Chapter 3
Alessio did not order anyone to dig.
That surprised Marco.
“You just accused us of hiding something there.”
“I asked what you were afraid of.”
Alessio looked toward the irises.
“I didn’t say I was going to destroy the last part of my wife’s garden to satisfy my curiosity.”
He ordered the terrace cleared instead.
The broken planters were collected.
The uprooted plants were placed carefully beside the greenhouse so Samuel could determine which ones might survive.
No one touched the white irises.
Inside the estate, Ruby sat wrapped in a blanket while the housekeeper dried her hair.
Alessio knelt in front of her.
“Does your head hurt?”
“No.”
“Your throat?”
Ruby shook her head.
She looked exhausted.
Then she asked:
“Is Claudia mad because I touched Mom’s plant?”
Alessio’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Then why?”
“I’m finding out.”
Ruby studied him.
“Evelyn was crying yesterday.”
Alessio looked up.
“When?”
“When we were planting.”
Ruby explained that she and Evelyn had been in the garden the afternoon before the luncheon.
Ruby was repotting one of Isabella’s old flowering plants.
Evelyn stood near the greenhouse.
Claudia and Marco were speaking beyond the open doors.
Ruby could not understand most of what they said.
But Evelyn apparently could.
“What happened?”
“Evelyn told me we should go inside.”
“Why?”
“She said her mom was mad.”
“About what?”
Ruby shrugged.
Then something occurred to her.
“She asked me where Mommy kept her little camera.”
Alessio stopped.
“What camera?”
“The garden one.”
He had forgotten about it.
Isabella hated rabbits eating the young flowers.
Years ago, Samuel had installed two motion-activated wildlife cameras near the greenhouse so she could see what entered the beds at night.
Isabella loved them.
She would show Ruby recordings of rabbits, raccoons, and once a red fox that wandered near the stone wall.
After Isabella’s death, Alessio had never thought about the cameras again.
“Who asked about it?”
“Evelyn.”
“Yesterday?”
Ruby nodded.
“Did she say why?”
“She said her mom wanted to know.”
Alessio stood.
He walked directly back to the greenhouse.
Samuel was sorting damaged roots.
“Where are Isabella’s wildlife cameras?”
Samuel looked toward the walls.
“One broke years ago.”
“And the other?”
“It disappeared.”
“When?”
Samuel thought.
“After she died.”
Marco, standing twenty feet away with a bodyguard beside him, slowly looked toward Claudia.
Claudia did not look back.
Alessio saw both reactions.
May you like
He approached them.
“Now we have another question.”
