Chapter 3 - The Appointment Bianca Never Told Me About
Vittorio did not confront Bianca immediately.
That was the first decision he made differently from the man he had been twenty minutes earlier.
Anger had already sent Marcus through an antique map rack. Anger would not tell him why Bianca had kept Lucy home from school in advance.
He needed facts.
Emma stayed with Lucy while Vittorio went downstairs.
Marcus had moved into the formal sitting room and was holding a cold towel to his face. Bianca stood near the fireplace making a call.
She ended it the moment Vittorio entered.
“Who were you calling?”
“My attorney.”
“Good.”
His answer seemed to unsettle her.
Vittorio walked past her and opened the family calendar on the tablet kept in the breakfast-room cabinet.
Lucy’s school schedule appeared first.
Then a private entry at 10:30 that morning.
Dr. Renee Fallon — Family Assessment.
Vittorio stared at it.
He knew the name.
Fallon was a child psychologist in Greenwich whom Bianca had mentioned casually two weeks earlier.
Not as someone Lucy was seeing.
As someone Bianca “might call eventually.”
Vittorio opened the appointment notes.
The meeting had been scheduled six days earlier.
Both parents requested.
He had requested nothing.
Bianca watched him realize it.
“You were going to explain this when?”
“She needed help.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“She’s been spiraling for months.”
Upstairs, Lucy was curled against a household assistant because she was afraid of footsteps outside her own bedroom.
Yet Bianca was still speaking as though Lucy were the problem.
Vittorio called Dr. Fallon’s office himself.
The receptionist could not discuss clinical details, but she confirmed that Bianca had arranged an initial parent consultation and said she expected her husband to attend remotely.
Vittorio had never been given the link.
That was not the only surprise.
The receptionist mentioned documents Bianca had already submitted.
School notes.
Behavior logs.
A written household summary.
Vittorio ended the call and looked at his wife.
“You’ve been creating a record.”
“I’ve been documenting what’s been happening.”
“What’s been happening according to whom?”
“According to everyone who actually spends time with her.”
Emma appeared in the doorway behind him.
Bianca noticed her and stopped.
That pause told Vittorio more than the answer would have.
Emma spoke anyway.
“I never wrote anything.”
Bianca’s eyes sharpened.
“I didn’t say you did.”
“No. You said everyone.”
Marcus entered from the sitting room.
“Can we not turn this into some conspiracy?”
Vittorio turned toward him.
Marcus stopped walking.
There it was again.
Marcus seemed less interested in defending Bianca than in controlling what the conversation became.
Vittorio remembered Emma’s comment about the study.
“What were you doing in my office last night?”
Marcus gave him a baffled expression that arrived half a second too late.
“I wasn’t.”
Lucy’s torn clothes suddenly mattered again.
Vittorio crossed to the study.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, nothing looked obviously disturbed.
His desk was neat.
The filing drawers were closed.
The secure terminal was asleep.
Then he noticed the small brass wastebasket beside the desk.
A strip of cream stationery had been torn into pieces.
He recognized the letterhead.
Hale Restoration Group.
Marcus’s company.
Vittorio crouched and pulled out several scraps.
One contained an invoice number.
Another showed part of the address of Vittorio’s property.
He checked the desk ledger.
That invoice had been approved three weeks earlier.
For masonry repairs to the east retaining wall.
Vittorio had walked that wall two days ago.
No work had been done.
He looked back toward Marcus.
May you like
The problem had just become larger than what happened at breakfast.
And Marcus had suddenly become far more important to it.
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