Chapter 10 - Carlo’s Price
Carlo wanted protection.
Not money.
Not freedom.
Protection.
That told me how frightened he was.
Through his attorney, he offered a statement in exchange for relocation and consideration on pending charges.
The district attorney made no promises.
Carlo talked anyway.
Vincent hired him six weeks before Isabelle died.
Not initially to kill her.
To follow her.
He wanted to know which lawyers she met, where she stored documents, whether she had spoken to police.
Then Isabelle confronted Vincent.
The job changed.
Carlo claimed Vincent paid him four hundred thousand dollars to make Isabelle’s death look like a random parking-lot shooting.
“Why broad daylight?” I asked Miriam after she returned from the proffer.
“To create witnesses who saw chaos instead of planning.”
“Did he admit pulling the trigger?”
“Yes.”
The answer should have satisfied something in me.
It did not.
“How?”
Miriam’s voice softened.
“You don’t need details.”
“I do.”
“No, Dominic. You want them.”
I looked away.
She continued.
“Carlo said Vincent provided Isabelle’s schedule and instructed him to recover her phone.”
“Does he still have it?”
“He says no.”
“Where is it?”
“He gave it to Vincent that afternoon.”
Of course.
“Anything else?”
Miriam hesitated.
“Carlo says Isabelle recognized him.”
My stomach turned.
“She knew?”
“Seconds before.”
I stood at the study window.
“She was alone?”
“No.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Carlo says someone else was in Isabelle’s car.”
My pulse changed.
“Who?”
“He doesn’t know. A woman.”
That made no sense.
Police reports said Isabelle arrived alone after dropping the girls at preschool.
“Adult?”
“Yes.”
“Description?”
“Dark coat. Sunglasses. Carlo never saw her clearly. She ran when the shooting began.”
A hidden witness.
Fourteen months.
No statement.
No identification.
“Could he be lying?”
“Absolutely.”
But something in Isabelle’s files had mentioned no mysterious woman.
We returned to the preschool timeline.
The girls had been entering school.
Isabelle parked.
Someone was inside her car.
At 9:17, Carlo approached.
Shots.
The woman fled.
Vincent arrived afterward, collected the phone and red mitten.
How did Vincent arrive so quickly?
Unless he was already nearby.
Grace joined me in the library that evening.
I told her about the unknown woman.
She frowned.
“Who did Isabelle trust?”
“Not many people by then.”
“Friends?”
“Several.”
“Family?”
“Mine mostly.”
Her wording made me look up.
Isabelle’s parents lived in Arizona. Her father was ill. Her mother had died years earlier.
My family had become hers.
My aunt Teresa.
My cousin Elena.
Mrs. Donnelly.
Then I remembered someone else.
Camille Romano.
Vincent’s wife.
They had separated nine months after Isabelle’s death.
Officially because Vincent cheated.
Camille moved to Connecticut and cut contact with everyone.
I had assumed embarrassment.
Now I called.
Number disconnected.
Miriam located a current address near Greenwich.
I drove there the next morning with Grace and one security car.
Camille answered after the third knock.
She looked thinner than I remembered.
Her face changed when she saw me.
“No.”
“Camille.”
“You cannot be here.”
“We need to talk about Isabelle.”
She started closing the door.
Grace spoke.
“Your husband tried to kill a witness in jail yesterday.”
Camille froze.
Then she looked at me.
“Carlo?”
That answered enough.
“You knew his name.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Come inside.”
The house was small, expensive and almost empty.
She locked three bolts behind us.
“I was in Isabelle’s car.”
I sat across from her.
“Why did you run?”
“Because Vincent told me he would kill my son.”
Camille and Vincent had one child, Nicholas, nineteen and studying in California.
“You watched my wife die and said nothing?”
“I called 911 from a burner phone.”
“You said nothing.”
“He showed me photographs of Nicholas outside his dorm.”
My anger collided with understanding and hated the result.
“What were you doing with Isabelle?”
Camille wiped her eyes.
“Helping her.”
“With what?”
“Leaving.”
The old wound reopened.
“She was leaving me.”
“She was trying to make you leave the business.”
I stared.
Camille continued.
“She believed if she disappeared with the girls, you would think Vincent helped her escape.”
“Why?”
“Because she wanted you angry enough to look at him.”
It was desperate.
Manipulative.
Very Isabelle.
“What happened that morning?”
“She told me she had enough evidence to expose Vincent.”
“What evidence?”
“A recording.”
“The one from Room 317?”
Camille shook her head.
“Another one.”
My pulse quickened.
“Of what?”
“Vincent talking to someone about you.”
“About me how?”
Camille began crying again.
“Dominic, Isabelle wasn’t the first person Vincent planned to kill.”
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The room tilted.
“He had already arranged your death.”
