Chapter Twenty Nine
Victoria
By the time I reach the park, I have almost turned around six times.
But I am here now.
Which means, apparently, I am doing this.
The park is busy enough to be public but not so crowded that everyone becomes indistinct. People with strollers. A man walking two dogs. Someone jogging past with headphones in.
Two women sitting cross-legged in the grass with iced coffees and open laptops. Normal lives moving around me while I walk toward a bench to ask a stranger whether the man I am terrified to admit I have fallen for had anything to do with his wife’s death.
Completely normal.
I smooth one hand over the front of my coat, then immediately stop because I am doing it over my stomach.
I am not thinking about that right now.
That is a separate crisis.
Except it is not separate.
That is why I am here.
I need to know what Cindy Sullivan knows, and then I can stop.
That is what I have told myself all week.
One conversation. One more source. One person who may have seen more than what is online. Then I will know whether this is anything or whether I have spent days torturing myself over phrasing and rumor and badly translated Italian articles.
I cannot really think these things about Mario.
I cannot.
Not the man who texted me every day, even when I gave him almost nothing back.
Not the man who did not push, even though I could feel the restraint in every message.
Not the man whose sons would clear the house to give him privacy with a woman, whose family works with him every day.
But there are facts and gaps.
There are words no journalist would use by accident.
I recognize the woman sitting on the bench immediately.
Cindy Sullivan looks like her LinkedIn photo, mostly. Pretty, middle-aged, brown bob, camel coat, dark trousers, ankle boots that are too nice for a park. She has sunglasses pushed up on her head and a paper coffee cup in one hand. A leather tote sits beside her, angled close to her hip
She looks up before I reach her.
“V?” she asks.
I hate this. I hate it so much.
“Yes.”
She studies me quickly, and I feel every part of the assessment. My coat. My face. My hands. The fact that I probably look like I have not slept properly in days.
Because I haven't.
Then she smiles.
“Cindy Sullivan.”
She stands and offers her hand.
I take it.
“Thank you for meeting me,” I say.
Her grip is dry and firm. “Thank you for coming.”
I release her hand.
She gestures to the bench. “Sit. Unless you’d rather walk.”
I glance at the path. Too open. Too many people passing close, then gone. Too much movement.
“The bench is fine.”
I sit on the far side of it, leaving space between us.
Cindy sits again and crosses one leg over the other, coffee in hand.
“You said in your email that you’ve already seen the public material.”
“Yes. I found everything I could find in English, at least, which wasn’t much. I had to rely on translation for the Italian articles.”
Her mouth curves faintly. “Machine translation?”
“Unfortunately.”
“That can make already careful reporting look even stranger.”
“Don't I know it?”
“Do you?”
I look at her.
She does not blink.
“I’m not here because I confused bad translation with evidence,” I say.
“Good,” she says. “That would have been a short meeting.”
I do not like her.
The immediate thought makes me feel silly. I have no reason not to like her. I don't know anything about her.
I fold my hands in my lap, then uncurl them when I realize how tense they look.
“I’m aware speculation is not evidence. I’m also aware that wealthy families often keep medical information and personal tragedies private.”
She leans back in the bench and takes a sip of coffee while watching me.
“Very lawyerly.”
My stomach tightens. “So you've done some research of your own.”
Her expression remains pleasant.
“You contacted a journalist from an anonymous email account to ask about a very powerful, very private man and the dead wife most people are too careful to mention directly. You had to know I would want to know who was asking.”
“I told you I had a legitimate reason.”
“You told me you had a reason. I haven’t decided whether it’s legitimate.”
The bad feeling gets worse.
It has been there since I parked. Since I stepped onto the path. Since I saw her sitting on this bench, looking exactly like a woman who knows how to make ordinary conversation sound like cross-examination.
I should leave.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
Cindy looks at me for a moment, then takes another slow sip of coffee.
“Your connection to Mario Conti.”
My pulse jumps.
“I did not say I had one.”
“No,” she says. “You very carefully avoided saying anything at all.”
“That does not mean—”
“It means you’re either connected to him, connected to someone close to him, or considering becoming connected to him in a way that makes Anna Conti’s death newly relevant to you.”
My mouth goes dry.
I look away first.
I hate that I do.
The park continues around us. A child laughs somewhere to my left. A dog barks. Leaves shift overhead.
“I’m not here to discuss my life,” I say.
“Then we may have a problem.”
My gaze returns to hers. “Why?”
“Because what I can tell you depends heavily on why you’re asking.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It’s cautious.” Her smile fades. “There is a difference.”
I study her.
She is not nervous exactly. But she is alert. Her eyes move occasionally, not wildly, not like a person afraid of being attacked, but like someone who has learned to note where people are standing, who is lingering, who is close enough to overhear.
“You said there was more,” I say.
“There was.”
“More what?”
“More smoke.”
My hands tighten once in my lap.
“Smoke is not fire.”
“No,” she says. “But it is usually not nothing.”
I breathe in slowly.
Bad idea.
This was a bad idea.
“What did you find?”
Cindy looks down at her coffee for a moment.
When she looks back at me, the professional polish is still there, but her eyes are sharper, harder.
“The official story is private grief,” she says. “A sudden death. A powerful family closing ranks. A widower protecting his children from public attention.”
My fingers curl against my palm.
“That’s not what the articles implied.”
“No,” she says. “It isn’t.”
“Then what’s the truth?”
Cindy studies me over the rim of her coffee. “I think you already know.”
“No,” I say. “I know what the implication is. I’m trying to find out whether there’s anything underneath it.”
“There is always something underneath it with men like Mario Conti.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” she says, setting her coffee down beside her on the bench. “It’s a warning.”
“I don’t need to be warned,” I say. “I just need answers.”
She does not, in fact, answer.
Instead, she reaches into her tote and pulls out a slim folder.
She rests it on her lap but does not hand it to me.
My heart beats once, hard.
“What is that?”
“Copies. Notes. A timeline I built when I was writing the Hawthorne piece.”
I look at the folder, then back at her.
“What do you think he did?” I ask.
Cindy looks pleased, but there’s something wholly unpleasant about it.
“That’s the wrong question.”
My skin prickles.
“What is the right one?”
She taps one finger against the folder.
“The right question is why so many people worked so hard to make sure no one asked anything at all.”
I stare at the folder on Cindy’s lap.
I have questions. And her vague statements pile on more questions. I should be demanding that file. Names, sources, anything that can finally give me something more solid than rumor and dread.
Instead, every instinct I have tells me to stand up and leave.
The park is still busy. A jogger passes behind us. A woman pushes a stroller along the path. Somewhere nearby, a dog barks at a squirrel with desperate urgency.
Everything looks normal.
That is part of what makes my skin crawl.
Cindy watches me too carefully.
But it’s not like a journalist protecting a source.
It’s like someone waiting for me to make the next move.
My mouth is dry. “Who worked hard?”
Her fingers rest on the folder. “People with reasons.”
“Again, that is not an answer.”
“No,” she says. “It’s the only answer I can give until I understand how far you’re willing to go.”
A chill moves through me.
“How far I’m willing to go? For what?”
“To know the truth.”
I look at her, really look at her, and the bad feeling that has been sitting in my gut all morning spreads.
There is something wrong with this.
With her.
With this bench, this folder, this careful little performance in a park where we are exposed enough to look safe and private enough that no one is paying attention.
“I think I’ve heard enough,” I say.
Cindy’s expression barely changes. “You haven’t heard anything yet.”
“I know.” I reach for my purse strap. “That’s the problem.”
Her eyes sharpen.
I stand before I can lose my nerve.
“I appreciate your time,” I say, because apparently, terror does not supersede politeness. “You can email whatever public materials you’re comfortable sharing.”
“Victoria.”
My name in her mouth stops me cold and sends chills down my spine.
I look down at her.
Cindy is no longer smiling.
Every bit of warmth, every professional softness, is gone.
My pulse slams hard against my ribs.
I take one step back.
Then another.
I need to leave.
I need my car. My phone. People. Noise. Distance.
I turn too quickly and collide with a man standing directly behind me.
The apology is on the tip of my tongue when his hand closes around my upper arm, catching me mid-stumble.
For half a second, I think it is an accident.
Then I feel the hard press of cold metal against my side, hidden between our bodies, angled beneath his jacket where no one passing by can see.
My breath catches.
“Easy,” he says.
His voice is quiet and calm.
I go rigid.
The man’s grip tightens just enough to hurt.
I turn my head toward Cindy.
She has risen from the bench.
The folder is gone.
In its place, her hand is inside her open tote, and the black mouth of a gun points at me from the shadowed leather.
No.
No, no, no.
My mind blanks, then comes back all at once with such violent clarity I almost sway.