you remember we were never charity cases."

"Yes."

Rosa stopped cutting basil. "Do you?"

She took a yellowed envelope from beneath the old register and placed it beside him. The front read FOR ANGELO'S SON, in Gianni's careful handwriting.

"Papa wanted to bring this last night," she said. "I wouldn't let him. I've spent twelve years keeping him from opening old wounds."

Inside lay a photograph of Angelo with Gianni, Evelyn Moretti, and a woman Luca had never seen. The unknown woman stood beside the restaurant's back door holding a ledger against her chest.

On the back, Angelo had written: TERESA KNOWS WHAT WE OWE.