Chapter 8
The cassette was damaged but playable.
They listened inside the old family office.
Marco’s twenty-one-year-old voice filled the room.
Younger.
Faster.
Terrified.
“I don't want my father to know I talked.”
The investigator asked:
“What happened after Enzo entered the warehouse?”
A long pause.
Then young Marco:
“My father followed him.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you see?”
Another pause.
“I saw Enzo holding the ledger.”
Camilla sat with both hands covering her mouth.
The recording continued.
“My father told him to give it back.”
“Did Enzo?”
“No.”
“What happened then?”
A scraping sound.
Marco breathing.
Then:
“My father hit him.”
Present-day Marco stood abruptly.
“This was taken when I was a kid under pressure.”
Camilla stared at him.
“You were twenty-one.”
The recording continued.
“Enzo fell. But he got up.”
The investigator:
“Who started the fire?”
Silence.
Then the tape distorted.
Static swallowed several seconds.
When the sound returned, young Marco was crying.
“I didn't know the door would lock.”
Everyone froze.
Camilla slowly lowered her hands.
The investigator asked something.
The tape warped again.
Then ended.
Camilla looked at Marco.
“What door?”
Marco’s face had become gray.
He reached toward the recorder.
Domenico stopped his hand.
Not violently.
He simply placed his palm over the machine.
Marco looked down at it.
Then up at Domenico.
For several seconds the two men said nothing.
Domenico’s voice finally came.
“Sit.”
Marco sat.
Camilla did not.
“What door?”
Marco whispered:
“It isn't what you think.”
She laughed once.
Her eyes filled.
“Twenty-two years of marriage, and that's what you give me?”
“We've been married twelve.”
“No.”
Camilla shook her head.
“You've been lying to me longer than that.”
Domenico looked at the cassette box.
A notation was written on the back.
SIDE B — DUPLICATE HELD BY A.V.
May you like
Angelo had kept another copy.
And unlike this one, the duplicate might still contain the missing seconds.
