Chapter 4: Five Minutes

Dr. Coombs gave Elio five minutes.

Chiara set the terms herself: Dr. Coombs's office, the door open, Taylor in the chair by the window with her arms folded.

Elio sat across the desk and did not touch anything.

"You don't have to believe me," he said. "I'll tell you what's true and you can decide."

"Start with who you are."

"Elio Marcato. We've been married four years."

He slid his phone across the desk.

On the screen a woman in a white dress was laughing with her head thrown back, and a man in a black tuxedo was looking only at her.

Chiara studied the woman.

She had her face.

"She looks happy," Chiara said.

"You were."

"And you look like you loved her."

Elio's throat moved.

"I still do."

She pushed the phone back.

"Then tell me what you did that I would write your name on a list."

Taylor's chair creaked.

Elio looked at his hands.

"Three years ago your parents and your sister went missing after a car fire," he said. "The police said they were dead."

"I know that part. I remember being told."

"They weren't dead. Your father had arranged it with your brother and me, a staged crash, a house in the hills. They hid."

"And I didn't know."

"No."

"Why not?"

"They believed a psychic who said you would hurt your sister. I helped them hide it. I told myself it was temporary."

He said it plainly, one fact at a time, and did not look up.

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