Chapter 13
Marco’s financial case expanded.
The foundation recovered records from vendors.
Bank accounts were examined.
Former employees cooperated.
The $1.1 million initially identified grew as auditors traced additional transactions.
The process was slow.
Technical.
Nothing like the dramatic collapse family members expected.
Marco hired aggressive counsel.
Some allegations were disputed.
Others were impossible to explain away.
The recovered audio from Elena’s vehicle became the most emotionally devastating evidence, but prosecutors treated it carefully.
The recording proved Marco arrived while Elena was alive.
His own later statement established he handled her phone.
Digital analysis showed files were deleted shortly before the device permanently lost power.
What it could not prove was that an earlier emergency call would certainly have saved her.
Domenico had to accept that uncertainty.
There would never be a document saying:
Marco caused Elena’s death.
Reality refused to become that simple.
Camilla gave her formal statement.
Afterward, she moved out of the home she shared with Marco.
She did not ask Domenico for protection.
She rented an apartment in White Plains.
For the first time in thirty years, she lived alone.
Livia asked about her.
“Is Aunt Camilla bad?”
Domenico had learned to hate that question.
“No.”
“Then why she can't come?”
“Because she did something very wrong.”
Livia thought about it.
“Like breaking vase?”
“No.”
Domenico sat beside her.
“Breaking something by accident is different from knowing something is wrong and hiding it.”
Livia looked down at her hands.
Then she asked:
“Is Mommy letter mad?”
Domenico swallowed.
“I don't think so.”
“What Mommy wanted?”
“The truth.”
Livia seemed satisfied.
Children could sometimes understand the core of things faster than adults.
Domenico preserved Elena’s original letter in a private family archive.
Not the evidence copies.
The actual envelope.
May you like
One day Livia would be old enough to read it herself.
He refused to decide what Elena’s words would mean to her before that day arrived.
