Bad idea.
This was a bad idea.
“What did you find?”
Cindy looks down at her coffee for a moment.
When she looks back at me, the professional polish is still there, but her eyes are sharper, harder.
“The official story is private grief,” she says. “A sudden death. A powerful family closing ranks. A widower protecting his children from public attention.”
My fingers curl against my palm.
“That’s not what the articles implied.”
“No,” she says. “It isn’t.”
“Then what’s the truth?”
Cindy studies me over the rim of her coffee. “I think you already know.”
“No,” I say. “I know what the implication is. I’m trying to find out whether there’s anything underneath it.”
“There is always something underneath it with men like Mario Conti.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” she says, setting her coffee down beside her on the bench. “It’s a warning.”
“I don’t need to be warned,” I say. “I just need answers.”
She does not, in fact, answer.
Instead, she reaches into her tote and pulls out a slim folder.
She rests it on her lap but does not hand it to me.
My heart beats once, hard.
“What is that?”
“Copies. Notes. A timeline I built when I was writing the Hawthorne piece.”
I look at the folder, then back at her.
“What do you think he did?” I ask.
Cindy looks pleased, but there’s something wholly unpleasant about it.
“That’s the wrong question.”
My skin prickles.
“What is the right one?”
She taps one finger against the folder.
“The right question is why so many people worked so hard to make sure no one asked anything at all.”
