Carlo laughed.
It was a small sound, but Marco’s head lifted as though he had heard music from another lifetime.
“When did he last laugh?” I asked.
Marco looked out the window.
“Not recently.”
The house with the lions stood behind iron gates on a quiet street far from the diner.
Two stone lions guarded the front steps exactly as Carlo had described.
The mansion was not flashy.
It was old, severe, and beautiful, with limestone walls and tall windows glowing against the storm.
A doctor met us inside.
Carlo would not release my hand during the examination, so I stayed beside him while the doctor checked his temperature, breathing, blood pressure, and the bruising on his arm.
Mild hypothermia, exhaustion, and a dangerous level of confusion, but no broken bones.
“He was lucky,” the doctor said.
Marco looked at me.
“No.
He was found.”
The doctor helped Carlo into warm clothes.
Someone brought tea.
Another person returned my coat after drying it, but Carlo insisted on keeping it around his shoulders until he fell asleep in a sitting room chair.
Only then did Marco lead me across the hall.
The room we entered looked like a private gallery.
Paintings covered the walls—quiet landscapes, family portraits, and a luminous image of a dark-haired woman standing beside Lake Michigan.
I moved closer before I could stop myself.
“The brushwork is early twentieth century,” I said.
“Probably local.
The frame is newer than the canvas.”
Marco watched me.
“You work in a diner.”
“I study art history.”
“At midnight?”
“Online.
Usually after my shifts.”
His gaze shifted toward the portrait.
“That is my mother, Martha.”
I looked at the woman’s painted face and understood why Carlo had stared at me with such desperate hope.
We didn’t look alike, but the portrait carried the same dark hair and tired kindness he had searched for beneath the awning.
“She died eleven years ago,” Marco said.
“My father was diagnosed with dementia four years later.
Some days he knows she is gone.
Other days he tries to call her.”
“With a shoe.”
“Tonight, apparently.”
He rubbed a hand over his face.
It was the first unguarded gesture I had seen from him.
“How did he leave?” I asked.
“A service entrance was left unsecured while a delivery arrived.
His caregiver believed he was in the library.
By the time anyone understood, he had been gone nearly an hour.”
“And the police?”
“My family has reasons to avoid involving them before we understand a situation.”
“That sounds like an admission.”
“It is an explanation.”
Marco opened a drawer and removed a thick envelope.
He placed it on the table between us.
“For the inconvenience.”
I knew what envelopes like that meant even before I saw the bills.
