Chapter 20
Camillo Vicari
Silver River, South Mississippi, USA
Around six in the morning, I was awake. I hadn't known what a good night’s sleep was for a decade and was more than used to it. I showered quickly and got dressed, not wanting to waste too much time. There was a lot to do that day, so the sooner I started, the better.
I went down to the kitchen with my laptop.
As soon as I sat down with an espresso in my hand, I followed the protocol.
Scanned my right retina in front of the webcam lens, then my thumb on the tiny fingerprint reader, and finally entered the twenty-digit password verified on my phone.
An intelligent man doesn’t repeat his mistakes, and I wanted to believe that I learned a lot from mine over the past ten years.
The device unlocked. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Alessandro Lombardi already sent me an email with an attachment labeled DAISY PARKER.
I opened the folder to find several files on the inside. I started with the one labeled DAISY PARKER – DETAILED and raised an eyebrow, unable to contain my surprise.
The daughter of a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier. Killed in combat when she was twelve. According to the investigation, the two had been inseparable. However, the same could not be said about Daisy’s mother.
It was written there that the woman had been unfaithful to Daisy’s father with a local police officer, to whom she was married to that day.
Besides that, it appears she pressured her sister-in-law to sell her ex-husband's house after his death, so she could get her hands on her daughter's inheritance.
The same inheritance she later used to open a flower shop.
And most interestingly, put what was left of that money into an account in the name of her other daughter, the one she had with the police officer.
Daisy Parker was robbed by her own mother.
I washed down the bile that rose in my mouth with espresso, letting its pungent aroma rise to my nose. I couldn't imagine a mother being capable of such a thing.
I kept reading.
Daisy hadn't gone to college, and from what the report said, she hadn't even been a good student in high school. Lombardi's sources had even cited school reports where the only thing missing was the teachers calling her stupid.
Dio. Could she really be that dumb? I would say na?ve, clueless, zero sense of self preservation. But the little thing didn’t strike me as brainless, quite the opposite.
Moving on, I found what I already knew. The accident from twelve years ago. The collision between a train and a car that resulted in the death of Lester Fury, Senator Jones' only son. They left a note for me to look into the PICTURE RECORD file.
And so I did.
As soon as the document opened, I found a flood of pictures.
In the first one there was a chubby baby with a big smile in the arms of a man I immediately knew was Daisy's father. He appeared to be tall in that picture, and was wearing a military uniform and had his head shaved, but his eyes… His eyes were identical to his daughters’.
Features that even a picture couldn't mask.
In fact, the resemblance between the two was striking.
That picture alone confirmed what the report had pointed out.
The way the man held the baby, the pride spread across his face, made it clear how much he loved his baby girl.
The woman next to him, however, with a round, flat nose and piercing brown eyes, made no effort to hide the fact that she didn’t want to be part of that reality.
I kept scrolling.
There were other pictures of Daisy as a little girl, chubby, with her honey-blonde hair tied in two pigtails, with her father always by her side, as if he was some kind of bastion against the world.
The report didn't go into more details about her father, but I had no doubt that he would have killed anyone who dared to threaten his little girl.
But wasn't that what any father would do?
I cleared my throat, my personal demons whispering in my ear what I already knew.
Any father, except me. I murdered my own son.
Pushing that inner voice into the depths of my mind, I was surprised when I found pictures of Daisy as a teenager. There were few, but they were enough for me to see how she had changed over the years.
In the pictures following her father’s passing, Daisy appeared as a chubby teenager with a sad look on her face and a careless appearance. Messy, oily hair, pale skin, clothes that didn't fit well. And there was nothing left of the smiling girl in pigtails.
In those pictures, there was no longer a father.
But there was no mother either. The only human being that was present in them was an extremely attractive woman with long, curly hair, dressed with effortless, magnetic confidence.
The caption under those pictures read ‘Elizabeth Alice Parker. Aunt’.
Daisy looked happier in every one the woman was in.
It was with the following picture that my heart skipped a beat and jumped to my throat, forcing me upright.
Daisy looked a little older in that one.
She was dressed in a dark blue ball gown.
Her hair had been dyed pale pink, and her girlish smile was back on her face.
Next to her was a dark-haired boy, much taller, dressed in a tuxedo, with a proud expression on his face.
I didn't need the caption to tell me it was Lester Fury; I had seen pictures of him, but even if I hadn't, his eyes would be enough to give away his identity. They were identical to the Senator's.
Next to him, Daisy looked stunning, her joy contagious even through the picture, and I felt a twinge of something unpleasant when I noticed the boy's arm around her waist.
I cleared my throat, scrolling down, and seeing the following pictures was like being punched in the gut.
They weren't just everyday snapshots, but hospital and police records.
A picture of Daisy, with the same hair and dress, but without the smile and with her face streaked with tears, taken by the police.
Then another one, where she was no longer the chubby girl, but a young woman with a gaunt, almost anorexic face, covered in bruises.
It had been taken by a psychiatric clinic upon admission.
I frowned and went back to the report.
Shortly after Lester Fury's death, Daisy was hospitalized for over two years in a psychiatric ward.
The intervention was requested by Elizabeth Parker, her aunt.
I opened another file. It was part of a subfolder labeled MEDICAL REPORTS and was described only as PSYCHIATRY.
It was a lengthy report covering the period Daisy spent at the clinic.
I began to read.
She was diagnosed with anorexia and severe depression, but also with post-traumatic stress disorder, with marked dissociation and non-suicidal self-harm behavior.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. It was difficult for me to associate such a diagnosis with the cheerful waitress who served me a mug of hot chocolate full of colorful sprinkles and whipped cream days ago.
I finished what was left of the report. It contained information about her boss.
Oliver Fitzgerald, leader of a biker gang, with a past that was anything but boring.
Robberies, violence, an involuntary homicide.
.. Who would have thought that such a figure would end up opening a diner in a rural town?
Apparently, Daisy had been working for him for six years, and the man was currently romantically involved with her aunt.
Then, of course, in capital letters, was the very important detail about Olivia Goodwin being her best friend.
Apparently, the two were almost like Siamese twins, which didn't surprise me after seeing how they interacted.
But there was more.
Apparently, Daisy took a loan five years ago to reclaim the house that belonged to her father, and I let out a low whistle the instant I saw the interest rate.
And then they say we're the criminals...
Finally, a word caught my attention: ‘rhinoplasty’.
I went back to the PICTURE RECORD, immediately nodding my head as realization hit me. Yes. You could see it clearly. She used to have a round, broad nose, perhaps even too large for her face. Now it was narrow, elegant, natural enough that no one would suspect it had been changed.
I lingered just a few more moments over the information about my hostage. Lombardi had sent me other medical records of hers, in addition to the psychiatric ones, and detailed financial summaries. I read each one, finding nothing unusual.
When I knew everything I needed, I picked up my phone.
“Good morning!”
“Buongiorno, Alessandro,” I replied. “I've seen the documents. I need you to take care of something.”
“I'm all ears.”
“Pay off her mortgage.”
On the other end of the line, Lombardi cursed. “How generous! You do realize that, with interest, the debt exceeds one million seven hundred thousand dollars, correct?” He reminded me, with a playful tone in his voice. “Should I also prepare your canonization, Saint Camillo of the Mortgaged?”
I snorted. “I didn't know we paid you to make jokes.”
“No, but you can't live without them,” he replied, making me roll my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. The maledetto usually took advantage of our friendship to say whatever he wanted to. "Very well. Pay off the woman’s mortgage. I'll need power of attorney for that, as you well know."
“Sì, right. Email me the document and I'll sign it.”
“What about the contract you asked me for?”
"That's exactly why I'm asking you to pay off Signorina Parker's debt. I need a discreet and efficient housekeeper to clean my villa. She has bills to pay. It's the perfect deal."
“I gather, then, that the mortgage amount is equivalent to an advance on her wages.”