Chapter 20: Consequences

Elio spent Sunday night in a windowless room at the county sheriff's office.

His lawyer sat beside him and said, twice, that he did not have to answer anything.

He answered everything.

He gave them the drive from the bottom drawer, the key to the office safe and the name of every person who had signed a paper.

He gave them his own signature on the clinic forms and the funeral bills.

"You understand this makes you a defendant," the detective said.

"Yes."

"You could walk out of here a witness, if you would stop volunteering."

"I helped do it," Elio said. "I'd rather be named."

The detective looked at his lawyer.

His lawyer shut his notebook.

"He's a man who wants to be punished," the lawyer said. "Charge what you want. He'll plead to it."

By Monday the headlines had changed.

The girl who killed her family was gone from every front page.

In her place, in black type, were her father's name, the insurance company's name and the word fraud.

Her father was held on charges of false death reports and insurance fraud.

Her mother had hired her own lawyer and was talking.

Gemma had been taken to a county facility, charged as a conspirator.

She had not said a word since the garden, the deputy told him, except to ask for a mirror.

At ten o'clock Elio stood outside the boardroom at Pellegrino Freight.

He had not been inside it for a week.

Forty percent of the company was no longer his.

He had come to resign anyway.

The board was already seated.

At the head of the table, in the chair that had belonged to his father-in-law for thirty years, sat Luca.

His eyes were red, and he had not shaved.

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