She offered me a flirty grin. “I never could deny you anything.” She brushed her lips across my chin but because my beard had grown so long, I hardly felt it. “My parents were there, too.” My heart flipped over. “And Antonio. They know everything that occurred after they passed. They’ve been right here with us observing.” Well, wasn’t that just the creepiest idea ever. “Discussing my life with them… It made me feel much differently about their deaths. While I’m still sad, I’m notupsetabout it anymore. I know they’re okay. I suppose being with them like that gave me closure.”
Later, when they released my wife into my care, I guided her step by step up the three sets of stairs. While she seemed mentally healthy—visions of deceasedfamigliaaside—physically, she remained unsteady. She had to lean on me wherever she walked, her gait slow. As we traversed the two stairwells on the first and second floors, I wondered for the first time why my father had never installed an elevator. All this lavish excess, only to forego something so potentially useful. As we approached the landing that led up the spiral staircase to the third floor, her snail like pace came to a stop.
“Need a break?” I asked her. She tired incredibly easily. But when I looked at her, I noticed she was trembling. And then it hit me. “This is where you fell, isn’t it?”
We hadn’t discussed anything about her accident thus far, and I hadn’t been here when it’d happened. Her gaze had fixated on one specific spot, and my stomach twisted as I imagined her lying there unconscious, helpless.
“Where’s Philippa?” she whispered in a strangely hollow tone. Was she hungry?
“I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. What do you need?”
“I…” she trailed off, her skin blanching of all color. She looked like she’d just seen a ghost. “Romeo, I just remembered something else.” But then she went silent, a deep line marring the space between her eyes.
“What did you remember,farfalla?”
“Philippa…”
I’d looked through the aftercare instructions the doctors had given me, and one of the items they’d mentioned had been an iffy memory. Marcello had told me the maid had come upon Lucia sometime after she’d fallen. “Philippa found you,” I told her, hoping to soothe her, but she shook her head.
“No, she didn’t. She… Romeo, I remember her pushing me.”
“Pushingyou?”
“It was the night after Angelo sent you away. You and I talked on the phone before I went to bed. Then, in the middle of the night, she came to get me, telling me you were downstairs. She told me there was an emergency, and I had to run to meet you. But I hesitated…” She sat down right there on the floor and started rocking back and forth. I dropped to my knees beside her.
“I didn’t come back home until after your accident,” I explained. Was she confused, or was she remembering it like it’d actually occurred?
“Something about how she was speaking to me made me doubt her. And then, right before she pushed me, she spoke in this—I know this doesn’t make sense—but she didn’t sound like herself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her accent was gone. And her tone was harsh. Mean. It was like she’d become someone else.” One of Lucia’s hands clutched at her neck, her expression stricken.
Inside me a tug-o-war ensued. This could all be some nightmare sequence from her condition, something that felt real but wasn’t. Yet, if there was even the slimmest chance that Philippa had anything whatsoever to do with Lucia’s injuries… with me almost losing my wife and my son…
I wrenched my phone from my pocket so fast it ripped the fabric. “Marcello, where are you?”
“At home. Why?”
“Is Philippa the maid here?”
“I haven’t seen her, but she should be.”
“Get her and bring her to our quarters,” I ordered, feeling the flames of my fury igniting. I disconnected before I received his response.
I helped Lucia to her feet, but her gaze had gone glassy. She was a million miles away. I lifted her into my arms, then, and even though it grated on my sore hip, I carried her to our quarters. Once I’d stationed her on our bed, I paced like a circus lion next to my suede sectional. There was a knock, and I jerked the door open, ready to grill Philippa, but Marcello had arrived without her.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
“I couldn’t find her. She’s not in her quarters downstairs, and when I asked around, no one else had seen her. They said they hadn’t seen her for days.”
If the maid had run, that meant she must be guilty. “Marcello, I want you to go with me to search the maid’s quarters. Get Savio, too. But before we go, I want the twins and Giorgio brought here to watch over Lucia. Philippa may have nefarious intent towards my wife, and I don’t want her left alone.”
To his credit, my brother didn’t question me, he simply carried out my orders.
The maid’s quarters had been stripped of any of Philippa’s personal effects—it was as if she’d never been here. Then, as Savio pulled out one of her dresser drawers, I saw a sheet of paper flutter to the floor. I picked it up and was treated to the familiar scrawl of my brother’s handwriting, my brotherGianni.
P,
