Chapter 3 - THE MAN AT THE FIRE
Lorenzo did not confront Cesare immediately.
Fifteen years earlier, he would have.
That was exactly why Sofia asked him not to.
“He’ll lie if he knows what we found.”
Lorenzo looked toward his daughter.
“You want me to wait?”
“I want the truth more than I want him scared.”
That sentence stopped him.
Sofia had spent less than twelve hours outside Gregory’s locked bridal suite.
She still startled when someone closed a door too hard.
Yet she was already seeing something Lorenzo almost missed.
Fear produced quick answers.
Not always true ones.
So Cesare remained asleep in the east wing.
Marco told the rest.
The night of the fire, Cesare arrived strangely early.
Before most security.
Before Lorenzo.
He claimed Alessandra had called him.
Marco had never questioned it.
Cesare was family.
That had been enough.
Thomas emerged from the burning house carrying Sofia’s small stuffed rabbit.
He tried to go back inside.
Cesare stopped him.
Then the two men argued.
“What about?” Sofia asked.
“I couldn’t hear.”
Marco looked down.
“But Thomas said your mother was alive.”
Then Cesare whispered something into Thomas’s ear.
Thomas stopped fighting.
He looked destroyed.
Minutes later, Cesare placed him in a car.
Another driver took him away.
“What could Cesare have said?” Lorenzo asked.
Marco shook his head.
“I’ve spent fifteen years wondering.”
Sofia stood.
“Where’s the rabbit?”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“What?”
“My stuffed rabbit.”
She remembered it.
White fabric.
One blue ear.
Her mother used to place it beside her whenever Sofia slept away from home.
Lorenzo had assumed it burned.
Marco said Thomas carried it outside.
Then Cesare took it.
Another object that should not have mattered.
Which meant it probably did.
The old summer house had been rebuilt only partially.
Lorenzo had kept the original west wing closed.
Not from superstition.
Because Alessandra’s death made the place unbearable.
By afternoon, Lorenzo, Sofia, and Marco stood inside it.
The air smelled of old timber and dust.
Black marks remained around one stone doorway.
Sofia moved slowly.
She had been nine when her mother died.
Memories came as fragments.
Alessandra brushing her hair.
Rain on windows.
Her parents arguing downstairs.
Cesare arriving uninvited.
Sofia stopped.
“Dad.”
Lorenzo turned.
“Uncle Cesare was here before the fire.”
He frowned.
“You remember?”
“Not clearly.”
She closed her eyes.
“He gave me candy.”
Marco looked toward Lorenzo.
Cesare had always claimed he arrived after Alessandra called him during the argument.
But Sofia remembered him before Lorenzo left.
That changed the timeline.
They searched the west wing.
Nothing.
Then Sofia entered the old nursery.
The room had been reconstructed around one surviving wall.
She touched the stone fireplace.
A memory returned.
Her mother kneeling.
Placing the stuffed rabbit into Sofia’s hands.
Saying:
“If anyone asks, you were asleep.”
Sofia opened her eyes.
“Mom was hiding something from me.”
Lorenzo moved closer.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked around.
Then saw a narrow gap beneath the fireplace mantle.
Sofia reached inside.
Her fingers touched fabric.
Marco helped remove the loose panel.
Behind it sat a scorched white rabbit.
One blue ear.
Sofia stared.
Thomas had not taken it away.
Someone brought it back.
A slit had been cut along the toy’s stomach.
Lorenzo opened it carefully.
Inside was a small folded piece of cloth.
Not paper.
Alessandra knew paper might burn.
Words had been written across the linen in dark ink.
Lorenzo recognized his wife’s handwriting.
Lorenzo,
If Cesare tells you I was leaving you, don’t believe him.
Sofia stopped breathing.
There was one more line.
I was trying to get our daughter away from him.
Lorenzo stared at the words.
Then a floorboard creaked behind them.
Cesare stood in the nursery doorway.
He had followed them.
His face showed no surprise.
May you like
Only disappointment.
“You should have left the dead alone.”
