8. Chiara #4
The women exchange glances, caught between embarrassment and defiance.
“We were just saying what everyone knows.” The oldest of them looks past me, appealing to the shopkeeper instead of answering me. “You came here from France thinking you could change everything, and look what happened.”
“What happened is that someone sabotaged the vintage launch and framed me for it.” I stay beside the shelf, keeping my voice loud enough for the owner to hear. “The laboratory has ruled out my botanical presentation. You can stop repeating that lie.”
“You have a report?” The woman who mentioned her cousin glances toward the owner, suddenly less willing to address an audience.
“Yes.” I resist the urge to tell her everything else I found. Rosalia trusted me with what she heard; I won’t turn it into shop gossip. “And when the person responsible is exposed, everyone who spread these lies will have to live with the shame of helping them.”
The shopkeeper has abandoned his newspaper entirely now, watching the confrontation with undisguised interest. Tomorrow this conversation will be all over the village, I’m sure of it. Let it. Let them whisper about the French woman who stood in the general store and refused to be silent.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The oldest woman catches her companion’s sleeve before she can move away. Apparently they must all be wrong together.
“Then ask to see the findings.” I carry my basket to the counter, leaving them to decide whether they want an answer badly enough to look for one. “I’m tired of defending myself to people who won’t ask a question unless it sounds like an accusation.”
I ask the owner about the delivery before I pay.
He checks the order book and promises it for the next morning, then writes the time on my receipt.
After counting out the money, I take the honey and the receipt with hands that won’t quite stop shaking.
The women have retreated to the far corner of the store. They don’t try to speak to me again.
The driver is waiting by the car when I emerge, his expression carefully neutral. He doesn’t ask what happened inside. He just opens the door and waits until I’m settled before driving us back to the estate.
I watch the village disappear in the rearview mirror and try to slow my breathing. My hands won’t stop trembling, and there’s a hollow feeling in my chest that might be triumph or might be terror.
I take the receipt out again.
Tomorrow morning. If the delivery doesn’t arrive, he will hear from me.
I collect my folder and notebook upstairs before going to Lorenzo’s study. His light is on, exactly as I expected.
The door is open, and I can see him bent over paperwork at his desk, his shoulders tight with tension. He looks up when he hears my footsteps, and something complicated moves across his face before he settles back into careful neutrality.
“Chiara.” He sets down his pen and starts to rise, then hesitates when I stay by the door. “I was wondering where you’d gone.”
“I had errands.” I step into the study and close the door behind me. “Research to do.”
His eyes move to the folder in my hands, and I see him tense slightly. “What kind of research?”
Instead of answering, I cross to his desk and spread out everything I’ve collected. The access logs showing Livia’s constant presence in the cellar. The latest lab findings. The copied receipt from the supplier. My own notes documenting the timeline, the opportunity, the means.
“Livia bought this three weeks before the gala.” I point to the copied receipt.
“The supplier knows her from her errands for the estate. He remembers the cash purchase and checked his records for the date. It belongs to the category the laboratory identified. That doesn’t prove she put it in the wine, but it needs to be checked. ”
Lorenzo looks at the papers without touching them. His expression gives nothing away.
“These entries overlap with shifts when the rest of the cellar team wasn’t scheduled.” I set the schedules beside the access records. “She wasn’t the only person who could get in. But she had the opportunity, and she was supervising the service batch. You can’t exclude her because you trust her.”
Still nothing. He’s listening, but he’s not reacting, and I can feel my frustration building.
“Rosalia heard her on the phone the night before the gala.” I pull out my final piece of evidence. “She said ‘It’s done. By tomorrow she’ll be finished.’ The next day, the launch collapsed and I took the blame.”
I step back from the desk and wait. All of it is there in front of him: the means, the opportunity, the motive, the witness testimony. It isn’t a verdict. I’m asking him to take it seriously enough to find out what happened.
“Do you believe me now?” I leave my hand beside the receipt, keeping it in front of him when I want to gather everything up and hold it against my chest again.
Lorenzo reads the receipt, then sets it on top of the other pages, covering the notes I made beside Livia’s name. “Livia would never do this.”