Married to My Ex-Father-in-Law novel · Chapter 17 of 32

Chapter 17: The Handbag

I checked 1145. I checked 1150.

I took down every cast on that shelf, one at a time, and turned each one over and read its label.

Two hundred mouths.

None of them was Nicky's.

The back door was locked. The front door was locked. Nobody had pried anything.

Whoever took it had a key, or had been let in.

I sat down on the lab floor with plaster dust on my knees and made a list in my head.

Me.

Carmela, who had a key and a six-year-old and dusted that shelf.

Nonna, who had sat in my father's office at noon.

And Dom, who had stood in this room at six this morning holding it in both hands.

Who'd said he needed somewhere to think.

I called him.

It rang out.

I called again. It rang out again.

I called Carmela.

She was there in ten minutes, in sweatpants, with her car keys still in her fist.

She looked at the empty space on the shelf.

"He took it," she said.

"We don't know that."

"Dani. He held it in his hands this morning and then he left to go think. Think about what? About whether his kid goes to prison?" She was pacing. "Augie's his brother-in-law. Augie's been at his right hand for fourteen years. Maybe he walked it straight over there."

"He wouldn't."

"He married you to watch you. He said so."

I didn't have anything for that.

Then I heard myself say it.

"Did anybody come to you, Carm?"

She stopped pacing.

"What?"

"You have a key. You have a kid." My voice sounded like somebody else's. "If Augie came to you and said your boy's school, your boy's bus stop..."

Carmela stared at me.

Her face went red under all the eyeliner, and then it went white.

"Say that again," she said. "Say it to my face again, Dani, I dare you."

I couldn't.

The front bell rang.

Dom walked in.

His shirt was filthy at the knees. There was gravel dust on his trousers.

He'd been at the levee.

He looked at our faces, and then down the hall, and at the shelf.

"Where is it," he said.

"You tell me," I said.

He actually took a step back.

"You think I took it?"

"You held it this morning. You walked out with your face shut."

"I went to the levee." His voice was rising, and Dom's voice never rose. "I went and stood where his car was and tried to make myself believe he did it. Where's the cast, Daniela?"

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