Chapter 3
Celeste Bellori refused to discuss Luca over the phone.
That alone told Orson the conversation mattered.
She came to the estate the next afternoon.
At seventy-two, Celeste had spent most of her adult life learning how to survive Bellori men without challenging them directly.
This time she looked tired of surviving quietly.
Orson placed Mara’s inhaler pouch on the table.
Celeste stared at the clinic logo.
Exactly as Tamsin had.
Exactly as Rachel had.
“You recognize it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Luca went there.”
Orson sat back.
Thirteen years earlier, the clinic had operated under another name but used the same symbol.
“What did he have?”
Celeste folded her hands.
“Asthma.”
Orson went still.
The family had never told him that.
“Severe?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did Tamsin know?”
Celeste looked almost offended.
“Of course she knew.”
Orson thought about the dining room.
Stop the act.
You can breathe without it.
“She knows exactly what an inhaler is for.”
“Yes.”
“Then why would she throw Mara’s?”
Celeste’s face tightened.
“That is the question none of us wanted to ask thirteen years ago.”
Orson stared at her.
“What happened to Luca?”
Celeste stood.
“I’m not doing this without Tamsin.”
“You came here knowing I’d ask.”
“Yes.”
“Then answer.”
Celeste’s voice shook.
“I said I wouldn’t do it without her.”
For thirty seconds they simply looked at each other.
Then Celeste added something quieter.
“But I will tell you this.”
Orson waited.
“The official story about Luca was written for the family.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we were more concerned with protecting Tamsin after he died than understanding whether he should have died at all.”
That sentence changed the investigation.
Orson called Elena before Celeste even left.
“I want the old medical records.”
“You may not be entitled to them.”
“Find out what I’m entitled to.”
“Orson—”
“No shortcuts. No pressure. Do it legally.”
Elena became quiet.
That was new.
Orson had spent years asking attorneys how quickly something could be made to happen.
Now he cared more about whether the answer could survive daylight.
By evening they learned that Luca’s records could not simply be handed to Orson.
But another path existed.
Tamsin herself had filed a malpractice inquiry after her son’s death.
It had been withdrawn less than two weeks later.
The lawyer who filed it had been paid by a Bellori family company.
May you like
And the person who instructed him to withdraw it was not Tamsin.
It was Orson’s late father.
