Chapter 4 - What the Dead Man Left BehindThe old phone took forty minutes to turn on.
The party was over.
The investigation was not.
Guests had been released in groups after providing names, identification, and statements. Reporters were already waiting beyond the iron gates of the Marchetti property.
Three television vans had parked along the street.
Someone had leaked the engagement breakup.
Someone else had leaked the poisoning.
By sunrise, Chicago would have both stories.
Enzo Marchetti’s engagement destroyed at his own party.
Attempted murder inside one of the most heavily guarded homes in the city.
And a temporary maid who had somehow prevented it.
Adeline wanted no part of any headline.
She changed out of her uniform in the staff locker room and stuffed it into a paper bag.
Her wrist had been cleaned and bandaged by a paramedic.
She wanted only to go home.
Marco blocked the doorway.
“You’re not taking the train.”
“I always take the train.”
“Not tonight.”
“I can afford a cab.”
“It’s not about money.”
Adeline understood.
She hated that she understood.
“Someone will drive you.”
“My mother will panic if a black SUV shows up at four in the morning.”
“Then we’ll use a normal car.”
She gave him a tired look.
“Do you have normal cars?”
For the first time all night, Marco almost smiled.
“One or two.”
A voice came from behind him.
“I’ll drive her.”
Adeline’s stomach tightened.
Enzo.
He had removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves to his forearms. Without the formal clothing and the crowd around him, he looked less like the intimidating businessman people whispered about and more like a man who had not slept in thirty hours.
Marco frowned.
“You should stay.”
“Police have my statement.”
“Your family lawyers are coming.”
“They can wait.”
Adeline shook her head.
“I don’t need Mr. Marchetti to drive me.”
“Enzo.”
“What?”
“My name.”
She stared at him.
“This doesn’t feel like a first-name situation.”
Something passed across his face.
Almost amusement.
Almost.
“Fair enough.”
Marco gave Enzo a look Adeline could not interpret.
“Use the sedan. Not your car.”
Enzo nodded.
Twenty minutes later, they were driving south through nearly empty Chicago streets.
Rain streaked the windshield.
Adeline sat rigidly in the passenger seat.
Enzo kept both hands on the wheel.
Neither spoke for several blocks.
Finally he said, “Why did you take the job?”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“At my house.”
“I needed work.”
“You were recommended by the agency.”
“Yes.”
“They said you had restaurant experience.”
“I do.”
“Any reason you switched to private events?”
“Better pay.”
He nodded.
She looked out the window.
“You don’t need to interview me.”
“I’m not.”
“It feels like it.”
“Sorry.”
Silence again.
Then Adeline said, “Why were you going to marry her?”
The question came out before she could reconsider.
Enzo glanced at her.
“That’s more direct than most people are with me.”
“I’m tired.”
“So am I.”
“You don’t have to answer.”
He drove another block.
“Our families have known each other twenty-five years.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
“Did you love her?”
He was silent long enough that Adeline regretted asking.
Then he said, “I thought I could.”
That answer was sadder than she expected.
“Camilla wasn’t always like that.”
Adeline looked at her bandaged wrist.
Enzo noticed.
“She had no right to touch you.”
“I know.”
“I should have stopped it faster.”
“You did stop it.”
“After she hit you.”
“She surprised everyone.”
“Not you.”
“What?”
“You weren’t surprised by her temper.”
Adeline turned toward the window again.
She had worked eleven days in the house.
That had been enough.
She had seen Camilla berate a florist for using ivory roses instead of white.
She had seen her reduce a nineteen-year-old server to tears over a crooked place card.
She had heard her tell another maid that poverty was “usually evidence of poor planning.”
But Adeline had also seen something stranger.
Fear.
Not Camilla’s.
Everyone else’s.
“She likes people to know where they stand,” Adeline said.
Enzo’s jaw tightened.
“And where does she think they stand?”
“Below her.”
He said nothing after that.
They reached Adeline’s apartment building at 3:47 a.m.
It was an aging brick structure in Bridgeport with a broken porch light and a narrow alley beside it.
Enzo parked across the street.
Adeline unbuckled her seat belt.
“Thank you.”
“Wait.”
She froze.
A dark SUV was parked half a block ahead.
Engine running.
Lights off.
Enzo’s posture sharpened.
“Do you recognize it?”
“No.”
He took out his phone.
“Marco.”
Adeline’s pulse jumped.
“Maybe it belongs to someone who lives here.”
“Maybe.”
He gave Marco the location.
Within seconds, the SUV pulled away.
Fast.
Too fast.
Enzo started the car.
Adeline grabbed the dashboard.
“What are you doing?”
“Following.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“My mother is upstairs.”
That stopped him.
“If whoever that is wanted me, they know where I live.”
Enzo swore under his breath.
Then he called Marco again.
“Send two people here. Now.”
Adeline opened the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Upstairs.”
“Wait for security.”
“My mother might be alone with someone.”
She ran.
Enzo followed.
They crossed the street, pushed through the building entrance, and raced up two flights of stairs.
Adeline’s apartment door was open.
She stopped.
“Mom?”
No answer.
She rushed inside.
The living room had been torn apart.
Couch cushions slashed.
Drawers emptied.
Family photographs broken.
“Mom!”
A noise came from the kitchen.
Adeline ran toward it.
Her mother, Ruth, sat on the floor beside the refrigerator.
Alive.
Terrified.
“Adeline.”
Adeline dropped beside her.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“A man came in.”
Enzo crouched nearby.
“Did he hurt you?”
Ruth shook her head.
“He wanted Adeline’s old phone.”
Adeline stared at her.
“What old phone?”
“The one from the restaurant.”
Her blood went cold.
Three years earlier.
The night her brother almost died.
The chemical exposure.
The restaurant.
The phone she had used to take pictures because management had tried to blame the incident on an employee.
She had forgotten about it.
Almost.
“Where is it?”
Ruth pointed weakly toward the hall closet.
“I told him I threw it away.”
“Did he believe you?”
“I don’t know.”
Enzo stood.
“What restaurant?”
Adeline did not answer.
“Adeline.”
She slowly looked at him.
“Bellavita.”
Enzo’s face changed.
It was immediate.
Recognition.
“You worked at Bellavita?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“How long?”
“Six months.”
“Who owned it?”
“I don’t know. Some corporation.”
Enzo knew.
She could see it.
“Who?” she demanded.
He looked away.
“Enzo.”
He turned back.
“My father.”
The words landed heavily.
Adeline stared at him.
“Your father owned Bellavita?”
“Through a hospitality company.”
“The place where my brother was poisoned?”
“It was ruled an accident.”
“That’s what the restaurant said.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the manager offered me twenty thousand dollars to delete photographs from my phone.”
Enzo went still.
“What photographs?”
Adeline remembered.
A locked storage room.
Unmarked drums.
Invoices on a desk.
A man yelling at her to leave.
“My brother wasn’t the only one who got sick that month.”
Enzo’s expression hardened.
“How many?”
“Four employees.”
“Why wasn’t this investigated?”
“It was.”
“And?”
“The health department found nothing.”
“Did you give them the photographs?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“My phone disappeared from the evidence bag.”
Enzo looked around the destroyed apartment.
“And you had another copy.”
Adeline nodded.
“I backed everything up to an old phone because I didn’t trust anyone.”
Ruth said softly, “It’s still here.”
Enzo turned.
“Where?”
Ruth pointed toward the kitchen.
“Flour.”
Adeline stared.
Her mother had hidden the phone inside an old flour container after the break-in began.
Enzo almost laughed from disbelief.
Ruth gave him a stern look.
“I raised two children in this neighborhood. I know where people don’t look.”
Adeline pulled the container from the cabinet.
Wrapped inside a plastic bag beneath several pounds of flour was an old cracked smartphone.
Enzo stared at it.
His phone rang.
Marco.
Enzo answered.
“What?”
His expression changed.
“When?”
He turned toward Adeline.
“Are you sure?”
He listened.
Then ended the call.
“What happened?” she asked.
Enzo’s eyes were cold now.
“Peter Vale is dead.”
Adeline stopped breathing.
“The waiter?”
“He collapsed in police custody.”
“How?”
“They don’t know yet.”
Enzo looked at the old phone in her hands.
“But before he died, he said one thing.”
“What?”
“He said tonight had nothing to do with my engagement.”
Adeline waited.
May you like
Enzo’s gaze dropped to the phone.
“He said it started at Bellavita.”
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