Chapter 5 - THE WEDNESDAY ENZO LIED
“Ask Enzo about Wednesday.”
Four words, and I couldn't stop hearing them.
I wanted to call him immediately. I wanted to demand the truth in the bluntest words I knew. But Detective Price had told me that a person who might be withholding information was not necessarily someone I could safely confront alone. So I forwarded Julia's voicemails to her, sat down on the edge of my borrowed bed, and waited.
The next morning, Price met Enzo in a police interview room. I wasn't there, but she later described what he had said with his consent. On Wednesday, a day Carlo claimed Julia had left the estate for good, Enzo had secretly met her at a diner on the outskirts of the city.
Julia had approached him because she believed someone was falsifying Matteo's medical records. Enzo told her he needed proof before he could accuse Carlo. When she refused to return to the estate, he gave her cash, arranged a hotel room under a friend's name, and promised not to reveal her location.
Then he broke his promise in a different way: he hid the meeting from everyone, including Matteo and the police.
“He told himself he was protecting her,” Price said. “He was also protecting the Costa family's reputation. Those motives don't cancel each other out.”
“Does he know where she is now?” I asked.
“He says no. We're checking his account. He's agreed to provide the messages they exchanged.”
I thought about how Enzo had looked me in the eye and said he had no idea where Julia had gone. His silence had cost investigators days. People could be loyal and still do damage. I was learning that painfully.
When I finally saw him, he was standing outside the hospital elevators with his hands buried in his coat pockets.
“I lied to you,” he said before I could speak.
“Yes.”
“I thought Julia would be safer if nobody knew.”
“Did you ask what she wanted?”
“I thought I was doing what she wanted.”
“Then why didn't you tell her you were hiding information from the detectives trying to find her?”
He looked away. “Because I was ashamed. And because part of me wanted to fix it myself.”
I understood the impulse. In the Costa world, powerful men took pride in solving problems without admitting the problems existed. But silence had nearly killed Matteo.
“Tell the truth now,” I said. “Not to me. To the people whose job it is to protect her.”
Enzo nodded. He looked older than he had four days earlier.
Inside the cardiac unit, Matteo was stronger but still under careful observation. He could walk short distances and hold a conversation without falling asleep afterward. The team had explained his medicines and follow-up plan, and a physical therapist was helping him rebuild stamina. He hated every minute of being instructed to slow down.
“I keep thinking of the cup,” he told me. “I can remember the taste, but not why I started drinking it.”
“Carlo said it was your favorite,” I answered. “Maybe he made it feel easier to accept.”
Matteo nodded. “I was tired. I wanted someone I trusted to make decisions so I could rest.”
“You were ill. Trusting help isn't a crime.”
“Neither is questioning it.”
That was one of the few things we could agree on without arguing.
As he looked through old photographs from the estate, I told him about Enzo's meeting with Julia. Matteo stared at a picture of the three men on a fishing boat years before the illness, Carlo grinning in the middle, Enzo holding an enormous striped bass, Matteo pretending not to enjoy himself.
“I always thought Carlo was reckless and Enzo was careful,” he said. “Maybe that was too simple.”
“You can love someone and still ask what they did.”
He studied me. “Who taught you that?”
“My mother. When I was angry at her for not telling me how serious her illness was, she said love didn't mean agreeing with every decision.”
“Were you able to forgive her?”
“I was trying to when she died.”
He set the photograph aside. We were silent for a long moment, two strangers whose lives had collided over a cup of tea and who suddenly had no easy way to separate them again.
In the afternoon, Detective Price received a call from a legal representative working with Julia. The nurse would meet investigators at a neutral location if they agreed to protect her personal information and avoid bringing any Costa employee to the interview. They agreed.
Julia arrived at a public medical office the next day. I didn't attend the formal interview, but she asked to speak with me afterward. Price approved a short meeting with a victim advocate present.
Julia was in her early thirties, with dark circles under her eyes and a thin scar along her chin. She wore jeans and a blue cardigan, and she held a paper cup of water in both hands. The first thing she said was, “I'm sorry I let you walk into that house without warning you.”
“You didn't know me,” I replied.
“I knew Carlo was dangerous to anyone who questioned him.”
She told me she had been hired to review Matteo's medication records. She found gaps in documentation, contradictory orders, and a new vendor who supplied an unlabeled wellness blend intended for him. She had not witnessed anyone putting a harmful substance into a drink. But she saw that orders for the blend were routed through Diane Mercer's office rather than the treating clinicians.
“I asked to stop it,” she said. “Carlo told me to mind my charts.”
“Did you ever see him preparing a cup?”
“No. The kitchen handled the drink. Carlo delivered it.”
“Then why were you afraid of him?”
“Because when I challenged the orders, my badge stopped opening certain doors. A man followed me home. Someone put a copy of my daughter's school schedule under my windshield wiper.”
I felt sick. I hadn't known Julia had a child.
“She's staying with my sister,” Julia said quickly. “I didn't come forward until I knew she was safe.”
We sat together in silence. Both of us were women whose families had been turned into threats against us. I wanted to promise that the danger was over. I couldn't.
Julia leaned closer. “There's another reason I ran. I copied the financial records for the medical services, and I found something that didn't match the story Carlo was telling.”
“What?”
“The payments weren't just for nurses. Some were for witness management and personal security. Those aren't medical categories. They were disguised under clinical consulting codes.”
“Who received them?”
“A company called Westgate Asset Recovery. Diane approved the invoices. But the ultimate owner was hidden behind another company.”
“Carlo?”
“Maybe. I wouldn't swear to something I couldn't establish. I gave the records to the investigators so they can find out.”
Before leaving, Julia touched my hand. “You didn't discover this because you're a gardener's granddaughter. You discovered it because you listened to a sick man when powerful people wouldn't.”
I thought of my grandmother and wished she had heard that sentence.
That evening the detectives identified a troubling deadline. A Costa Industries board meeting was scheduled for Monday morning, with an emergency resolution to install Carlo as interim executive chairman. The resolution referred to Matteo's supposed incapacity and cited medical directives investigators now considered disputed.
Matteo's attorney moved to notify the board formally that the documents were contested and that Matteo remained capable of participating in decisions subject to medical advice. The corporate counsel ordered the resolution withdrawn pending review. Carlo responded through his lawyer, accusing Matteo of being manipulated by an unstable employee.
I read the accusation on my phone and felt the old heat of shame. It called me opportunistic, ignorant, and emotionally disturbed. It mentioned my unpaid medical debts. It did not mention the blood test, Julia's testimony, or the unauthorized invoices.
Mara Vale called within minutes. “Don't answer it publicly. We can respond through appropriate channels. Your finances do not determine whether your observations are true.”
But later that night I learned that the attack on my credibility was only the beginning.
A private investigator had approached my former landlord and offered money for statements describing me as unreliable. Another person had contacted my mother's old coworkers, asking whether she'd ever used medications incorrectly.
The fear was no longer confined to the Costa estate. It had begun spreading through the ordinary neighborhoods where I'd spent my whole life.
Then Detective Price called with a development that shifted the case again. The police had recovered a purchase order for the tea service's supplies, authorized by Diane Mercer but charged to a corporate account controlled by Carlo. The preparation instructions on the order had been changed after Dr. Keller warned staff to preserve the materials.
“And who made the change?” I asked.
“We're tracing the login. The account belongs to someone who was inside the estate the day Matteo was transported.”
“Who?”
Price hesitated. “The account is registered to the person responsible for the kitchen's inventory. Mrs. Delgado.”
I sat staring at the phone.
May you like
Mrs. Delgado had brought me a sweater, defended my wages, and told me about Julia. I could hear her saying, Don't let anyone tell you that you owe them.
The woman I trusted most in the household was now linked to a changed order for the very drink that had made Matteo sick.
