Chapter 1 - The Letters That Stopped the Music
“Put that board away, Emma.”
Celeste Marino reached across the table and pulled the alphabet board from Teresa Romano’s lap.
Thirty-two guests watched beneath the chandeliers of Matteo Romano’s Boston mansion.
Teresa had lost most of her speech after a stroke. But she understood everything.
“She’s trying to tell me something,” I said.
Celeste smiled. “She’s moving her finger randomly. Stop pretending it means anything.”
My name is Emma Walsh. I’m twenty-eight, and I’d worked at the Romano estate for eleven months. My mother survived a stroke when I was nineteen. A speech therapist taught us to use an alphabet board when her words wouldn’t come.
Teresa and I used the same method every morning. She could discuss the news, choose her meals, and beat me at cards. She was not confused.
“Take her upstairs,” Celeste ordered. “She’s disrupting our engagement dinner.”
Teresa grabbed my wrist. Her finger moved across the letters.
M. A. R. R. I. E. D.
I looked at her. “Who is married?”
She pointed at Celeste. Then at Julian Cross, the financial adviser seated beside Matteo.
Julian’s champagne glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
Celeste laughed. “This is exactly why she needs full-time supervision.”
Teresa struck the board with her palm. Then spelled the word again.
MARRIED.
Matteo slowly stood. At thirty-eight, he was the kind of man who could silence a ballroom without raising his voice.
“Stop the music.”
The musicians lowered their instruments.
Matteo looked at me. “What is my grandmother saying?”
Celeste stepped between us. “She’s had too much excitement.”
“I asked Emma.”
My heart pounded. “Mrs. Romano says Celeste and Mr. Cross are married.”
Several guests gasped.
Celeste’s face hardened. “Pack your things, Emma. You’re fired.”
I thought about my mother’s assisted-living payment. Then Teresa squeezed my hand. I stayed beside her.
Matteo turned toward Julian. “Are you married to my fiancée?”
“Of course not.”
Teresa began pointing again.
B. O. S. T. O. N.
Then she held up four fingers.
“Four years ago?” I asked. She nodded.
Julian pushed back his chair. “This is insulting.”
Matteo looked toward his security chief. “Check the marriage records.”
Celeste reached for Matteo’s arm. “You’re humiliating me because a sick woman pointed at some letters.”
Matteo removed her hand. “My grandmother raised me. Choose your next words carefully.”
Three minutes later, the security chief returned with his phone.
“There’s a marriage license for Celeste Marino and Julian Cross. Filed four years ago. No divorce or annulment.”
The room went silent.
Matteo looked at Celeste. “You’re already married.”
“We’ve been separated for years.”
Julian stared at her. “That wasn’t our agreement.”
Celeste’s head snapped toward him. “Shut up.”
Matteo’s eyes narrowed. “What agreement?”
Teresa pointed toward the leather folder beside Julian’s plate.
I placed the board in front of her.
S. A. L. E.
“The sale?” I asked. She nodded.
Matteo opened the folder. Inside was an agreement transferring the Romano family’s waterfront properties to a private investment company. Julian’s company.
At the bottom were two signature lines. Matteo Romano. Teresa Romano.
“I never approved this,” Matteo said.
Celeste swallowed. “It was supposed to be presented tomorrow.”
“Why does my grandmother know about it?”
Teresa spelled another word.
FORGED.
Matteo examined the final page. Her signature was already there.
Celeste grabbed her purse. The guards blocked the doors.
Matteo looked at his grandmother. “Did you sign this?”
Teresa pointed firmly to NO.
Julian loosened his tie. “She was never supposed to see those papers.”
Matteo faced him. “Why do you need my grandmother’s signature?”
The family attorney rose from the table. “Because Teresa holds the deciding vote in the Romano trust. Without her approval, the properties cannot be sold.”
Matteo turned toward Celeste. “So you planned to marry me while still married to him, forge my grandmother’s signature, and sell my family’s property?”
Celeste said nothing.
Teresa pulled my hand back to the board. Her finger moved faster now.
N. O. T. S. A. L. E.
I frowned. “Not the sale?”
She shook her head and pointed toward Julian.
Then she spelled:
STROKE.
Julian went pale.
Matteo leaned toward his grandmother. “What are you saying?”
Teresa’s hand trembled as she formed one final sentence:
ASK HIM WHAT HE PUT IN MY TEA THE NIGHT I COLLAPSED.
For one terrible second, nobody moved. I could hear the faint hiss of the fireplace behind the musicians. Julian’s hand tightened around his glass until the stem snapped. Champagne spilled across the white tablecloth like a warning nobody could pretend not to see.
Matteo looked at his grandmother, not Julian. “Are you telling me someone hurt you?”
Teresa nodded once. The movement cost her. Her shoulders shook, and I slid an arm behind her before she could tip sideways.
“Get her doctor,” Matteo ordered.
Celeste found her voice. “This is absurd. She's had a stroke. She can't possibly remember—”
“She remembers the marriage,” I said, surprising myself. “And the document.”
Celeste’s eyes cut toward me. The expression was so cold I finally understood why Teresa sometimes refused tea when Celeste visited her room.
The security chief, Gabriel Rivas, spoke quietly into his earpiece. Two guards moved to the hallway. A third stood beside Julian. Matteo took the broken glass from Julian’s fingers and laid it on the table.
“Tell me about the tea,” Matteo said.
Julian lifted both palms. “I never prepared her tea. Ask the staff.”
“I am the staff,” I said. “Mrs. Romano always takes chamomile with honey. That night, you visited her study after dinner.”
I remembered it because Teresa had been unusually cheerful. She had asked me to bring out an old photograph of Matteo as a boy, standing beside a battered fishing boat. Julian had arrived carrying a silver tray. He said he wanted to discuss the trust. Teresa told me to go home early.
The next morning, an ambulance came through the gates.
“I didn't see what was in the cup,” I admitted. “But I saw him carry it.”
Julian laughed sharply. “A maid’s recollection is not evidence.”
“No,” Matteo said. “But the hospital records might be.”
Teresa tugged my sleeve. She was pointing at the letter B.
B. O. X.
“Box?” I whispered.
She nodded and lifted her eyes toward the upstairs hallway. Then she touched her chest and traced the shape of a key against her cardigan.
Matteo crouched before her. The feared man whose name made Boston businessmen lower their voices suddenly looked like a frightened grandson. “Nonna, where is it?”
Her finger returned to the board.
B. L. U. E.
“Blue box,” I said.
May you like
Julian stopped pretending to be amused.
And that was when the lights went out.
