Chapter 3
Celeste denied the affair completely.
She did it with enough anger to sound believable.
“My marriage may be finished after the way you behaved at dinner, but I have never slept with Marcus.”
She sat across from Dante and Claire in the small library.
Her attorney, Rebecca Hall, sat beside her.
Dante asked, “Then why was his cufflink beside your bed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ava says she has seen several.”
“She is three.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
Rebecca intervened.
“We are not going to characterize a child as dishonest.”
Celeste looked irritated.
“I’m saying children misunderstand things.”
Claire asked, “Did Marcus enter your bedroom in the last four months?”
Celeste paused.
“No.”
Too long.
Dante noticed.
“So he entered the residential wing eleven times for nothing?”
“I didn’t say I never saw him.”
“Where?”
“My sitting room.”
“Why?”
“Family matters.”
“What family matters require secrecy from your husband?”
Celeste looked toward Rebecca.
The lawyer said, “You do not have to answer questions that could implicate separate financial issues.”
Dante heard the phrase.
Financial issues.
He looked at Claire.
She heard it too.
Marcus gave a different version that afternoon.
He admitted entering Celeste’s sitting room.
“Why?” Dante asked.
Marcus stared out the window.
“She asked me to.”
“For what?”
“Advice.”
“About?”
“Things between you.”
Dante almost laughed.
“You became my wife’s marriage counselor?”
Marcus turned.
“No.”
“Then stop insulting me.”
Marcus rubbed his jaw where bruising had begun to form.
“You’re not going to like any answer I give.”
“That has never stopped you before.”
Marcus looked toward Claire.
“I want my own lawyer.”
That was smart.
Dante hated it.
Claire said, “You should.”
The meeting ended.
Later, Leo brought Dante a small velvet box recovered from Marcus’s office at the legitimate Caruso shipping company.
It contained cufflinks.
Four pairs.
Two spaces were empty.
“Where did this come from?”
“Marcus’s desk drawer.”
“Who accessed the office?”
“Still checking.”
Dante studied the empty slots.
One missing pair matched the loose cufflink Ava found.
The other was a completely different design.
If Marcus had been careless enough to leave cufflinks beside Celeste’s bed repeatedly, why were pieces missing from more than one set stored miles away in a locked office?
Dante called Marcus.
“Someone has been in your desk.”
Marcus went silent.
“How do you know?”
“Two pairs are incomplete.”
Another silence.
Then Marcus said something strange.
“Do not tell Celeste that.”
Dante’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Why?”
“Just don’t.”
“You have thirty seconds to start making sense.”
Marcus’s voice changed.
Fear again.
“If she knows you found the box, she’ll know I kept track.”
The line went dead.
Dante stared at the phone.
Not she’ll know I slept with her.
Not she’ll know I lied.
May you like
She’ll know I kept track.
For the first time, Dante wondered whether Marcus had been counting the missing cufflinks too.
