The Second Page
Chapter 03 - The Second Page
At eight the next morning, Luca found Vittorio Moretti in the conservatory tending a lemon tree that had not produced a lemon in twelve years. Vittorio was sixty-eight, handsome in the manner of men who had been accustomed to being forgiven. He had been Luca's guardian for the two years after Alessandra died. He still called him *ragazzo* when he wanted him to feel like a boy.
"Vanessa says your maid made a spectacle of herself," he began.
"Her name is Emma."
"Of course. A young woman with a talent for languages and timing."
"A supplier was paid through a company whose owner is dead. Gianni was accused using credentials he no longer controls. I have questions."
Vittorio clipped a yellow leaf. "Ask them of the auditors. Unless you've decided to conduct an interrogation beside the begonias."
Luca had come prepared to dislike his uncle's composure. Instead he was frightened by how familiar it felt. For years Vittorio had turned every uncomfortable question into a question about the manners of the person asking.
"Rose House is still operating?" Luca said.
"Barely. An old building and an expensive sentiment. Your mother couldn't bear to close it, despite the losses."
"So you refinanced it."
"I administered the trust as you authorized."
"Where are the second pages of the invoices?"
Vittorio stopped clipping. The change was small, but Luca saw it. "What second pages?"
"The ones Vanessa told Marco not to show me."
"If my future niece has been indiscreet, speak to her. Leave me out of her domestic quarrels."
Luca looked at the shears in his uncle's hand, at the bright green branches the man had carefully trained against the glass. Something occurred to him that had not occurred at his engagement dinner: Vittorio wasn't shocked that Vanessa and Marco might be involved. He was annoyed that their work had become noisy.
Meanwhile Emma took the train to Rose House. She had not visited in fifteen years. From the street, the building was smaller than the fortress of memory she carried: four stories of worn red brick, narrow windows, a green front door with a brass knocker shaped like a rose. A scaffold leaned against the east wall, but nobody was working on it. Water had stained the plaster around the upper windows.
The director, Miriam Doyle, opened the door herself. She was seventy-two, broad-shouldered, wearing reading glasses on a chain and shoes with the heels repaired twice. She looked at Emma for a long moment. "Teresa's girl," she said. "You have her stubborn mouth."
Emma's throat tightened. Miriam did not offer a sentimental embrace. She held the door and waited until Emma found her breath. That, too, reminded Emma of her mother.
Inside, women were setting out bread and canned peaches for a breakfast that had begun late because the kitchen boiler was out. A little girl in purple socks was drawing a house with fourteen windows. Miriam explained that Rose House provided temporary rooms for women and their children, but also helped former residents find work and legal assistance. Half its endowment was tied to the building. The foundation had promised repairs four times. The roof still leaked.
"An invoice says you received a major roof restoration," Emma told her.
Miriam snorted. "Come upstairs. Bring your coat. The third floor does an excellent impression of the outdoors."
Under a brown water stain the size of a small continent, a plastic tub caught the steady drip from a seam. Miriam produced a folder of estimates: one legitimate bid for $42,000 to make the building safe and another for $119,000 to complete the roof. There was no contract with Reed Property Services. The company had never visited.
"Did my mother know what was happening here?" Emma asked.
"She knew too much, and she refused to call it nothing."
"Then why didn't anyone defend her?"
Miriam settled on the edge of an iron bed. "Some of us tried. We had a board meeting. Four women testified that Teresa kept the accounts honestly. But the foundation's lawyer said the money had been recovered and that repeating the accusations would jeopardize our operating grant. We had mothers with nowhere else to take their children. I kept the doors open. I've hated that choice ever since."
Emma wanted to be angry. She was angry. But the water dripping into the tub made every righteous sentence sound too easy.
"I need your records," she said.
"You can have copies. I should have sent them years ago."
Back at the mansion, Luca was examining an image of the disputed invoice when Diane called. Her preliminary search showed that the payment had not gone directly to a roofer. It passed through an account named North Quay Services and then a property company called Haverhill Development. A second attached page, missing from the display Vanessa had used, specified that the money was an *advance against the sale proceeds of Rose House land.*
"So it's not a roof bill at all," Luca said.
"It's dressed as one," Diane replied. "And whoever did that wanted Gianni blamed for the diversion while the property transfer went unnoticed."
"Who owns Haverhill?"
"A chain of holding companies. I'm getting the records. Do not call Vanessa's father before I do."
He had already reached for his phone. He put it down.
Emma returned by midafternoon with Miriam's folder and a photograph of the damaged ceiling. Luca asked whether she'd eaten. She said she'd had an apple on the train. He offered lunch, and when she refused, he didn't insist. Instead he took her to the sitting room, where sunlight made the marble floor seem almost warm.
She showed him a copy of the board minutes from seventeen years earlier. Teresa had objected to using the Rose House deed as collateral for a commercial loan. A lawyer had claimed the transaction would finance renovations. Beside that lawyer's name was Vittorio's signature.
"My mother created a shelter," Luca said. "He treated it like a warehouse."
"And you signed away the keys."
"Yes."
It was the first answer he had given her that contained no excuse. Emma found she could look at him for longer afterward.
They compared dates until evening. Every invoice after the funeral included the same innocuous notation: *See continuation schedule.* That schedule—the second page—described future payments owed if the land changed hands. Under the terms Vittorio had set, the foundation would owe Haverhill nearly two million dollars if it refused to proceed with the sale.
"A penalty designed to make keeping the house unaffordable," Diane said when they sent her the documents. "I'll ask for an emergency order. But the trust authority you signed may complicate things."
Emma closed Miriam's folder. At the very back she found a copy of a letter handwritten by Alessandra Moretti weeks before her death. It had never been sent. The opening was addressed to Teresa Reed and began: *You were right. I have discovered who altered the figures. I am frightened of what Luca will do when he learns the truth, because—*
May you like
The rest of the page was missing.
Emma looked at Luca. His mother had not merely suspected the theft. She had identified someone. And the sentence she'd been afraid to finish named her own son.
