That’s all I had left of them.Memories.
When Daisy asked me what the huge doors leading to one of the wings were, I decided to make it very clear. "Off-limits. If you go in there, you'll die instantly.Capisci?"
“Yes...” she muttered with her grumpy little ferret face, and I almost allowed myself a smile.Almost.
I answered the occasional questions she asked me, mostly about the paintings and pictures we came across in the corridors. When there was nothing left to show her inside the house, I led her through the two huge glass doors that illuminated the main living room and showed her the back garden. I guided her across the patio, along a path paved with slabs and flanked by lemon trees and fresh grass, which led to a tiny little house.
I opened the door to the housekeeper house and motioned for her to enter.
“This is where you will stay,” I announced as soon as we stepped into a modest little room that could fit little more than a sofa. "When the famiglia had a housekeeper, this is where she used to stay. You have everything you need. Kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and living room. And of course, you can use the garden without restriction."
“What happened to the previous housekeeper? Did you guys kill her?”
I narrowed my eyes, wondering what the hell Hollywood had been teaching ordinary people about people like us.
“Of course not...” I replied reluctantly. “She retired when I was still a child, and we never hired anyone else.”
“And there are no other maids?” I noticed a glint of suspicion in those tiny eyes of hers.
Piccola Furetta.
I shrugged. “No.”
“And who usually cleans it?”
I gritted my teeth and stared at her with annoyance, a loud sigh escaping my chest. “Three ladies used to come once a week to clean the villa, but they decided to retire recently. There's no live-in maid.Capisci?”
"Aw. So, I'll be the only maid of this huge house? I'd even feel special, if I weren't working for my soon-to-be murderer."
Dio santo. I was going to end up strangling her.
“You should be grateful you're still here, instead of insisting on these provocations.” I saw how her gaze narrowed with each of my words and her mouth twisted in a challenge that did not go unnoticed. I couldn't help but thinking how interesting it would be to fill her with something more than idle chatter. I cleared my throat and turned my attention to a distant corner of the room, immediately chasing away the damn thought. “Besides, Signorina Parker, I must point out that you were very well paid for the services you will perform.”
“You must be kidding me!” Her shriek made me spin around immediately. She stared at me with a challenging look, her chin up. “Youkidnappedme! This isn’t a job, and you certainly never paid me a penny! NOTHING!”
Knowing that arguing would get me nowhere, especially since she always seemed to have something ready to add, I took out my phone and opened a document that Alessandro Lombardi had sent me. “Here.” I showed her the screen, watching her shrink slightly. “Read it.”
Hesitantly, she looked at the phone as if it were a weapon, but then deigned to move her fingers across the screen and read. She frowned, as if the document were written in hieroglyphics, but seconds later, her expression was one of pure horror.
“You paid the mortgage.” Her voice was a weak whisper. She stepped back a little and stared at me with wide eyes, the redness on her face replaced by a deep pallor. “It was a fortune...”
“È vero.” I confirmed, but I wouldn't have called it a fortune, because it wasn't. Any amount under five million was small change, which could be spent in the blink of an eye, of course, but that was a reality that most people didn't understand. The right term for her mortgage, considering the interest they had charged her, was theft. A big, blatant theft. "As I said, you were very well paid, Signorina Parker. Much more than anyone else would have paid you."
“Someone else wouldn’t want to kill me, that’s for sure.” She protested, but immediately wrapped her arms around her body, just as she had done before we embarked for Italy. “I suppose the numbers on that document are how much my life is worth...” Her gaze was lost somewhere between us. “At least Aunt Lizzie will have her future secured.”
My throat tightened and I hid my hands in the pockets of my jeans. I hadn't seen it that way. I paid the mortgage because it would make sense if the U.S. authorities came to investigate her death in the future. They would know that Daisy Parker came to work for me and was paid generously. Of course, she would die in some unfortunate accident. And if her famigliaraised questions, I would simply pay someone to impersonate this ‘Pasquale’ to ensure that I was only her employer.
Simple and practical.
Now, the value of her life? No, I wouldn't dare to assess someone's life. Even less so for a person whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I watched her for a few moments, noticing in her frown the debate that was going on in her mind. She was scared. Her arms tightly wrapped around her body revealed that, and that the sparkle in her eyes was not mere coincidence.
“You shouldn't think about what brought you here,” I murmured with difficulty, my body reacting to the fragility she tried to hide behind impertinence and false bravado.
When she turned her attention back to me, she lowered her arms, putting the mask back on. “I want to know when it’s going to happen.”
I laughed, amused by that demand. Piccola Furetta. A little ferret, no doubt. “Even I don’t know that.”