Page 93 of Kings & Chaos

Willa

The house was as stately inside as it was outside, and I couldn’t help wondering why Dean Giordana had been involved with the missing girls. I mean, sure, he could just be a garden-variety sicko, but Ruth Giordana must have loved him, and by all accounts they’d lived a comfortable life.

The whole thing was weird af, and I had the same feeling I used to get when I was little and Emma and I would pull out one of our old jigsaw puzzles, then agonize over the simple image only to realize at the end that we were missing several pieces.

I followed Mrs. Giordana down a long hall with a black-and-white marble floor.

She paused at a set of double doors, then seemed to take a breath before opening them.

I followed her inside and took in the room: dark wood-paneled walls, shelves lined with books and photographs, a desk that looked like an antique, and a sitting area with one of those leather sofas that looked like it should have had two big dogs lounging on top of it.

It wasn’t that different from his office at Aventine. Either he preferred the traditional decor or his wife had been responsible for decorating both rooms.

“What will you need from me?” Mrs. Giordana asked.

“Nothing at all,” I said. “I’ll just snap some pictures of his office and then I’ll be out of your way.”

“Just… give me a second,” she said, moving farther into the room. She moved a laptop off his desk along with some papers, shoving them into one of the drawers, then looked around, probably to make sure nothing too personal would be visible in the pictures.

I felt kind of bad now that I’d met her. She was clearly distraught, arms crossed over her chest, mouth turned down in a frown.

But I had to do this. I had to find out whatever I could about the people who had taken Emma, even if it meant sullying Dean Giordana’s memory. I was sorry that might hurt his wife, who seemed like a nice lady, but if Dean Giordana hadn’t wanted his wife to think he was a fucking sicko who hurt girls then he shouldn’t have been a fucking sicko who’d hurt girls.

I mean, the guy had planned to bury me alive. So sorry Mrs. Giordana, but fuck your psychopathic dead husband.

“I’d like to approve these before they’re printed,” she said. “Just to make sure I didn’t forget anything. This was Stephen’s private workspace.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’ll have Ron send you everything before we go to press.”

There was no Ron — obviously — so it was an easy promise to make.

I set down my bag and lifted my phone to start taking pictures.

9:58 a.m.

Two more minutes.

I pretended to study the room, like I was looking for the best angle, trying to kill time. I was glad I hadn’t counted on Mrs. Giordana leaving me alone in the room because she was still standing by the door, looking uncomfortable while I pretended I was on some kind of mission to capture the world’s most boring private study.

I’d taken two pictures and was starting to get nervous when the doorbell echoed through the house.

Finally.

“Oh, I…” Mrs. Giordana glanced at the hall through the open door. “I have to get that.”

“No problem,” I said. “I can finish up on my own.”

She hesitated, then hurried out of the room as the doorbell sounded again.

The second she was out of sight, I slipped my phone in my pocket and went to work, starting with the desk.

I didn’t bother with the laptop. It would be password protected, and the diversion at the front door would only buy me ten minutes max.

I focused on the papers she’d shoved into the desk first, but they were just various maintenance and expenditure requests for Aventine, including one for the installation of digital keypads on all the Admin doors.

Yikes. That was probably because of the last game. I didn’t know whether to feel guilty or proud.

I put those back with the laptop after making sure there wasn’t anything else in the drawer, then moved on to the rest of the desk. I was hopeful when I found a series of hanging files in one of the bottom drawers, but those turned out to be related to the house — repair receipts and owner’s manuals for appliances and such.

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