“I don’t know, Jessi.”
A pause.
“But Luca does.”
For several seconds after Naomi spoke, I heard nothing but my own breathing.
“I don’t know, Jessi,” she had said.
“But Luca does.”
I gripped the edge of Evelyn’s kitchen table.
Across from me, Evelyn had gone completely still.
Phoebe’s voice came through the speakerphone.
“Naomi, where are you right now?”
“In my car.”
“Where?”
Naomi hesitated.
“In a parking garage downtown.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to make this call from my apartment.”
That answer changed the air in the room.
Not because it sounded dangerous.
Because it sounded frightened.
Naomi had never been dramatic.
In seven years of working for me, she had handled missed flights, broken contracts, family emergencies, investor meltdowns, and once a hotel evacuation in London without raising her voice.
She color-coded disasters.
She did not hide in parking garages.
“Naomi,” I said softly, “start at the beginning.”
She let out a slow breath.
“The beginning is probably six months ago.”
“The letter?”
“Yes.”
I looked again at the photograph on my phone.
My father’s handwriting.
For Jessica, when necessary.
Even through a screen, I could picture the pressure of his pen.
He had always written slowly.
Deliberately.
As though even grocery lists deserved careful consideration.
“How did Luca find it?”
“The study.”
“You mean Dad’s library?”
“Yes.”
“That room is locked.”
“I know.”
Evelyn looked at me.
I could see the same thought crossing her face.
Only three people had keys.
Me.
Evelyn.
And Naomi.
My stomach tightened.
