Alessandro focused back on the screens and tapped at a few buttons on the control panel. One screen split in half, keeping the view of both the front and back of the home. The next screen lit up with an image of the kitchen, and I set a hand to my chest at the sight of Enzo there.
“How long until Giovanni and Nico are here?” I asked.
Alessandro checked his watch. “Soon,” was all he said, which wasn’t exactly illuminating.
“And if these people come here and start shooting, won’t the neighbors hear? And what if they become casualties?” I thought back to the homes on the street that were fairly spread out, and I was pretty sure none was visible on either side of the Costa mansion, but . . .
“We called the two neighbors closest and told them to quietly leave their homes. And if anyone else happens to see anything and call the police, we have that covered,” he explained.
I nodded, then focused back on Bianca’s boxes. “Do you mind if I have a look?”
“Sure,” Alessandro answered.
“Do you think something in there might help?” Isabella asked.
“They think Nico is responsible for her murder, but we still don’t know why. And Enzo and I were considering that maybe the love story Bianca wrote for the magazine just before she, um . . . well, maybe it was about her and Nico,” I told her, unsure how she’d react to that news.
“Oh.” She frowned. “I was so young back then, but it’s possible she was secretly seeing someone. She’d been acting a little off. Like her head was in the clouds whenever we talked.” She knelt and removed the lid from one of the boxes.
“She printed all her stories out for her editor,” Angela spoke up. “The drafts. Notes from her editor. I helped pack her desk. Everything should be in there.” She gathered around us, and based on her lack of a definitive “no, she’d never love Nico,” I had to believe Angela had a feeling Bianca loving someone in secret was a possibility.
“Here.” Isabella offered her mother a folder, and Alessandro waved his hand, letting her know he didn’t want one. I doubted it was only because he wanted to focus on the monitors. It would be hard to stomach reading Bianca’s notes. To see her handwriting.
“I’ll look,” I offered, kneeling alongside her, accepting one.
I opened it up, realizing the one she’d given me appeared to be the first draft of her final story for the magazine.
There was a bunch of red ink crossing out entire paragraphs. Notes in the margins. Even a conversation on sticky notes going back and forth between Bianca and her editor.
I did my best not to cry as I read a note from her editor on the fourth page.
Editor: No one likes the cheating trope. Don’t have the hero be married.
Bianca’s response: But it’s not like that. She didn’t know who he was or that he was married when they met. And it was an arranged marriage he never wanted to be in.
Editor: I don’t care. Lose the wife or the story is scrapped. The wife always finds out. And then you’ll have a murder mystery on your hands, not the sweet love story you promised me.
“Oh, shit.” I dropped the papers and scrambled to my feet, patting my back pocket for my phone, realizing it must’ve fallen out in our rush to get there. “Can they hear us? Is there a speakerphone thingy in here connected to the kitchen?” Alessandro shot me a puzzled look, then slammed his hand against a button, and I stood and rushed to his side and cried out, “Nico’s wife. I think Nico’s wife is the killer.”
THIRTY-ONE
Maria
“They’re okay,” Alessandro calmly told me.
But it’d be hard to believe anyone in the study was okay until the tendrils of smoke from the blast had cleared out so I could visibly see Enzo and the others.
“Shit.” Alessandro slammed his hand over a button on the panel. “She’s getting away. Crawled into the hall,” he rasped, letting his family know Alice was on the move amid the chaos.
With the fog of the explosion settling down, Enzo—thank God—appeared on camera. He was on his feet, weapon drawn. “Which way did she go?”
Alessandro flipped through the different camera views, searching for her. “She’s heading upstairs. But you have incoming. The house has been breached. Three tangos by my count heading your way.”
“Roger that,” Enzo said while his brother and father rose.
I could see Nico and Giovanni now on the floor, surrounded by debris.
“You alive?” Constantine asked them.