It’s worth a shot.
“I’m going to have to ask for your patience,” he says in a voice too passive to be coming from a monster. “I’m going to be gone these next couple of weeks.”
“What, why?” I squint. “Your wife literally had a baby four days ago.”
I don’t have experience around new mothers, but I can’t imagine someone wanting to spend those first weeks on vacation.
“Exactly,” he says. “She’s struggling a bit, and I’m going to spend the next two weeks helping out.”
“How noble of you.”
Luca rolls his eyes.
“I thought you had a nanny?” I ask.
“The nanny’s for our daughter.” He shoves his keys in his pocket and eyes the nearest exit. “Please, Lydia. You don’t owe me a damn thing, but give us these two weeks. After that, I’ll give you anything you want.”
I imagine Merritt at home, tired and sore, walking around in a sleepless stupor. I’ve yet to text her back from last week. A day had passed, then another.
I should know better than to accept a promise from this man, but he’s already out the door before I have a chance to offer a rebuttal. A second later, his Maserati growls to life and he peels out of the parking lot, taillights disappearing into the distance.
Heart pulsing in my ears, I press on his door handle . . . and it swings open. Taking a quick look around the restaurant, I make sure I’m in the clear before heading in. I close the door and leave the lights off.
I’m not sure what I’m looking for, I just know what opportunity looks like.
A shelf mounted on the far wall houses a myriad of pictures—Luca and Merritt enjoying a picnic, Luca and his daughter at the zoo, the three of them swinging at a park, Merritt in some kind of artsy maternity shoot with draping fabric and a glowing grin. A wedding photo complete with Hawaiian leis and a volcano in the background. Given what I know of his parents and what she’s told me about hers, eloping to some exotic destination fits.
I take a seat in his desk chair, which creaks despite my minuscule size, and I glance toward the door to ensure no one comes to investigate. A second later, I slide open the top drawer, the one that held my envelope of money, only to find it filled with meticulously organized office supplies. Staple refills. Gel pens—all blue. Yellow Post-its. Wite-Out. Silver paper clips. Nothing stands out. Pushing it closed, I move for the second drawer, this one filled with various computer cords and a phone charger. The bottom drawer—a file cabinet—is locked.
I rifle through the top drawer again in search of a key.
Nothing.
Running my palm around the underside of his desktop, I feel around until my fingers touch metal. Dropping to my knees, I examine my find—only to discover it’s a piece of desk hardware. A hinge connecting the top to the cabinet piece.
Determined, I continue my quest for twenty minutes, using my dim phone screen as a makeshift flashlight and examining every crevice and corner of this office. My knees throb and my back aches when I’m finished, but I refuse to give up this easily. Grabbing a paper clip from the first drawer, I unfold it and jam it into the lock, twisting and contorting it until it catches on something—a fruitless five-minute waste of my time. In a last-ditch attempt to access whatever’s hiding behind this faux wooden facade, I press my work key into the lock . . . and it slides in with ease.
“Holy shit.” I clap my hand over my mouth when the internal mechanism gives and the file drawer glides open. Presented before me in meticulous order is an array of various manila file folders with printed labels, all alphabetized.
I scan each one—accounting, back room stock, chef applicants, deliveries, estate.
One of these things is not like the others.
I slide the estate file out of its holder and push myself up. Flipping it open, I page through it like a book, ensuring I keep the loose pages in order. Nothing stands out at first. There’s a notarized will and testament. An old 401(k) report. A copy of a mortgage statement. An envelope with a key to a safe-deposit box at Bent Creek National Bank. A handful of savings bonds.
I flick to the next page, and the next. Halting when I find a document with my name on it. The words OFFICIAL RECORD OF MARRIAGE line the top of a heat-sensitive paper, along with an embossed stamp. Our old marriage certificate.
Folding it in half, I slide it into my cash envelope—it’s mine now, and I have every intention of setting it on fire the first chance I get. But for now I move to the next item: a life insurance declaration page.
Policy Number: A83GW-282
Insured: Lydia Ellen Coletto
Age: Twenty
Sex: F
Premium Class: Preferred-Term
Owner: Luca Coletto
Beneficiary: Luca Coletto
Amount of Insurance: $2 million for twenty years
The walls close in around me as I forget to breathe.
Oh, my God.
It makes sense now . . .
His marriage to me wasn’t just a way to fulfill his sick and twisted fantasies. It was also a way to profit off my death—which is how he funded his restaurants, landed his beautiful wife, and ricocheted to the moon with the life of his dreams. A brisk chill zips down my spine, but I shake it off. I’ll have to process this later.
Stuffing my nausea down, I fold the document in half and place it with the marriage license before returning to the folder. The next document is just as concerning.
Policy Number: A34YW-991
Insured: Merritt Sylvia Coletto
Age: Forty-one
Sex: F
Premium Class: Preferred-Term
Owner: Luca Coletto
Beneficiary: Luca Coletto
Amount of Insurance: $4 million for twenty years
Oh, my God.
When I flip to the next document, I’m met with another policy declaration page, this one for his daughter, Elsabeth, for $1 million. I try to wrap my head around any scenario in which a small child would require a million-dollar life insurance policy . . .
Only one comes to mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
MERRITT
“Everything okay at the restaurant?” I stumble through the kitchen in a sleepless daze, heading straight for the coffee maker before I remember I’m breastfeeding. Or at least trying to. We’ve been home all of one day, and it’s still not going well.
“Of course.” Luca drops his car keys on the counter, studying me. “Where’s the baby?”
“Sleeping.” I yawn. My incision throbs. I need to slow down, but as exhausted as I am, I can’t bring myself to sit still. There’s always a task to do, a thought to think. “For now.”
“You should lie down.”
“That’s the plan.” I give him a sleepy wink, trying to keep things light so as to distract from any residual resentment in my tone. “Was waiting for you to get home . . .”
“What do you say we get out of town for a bit? Maybe go to Willow Branch for a week or two?”
If I had a mouthful of coffee, I’d have spat it out by now. “We have a four-day-old baby, and you want to go to Willow Branch?”
We haven’t been to our farmhouse getaway since last summer. It’s probably freezing there, and in desperate need of a good cleaning and airing out. Not the ideal place to take a newborn. Plus the thought of riding two hours in a car with a colicky infant . . .