I could tell it bothered Nazzareno to a certain degree. His forehead pinched. I squeezed his hand and nodded toward the door. I mouthed,Neil.
Nazzareno studied me for a second before he fixed his suit and cleared his throat. “Neil,” he said.
Edna blinked at the picture of Marzio. “You really think Neil can handle this place when I’m gone?”
Nazzareno looked at me again. I could feel the weight of this decision, and I was putting my husband in the middle of it. My husband who never broke his word. But I knew…Neil and Andrea loved this place. They loved what they did. They would respect Edna’s wishes even after she was gone. And I’d heard a while back that Andrea was a distant relative of the Giannini’s. Maybe that was why he was so passionate about this place too.
“Sì.”
“I don’t…” Edna’s breaths seemed to be coming faster, and I’d never seen her that way before. Panicky.
“Edna.” Nazzareno’s voice was calm, collected, but in charge.
Edna blinked and whispered, “Yes?”
“La mia parola e buona come il mio sangue.You have my word.I will take care of you and this place even after you are gone. You took care of mine, and I will never forget it.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand and took a sip of her drink.
A thought occurred to me. “Ed?”
“Yes.”
“You kept what you’d done a secret, right? About leaving me this place?”
“Until you left. I confided in Neil, Andrea, and Milo because I felt I had no choice. Out of all my people, I felt I could trust them the most. You left and…I felt all alone, not sure who to turn to. I turned to the three people you trusted the most here.”
“Whoever had been in touch with Olivier Nemours, the guy who had called me about the Fausti properties and who had gotten in that night…this was before.”
She waved her drink around. “No one knew before you left,” she repeated.
“Where did the meeting take place? About your will?”
She pointed down at her desk, meaning in her office.
“Shit,” I breathed. I put a finger to my mouth and started searching around.
Nazzareno put a hand on my arm.
“A bug,” I mouthed.
Edna joined in the search, but after searching every nook and cranny, we found nothing. I stared up at Marzio, hands on my hips, thinking.
Maybe I was wrong, but I didn’t think I was.
How else would Parker, because I was ninety nine percent positive it was him, find out confidential information like that?
Edna gasped when Nazzareno lifted the framed poster of his grandfather from its sides and set it down, turning it over.
There it fucking was.
A bug was stuck to the back of Marzio’s picture. It was an older model, not something current. Whoever had done it knew Edna never touched the poster. It was like having a safety net in the room with her.
Edna started pacing when I went to take it off. She whimpered when the backing tore a little.
“Put it back up,” she kept muttering. “Please.”
Nazzareno rehung it and made sure it was straight, just as Edna had hung it years ago. I went over to her record player and restarted it, turning up the volume and leaving the listening device on top of it.
