The Villa

. I'll go to Italy, to the funeral to represent the family."
    "No, the time for you to stand in my place will come soon enough. Not yet. I need you here. Eli and I will go, and that's as it should be. I'll bring Francesca, Gina and the children back with me if they want it. God help us if they do," she finished with spirit and got to her feet.
    * * * * *
    Sophia studied Linc's office. No one, she decided, could accuse his father of preferential treatment. The room was little more than a glorified box, cramped, windowless and stacked with law books and files. She imagined there was a desk hiding under the mounds of paperwork.
    "Welcome to my dungeon. It's not much," Linc said as he cleaned off a chair for her. "But… it's not much." He dumped the files and books on the floor.
    "The nice thing about starting at the bottom is, you can't get any lower."
    "If I'm a good boy, I'll get my own stapler." With a skill that told her he'd done so before, he wheeled his desk chair around the mountain. From somewhere under the mounds of papers and books a phone began to ring.
    "Do you need to get that? Wherever it is."
    "If I do, somebody'll just want to talk to me. I'd rather talk to you."
    How anyone could work in such confusion and disorder was beyond her. She had to mentally sit on her hands to keep herself from digging in to organize. "Now I feel guilty about adding to your workload. But not guilty enough to stop me from asking if the papers I sent you are somewhere around, and if you had a chance to look them over."
    "I've got a system." He reached under a stack on the left corner of his desk, pulled out a file.
    "It's like the magician's tablecloth trick," she commented. "Nicely done."
    "Want to see me pull a rabbit out of my hat?" Grinning at her, he sat. "You covered yourself here," he began. "I fiddled with the press releases a little, got to earn my inflated fee, after all." He passed the revised papers over. "I take it you're acting as spokesperson for Giambelli-MacMillan."
    "I take it, too, at least as long as Nonna and Eli are in Italy. Mama's not trained for this sort of thing. I am."
    "David? Ty?"
    "I'll see they have copies, just in case. But it's best that the media representative be someone from the Giambelli family. We're the ones getting kicked around."
    "I'm sorry about Don."
    "So am I." She looked down at the releases again, but she didn't see them. "Funeral's today. I keep thinking about the last time I spoke to him, how scared he was. I know what he did, and I can't forgive him for it. But I keep remembering how scared he was, and how cold I was to him."
    "You can't slap yourself around for that, Sophie. Mom and Dad updated me on what went on, at least what we're sure of. He got greedy, and he got stupid. He was responsible for two deaths."
    "Accidents, he called them. I know what he did, Linc. But who was responsible for him?"
    "Which brings us around to DeMorney. You're going to have to be careful there. Keep his name out of your statements. Keep La Coeur out of them."
    "Mmm-hmm." Idly, she studied her manicure. "It's leaked that the police are questioning him in connection with the tampering, the fraudulent account, even my father's murder. I can't imagine how the press got the information."
    "You're a devious package, Sophie."
    "Spoken as my friend or my lawyer?"
    "Both. Just be careful. You don't want any leaks traced back to you. And if you're asked about DeMorney, and you're bound to be, go with no comment."
    "I have plenty of comments."
    "And the ones you're thinking of could dump you into a lawsuit. Let the system wind its tortuous way toward the end goal. If DeMorney was involved you don't have proof," he reminded her. "Let me be a lawyer. If he was involved, it's going to come out. But Don's word isn't enough."
    "He pulled the strings. I'm sure of it, and that's enough for me. People are dead, and why? Because he wanted a bigger market share? For God's sake."
    "People have killed for less, but I've got to say, that's the weak spot. He's a wealthy, respected businessman. It's going to be a rough road tying him to corporate espionage, embezzlement, product tampering, much less murder."
    "He's opened it up, and the press is going to leap on the juicy morsel about his wife and my father. Humiliating him publicly. He hates us and will hate us more as this plays out. I felt that when I saw him in New York. It's not business, or not just business. It's very personal. Linc, have you seen our new