Allio looked surprised. “Yeah … well, I can neither confirm or deny that.”
Grace took that to mean: bingo. Navarro hadn’t been lying about that, at least.
“I thought Vince was Penny’s birth father because of his past with Rachel, so Navarro, instead of helping us get his DNA, he gave us information about Rapino that he knew we might use, which we did. When we couldn’t get the DNA, we threatened him with a court order to give it up—and dropped plenty of hints that it could lead to a bigger investigation.”
“Yeah, with a guy like Vince Rapino, that’s like picking up a rattlesnake by its tail. You’re going to get bit.”
Grace didn’t tell him that she did.
“Why did Rachel die? What was his motive?”
“Don’t like blaming the victim in these matters, but I think Rachel may have played a role. We found some pretty hard evidence to suggest she was blackmailing Navarro, and we think it might have been to help out Vince.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rachel came back from Rhode Island, for whatever reason. Fizzled-out romance, change of scenery, we don’t know. We do know that she and Vince started it up again at Lucky Dog. He got her a place to live and things were good for a time I guess, but he wanted money to get some new parts pipeline up and running. Illegal shit. We’re looking into it. Anyway, Rachel wasn’t shy about trying to get her man some cash. She went right to Banco de Navarro. We’ve got the correspondence to prove it. Now the Me Too movement was coming back for Navarro, and Rachel had the goods. A paternity test would screw him, expose his whole sordid history. He knew it. But instead of giving up the green, he came up with another way of dealing with it.”
“I’d say.”
“But a guy like Navarro … he couldn’t stomach having a potential murder charge over his head. So he picked your daughter to be his out. He made sure he’d get on this case somehow, smear any attorney you hired if you didn’t pick him at the outset, offer you a huge discount on his fee. One way or another, he was going to be Penny’s lawyer so he could control every bit of the case.”
“Yeah, he hit my car intentionally so I’d have his card,” Grace said again.
Grace told Allio about the fender bender that got her Navarro’s apology and business card.
“He became a regular at my restaurant. Ingratiated himself with me and my family. He knew I’d call.”
“Devious bastard,” Allio said.
Navarro may have been a bastard, but Rachel was not. Grace thought of Rachel and how readily she’d condemned her. She didn’t abandon her child. She saw the anchor pendant necklace near the door and believed her daughter had run outside to get away, so she did the same. Later on, when news broke of a little girl found in the park, Rachel had made the painful decision to put her child’s interests ahead of her own. She willingly gave up her parental rights in exchange for leniency from the courts, allowing her to live the life she wished, drugs and all, while Isabella would be safe, cared for—and most importantly, kept far away from Greg Navarro forever.
Grace had a thought that perhaps the anchor pendant she saw around Vince Rapino’s neck had been a gift from Rachel. Probably was, she decided. She could see Rachel equating that symbol not with Navarro, but with her daughter, with love.
Allio looked a bit uncomfortable shifting in his seat.
“I guess now I should tell you about your son, Ryan.”
CHAPTER 56
I HAVEN’T SHOWN ANYTHING I’ve written to my film professor. That was our deal. But I think it’s come together well, and now I’m at one of the final scenes of my movie—our movie, Penny.
Scene Heading: INT. Our House—Night
We were all gathered around the kitchen table like one big happy family. But there was a drumbeat of tension in the air. Something big was about to go down, but I think only Mom and Ryan were in on it.
“Ryan, it’s time to tell Penny what you told me and the police,” Mom said. Ryan had on his Big Frank’s polo shirt, but unlike the cheery, embroidered man spinning a stitched pizza on his extended finger, his face was downcast and serious.
“I’ve been spying on you,” he said. “I put a key logger on your computer and got access to your Facebook, your e-mail, everything that you were doing online.”
He didn’t confess his sins to me, but to you, Penny. You looked utterly shattered, as if Ryan had reached across the table to slap you in the face.
You were Penny again. There’d been no trace of Eve since you got out of Edgewater. I guess she’d done her job and finished it admirably. She had protected you when you needed it most. You have no memory of Isabella or what happened in the courtroom; how you yourself took down the man who had tried to destroy your life. But in Ryan’s moment of confession and cleansing, I swear I saw a flicker, a hint in the eyes and shoulders, of Eve’s return.