Chapter 4
Owen lasted seven minutes before admitting Lorenzo was in New York.
Not where.
Not yet.
Corinne lasted three.
She cried sooner.
Not because she regretted what happened to Agnes.
Because she realized Owen had lied to her too.
“You said Bianca was being removed.”
Corinne looked at him.
“You never said killed.”
I stared.
“Removed how?”
Silence.
Corinne answered.
Lorenzo’s plan was not originally murder.
It was disappearance.
My mother would be declared dead.
I would be publicly reported missing after leaving the memorial dinner.
Lorenzo would release a story internally that I fled after discovering I had caused Agnes’s death through stress and neglect.
A daughter who killed her mother emotionally.
A boss who ran.
Ugly enough to stain me.
Plausible enough for relatives already uncomfortable with a woman holding command.
“What changed?”
Owen looked away.
I knew.
I forced him to say it.
“You did.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You were supposed to be in Boston tonight.”
But I changed my schedule.
Returned early.
Entered the chapel before Agnes could be moved.
The second casket had not been meant for my body.
Not initially.
It was symbolism.
Photographs.
A staged funeral arrangement Lorenzo could show certain elders after my disappearance.
BIANCA RINALDI IS FINISHED.
Then I arrived.
Now they had two living women and two caskets in one room.
Owen panicked.
“Would you have put me inside?”
He said nothing.
That answer was enough.
Then Corinne whispered:
“Lorenzo told him not to improvise.”
Interesting.
“When?”
She looked toward the chapel.
“Before you came.”
So Lorenzo had been watching.
Or listening.
I searched the flower stand.
Nothing.
The casket.
Nothing.
Then one guard found a tiny camera inside the chapel’s old brass cross.
Not mine.
Live feed disabled now.
But recently active.
Someone had watched my mother being forced into the casket.
Someone had watched me arrive.
Someone knew the plan failed.
I looked at Owen.
“Where is he?”
Owen smiled through fear.
“You think Lorenzo is hiding?”
I waited.
“He’s coming to dinner.”
My jaw tightened.
The memorial dinner started in ninety minutes.
May you like
Thirty-two senior relatives were expected.
And somewhere among the invitations was a dead man preparing to walk back into his own family.
