Chapter 8: The Lawyer Who Knew Too Much
Giada's lawyer arrived at nine-fifteen.
He was a tall man named Sutter, silver-haired, with the practiced ease of someone who billed by the quarter-hour and had never once been kept waiting.
He came in a car that arrived before anyone had called a gate code — which meant someone had given it to him already.
Alessio met him in the front hall.
I stood at the top of the stairs and listened.
"My client has been detained against her will," Sutter said.
"I'd like to speak with her immediately."
"She hasn't been detained," Alessio said.
"She's been asked to remain in a room."
"The distinction is yours, not the law's." Sutter held his briefcase with both hands.
"I'd also like to know what documentation you believe you have, and under what authority you intend to present it."
"That's a conversation for the DA's office."
"You've contacted the DA."
"I have."
A pause.
"Alessio." Sutter's voice shifted — less formal, more careful.
"I've known your family for twenty years.
I'm asking you, as someone who has that history, to think carefully before you do something that cannot be undone."
"Someone put a bead in my son's airway," Alessio said.
"That's the thing that cannot be undone."
"You have a compound match and a housekeeper's statement.
That's not a case."
"Carver signed the documentation."
Sutter went quiet.
"You know who Carver is," Alessio said.
"So you know what his signature means."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"Let me speak to Giada," Sutter said.
"Room at the end of the east corridor.
Marco will take you."
Sutter walked past without looking up.
His footsteps were measured and even.
A man recalculating.
Alessio came up the stairs.
He stopped two steps below me.
"He knew about Carver," I said.
"Yes."
"How?"
"Because Giada called him before she walked into the study last night." He looked at me steadily.
"She told him she might need him.
She called him before she knew what we had found."
That sat between us for a moment.
"She called her lawyer before she knew she needed one," I said.
"Yes."
"That's not something an innocent person does."
"No."
From the east corridor, we heard the sitting room door open and close.
Muffled voices began — Giada's, then Sutter's, then Giada's again, faster.
Then a silence that stretched too long.
Then Sutter's voice, distinct even through the wall: "You told me it was only going to be the camera."
A beat.
Then nothing.
Alessio's expression didn't change.
He turned and walked back down the stairs toward the study.
I followed.
He sat at the desk, opened a drawer, and placed a small digital recorder on the surface between us.
"The sitting room has an intercom panel," he said.
"Old system.
Original to the house.
It connects to the study." He looked at the recorder.
"I turned it on when Marco took Sutter down the hall."
I looked at the recorder.
"Is that legal?" I said.
"In my house?
Yes." He pressed play.
Sutter's voice came through clearly: *You told me it was only going to be the camera.*
Then Giada: *The camera wasn't enough.
He was going to find out about Elena anyway.
I had to move faster.*
Then Sutter, lower: *Giada, stop talking.*
Then silence.
Alessio stopped the recording.
He looked at me across the desk.
"She told me it was only going to be the camera," I said.
"She planned to loop the feed and let Leo be found in the morning," he said.
"By the housekeeper.
Without a nanny present.
Without anyone who knew what to look for." His voice was very flat.
"If you hadn't been there — if you hadn't gone in at 2:02 — Leo would have been found at six AM."
I didn't say anything.
"She didn't expect you to go in," he said.
"The nanny before you never checked after midnight.
She thought the pattern would hold."
The room was very quiet.
"You need to send that recording to the DA," I said.
"Today.
Before Sutter advises her to say anything that contradicts it."
"I know."
"And you need to tell them about the intercom system so the recording is properly sourced."
"I know that too."
He looked at the recorder for a moment longer.
Then he picked up his phone and dialed.
While he spoke, I walked to the window.
The grounds were brightening now — pale winter light moving across the wet gravel, the gate at the far end standing open for the sedan that was already pulling away.
Sutter's car.
Leaving without Giada.
I watched it go and thought about a woman in a silk robe on a small sofa, hands folded, foot tapping, running out of moves.
Behind me, Alessio said into the phone: "I have a recording.
I need to know how to submit it without losing the chain of custody."
A pause.
"Yes," he said.
"Tonight if possible."
May you like
He caught my eye through the window reflection.
For the first time since 2 AM, something in his face had loosened — not relief, not yet, but the particular quality of a man who has stopped being alone with a problem.
