LUCA MORETTI
I lit the cigar on the balcony off my room and dialed the number I hadn't called in three months.
"Pronto," Acquaviva answered.
"It was Bianca."
There was silence on the other end.
"Come again?"
"The folder. The envelope. It was Bianca."
"Sicuro?"
"She sent Valentina to read it today. She only does that if she knows what's in the envelope before Valentina does. She only knows if she saw it first. And she only saw it first if she got into that office when I wasn't there. And that only happened if someone on the inside let her."
"Madonna."
"Who's she seeing now, Carlo?"
"As far as I know? No one steady. I'll find out, Luca. I'll tell you tonight."
"Tonight."
I hung up.
I rested both hands on the balcony railing. The bay down below was black, the lights of the boats blinking far off, and Vesuvius sleeping on the other side of the water the way it always slept.
Valentina was right.
I knew it.
I'd known since the second she showed me the letter with the date written over it—because I'd put that letter in the envelope myself two months ago, with the right date of 2015, and someone after that had walked into my office with a pen and changed it.
Someone in my own house.
Someone who walked these halls without being questioned, someone who had a copy of my key or the patience to wait for the door to be left open.
Pericolosa.
But this time it wasn't Valentina—it was someone in my house whose name I still didn't know.
And Valentina, up there in my mother's room, locked in from the inside, would be the reason I found out. Because she wasn't going to stop looking, and whoever set this up was counting on that.