She glanced through the windshield.
“Vivienne lied about how we met.”
Dominic felt a knot form in his stomach.
“She told you we met at university. We didn’t.”
Elena took a breath.
“She found me.”
The video ended.
That was all.
Dominic stared at the black screen.
Then his phone rang.
Matteo answered.
Listened.
His expression hardened.
“Police are here.”
Dominic looked toward the door.
“And Vivienne?”
Matteo paused.
“She’s gone.”
Marcus Laurent sat alone in Dominic’s library forty minutes later.
His sister had disappeared during the confusion.
A security camera showed her leaving through the kitchen, stealing a catering employee’s car and driving through the service gate moments before police secured the property.
Marcus had not followed.
He sat hunched forward, staring at his hands.
Dominic placed Elena’s letter on the table.
“What is Aurora House?”
Marcus said nothing.
Dominic sat opposite him.
“Twenty-six months ago my wife supposedly died.”
Marcus stared at the floor.
“My daughter remembers seeing her mother hide something in that music box.”
Nothing.
“My fiancée was wearing Elena’s ring.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“And Elena left me a recording naming both of you.”
Marcus finally looked up.
“You think I killed her?”
“I think you know why I buried a woman whose face I never saw.”
Marcus’s eyes filled with something Dominic did not expect.
Shame.
“I didn’t know they were going to do it.”
Dominic became still.
“Do what?”
Marcus rubbed both hands across his face.
“Vivienne said she only wanted Elena frightened.”
Dominic stood.
Marcus recoiled.
“What did she do?”
“She sabotaged the car.”
Dominic crossed the room so fast the chair behind him overturned.
Matteo intercepted him.
“Dominic.”
“Move.”
“Not yet.”
Marcus raised both hands.
“I didn’t touch Elena!”
“You knew.”
“Not until afterward!”
Dominic’s voice broke.
“You let me bury her.”
Marcus looked sick.
“Because Vivienne said she was dead.”
Dominic froze.
“Said?”
Marcus’s eyes shifted.
“After the crash, Vivienne called me. She was hysterical. She said Elena had discovered everything.”
“What everything?”
Marcus laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You still don’t know.”
“Know what?”
Marcus looked toward Elena’s photograph above the fireplace.
Then said:
“Vivienne is Elena’s sister.”
Silence.
Dominic stared at him.
“No.”
“Half sister.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Marcus swallowed.
“My mother had an affair with Alessandro Moretti before he married Elena’s mother. Vivienne was born first. Alessandro paid my mother for years to keep quiet.”
Dominic remembered Elena’s father.
A brilliant, charming pharmaceutical executive who had died when Elena was twenty.
“Vivienne knew?”
“Since she was fourteen.”
“And Elena?”
“No.”
Marcus shook his head.
