Chapter 4
Marcus denied knowing about the mount cards.
Ramona denied knowing Thomas made copies.
I believed one of them.
Not both.
I put the medallion between them.
“My father recovered it.”
Marcus said.
“From whom?”
Silence.
“Where?”
Silence.
Ramona snapped:
“That has nothing to do with Alina.”
“It has everything to do with her.”
She laughed.
“Her father embarrassed our family.”
“No.”
I kept my voice low.
“Your father accused him.”
Difference.
Then I asked why they planted the medallion today.
Marcus looked at Ramona.
There.
She had designed that part.
Finally:
“Because she was asking questions.”
Alina.
About what?
Two weeks earlier, she brought Lucy to the club pony barn.
An old groom recognized her surname before marriage.
Bell.
He asked whether she was Thomas Bell’s daughter.
She said yes.
He told her:
“Your father wasn’t a thief.”
Then he gave her a small brass locker key.
Alina had not told me.
I looked at her.
She seemed guilty.
“Why?”
“I didn’t know what it opened.”
Fair.
“Where is it?”
“In my jewelry box.”
Ramona closed her eyes.
That was what they feared.
Not Alina’s blood.
A key.
The old groom was Samuel Pike.
Eighty-one.
Former equipment manager.
Apparently he had kept something for Thomas all these years.
Why wait?
Because Thomas told him never to deliver it while Vittorio or his children controlled polo operations.
Marcus became senior associate.
Ramona controlled donor hospitality.
The condition never cleared.
Then I took direct control of the club eighteen months ago.
Samuel decided maybe it finally had.
Alina received the key.
Ramona learned.
How?
One of the pony attendants mentioned the old groom speaking to “Mrs. Carbone.”
Small gossip.
Large consequence.
They searched for the key.
Couldn’t find it.
So they planned to discredit Alina first.
At today’s luncheon, Ramona would “discover” the old medallion in Alina’s coat.
Bell blood steals again.
I would be embarrassed.
Donors would whisper.
Then Marcus would tell me privately that my wife had been digging through old club storage.
The goal was not murder.
Not even exile by force.
It was to make me send Alina away myself.
Lucy’s “Mommy won’t be here after tonight” came from Ramona’s confidence that I would choose Carbone history over my wife.
May you like
She had bet on my pride.
Bad bet.
