He told me what happened with Elena the following evening.
He came home to the Coconut Grove house at nine — Charlotte was asleep, I was at the kitchen table with wedding planning notes and cold tea — and he sat across from me with the specific quality of someone who had completed something significant and was putting it down.
"Elena," I said.
"Elena," he confirmed.
"Tell me," I said.
He told me.
Elena Romano had spent forty years being exactly who she was — someone who moved the pieces on the board around other people and called it assistance. She had helped Stella access the gala because it served a larger plan. She had positioned a woman she approved of for Dante while simultaneously using Stella's obvious interest as misdirection. She had drugged her own cousin at a family event.
