Chapter 23: The Vault

I went down the cellar stairs alone.

Leandro had followed me to the top, and I had put my hand flat on his chest.

"Rule one," I said. "I'm asking you to wait."

"Mirella."

"Please."

He stayed on the top step with his arm in its sling, and I heard him not follow me all the way down.

The vault was a stone room at the end of the cellar, with a round iron door and a hanging bulb.

The door stood a hand's width open.

I had left my phone upstairs, because I wanted nothing in that room that could be cut up and used later.

Fiorella sat on the floor with her back to the shelves.

Around her lay the grey boxes of the trust records, and in her lap was a ledger bound in green cloth.

She held a silver lighter in her right hand.

She flicked it, and the flame stood up between us.

"You didn't bring the phone," she said.

"No."

"Good. This one's not for the tape."

She looked at the flame.

"I thought you'd ask me why I did it."

"I know why. You told me in Bay Ridge."

"I told you what I wanted a judge to hear." She closed the lighter, and opened it again. "Sit, Mirella. You look like you're about to fall over."

I sat down on a box.

It was cold in the vault, and I kept my coat on.

"Grandfather never liked me," Fiorella said.

"He liked everyone."

"He liked you. When I was seven I brought him a drawing, and he said it was very tidy."

She laughed, quietly.

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