The Villa

been practicing for an hour and still I'm useless on this thing."
    She pushed back from the desk, glanced up—and froze.
    "What is it? What's wrong?" She knew every line, every curve, every expression of her daughter's face. Her stomach twisted painfully as she rushed across the room. "What's happened?"
    "Mama." Everything changes now, Sophia thought. Once it was said, nothing was ever going to be the same again. "Mama, it's Dad."
    "Is he hurt? Is he ill?"
    "He…" She couldn't say the words. Instead, she released Ty's hand and wrapped her arms tight around her mother.
    The twisting in Pilar's stomach stilled. Everything inside her stilled. "Oh God. Oh my God." Pressing her face to Sophia's hair, she began to rock. "No. Oh, baby, no."
    "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Mama. We found him. In my apartment. Someone… someone killed him there."
    "What? Wait." Shaking, she drew back. "No."
    "Sit down, Pilar." Tyler was already leading them both to the curved love seat against the wall.
    "No, no. This can't be right. I need to—"
    "Sit," Tyler repeated and gently pushed both of them down. "Listen to me. Look at me." He waited while Pilar groped for Sophia's hand. "I know this is hard for both of you. Avano was in Sophia's apartment. We don't know why. It looked like he was meeting someone there."
    Pilar blinked. Her mind seemed to be skipping, as if there was a tooth missing on a gear. "In Sophie's apartment? Why do you say that? What do you mean?"
    "There was a bottle of wine on the table. Two glasses." He'd memorized the scene. Quiet elegance, stark death. "It's likely whoever it was he met there killed him. The police have already questioned Sophia."
    "Sophia." Her fingers gripped her daughter's like a clamp. "The police."
    "And they're going to have more questions for her. For you. Maybe all of us. I know it's hard, hard to think straight, but you have to prepare yourself to deal with them. I think you should call a lawyer. Both of you."
    "I don't want a lawyer. I don't need a lawyer. For God's sake, Ty, Tony's been murdered."
    "That's right. In his daughter's apartment, only days after divorcing you and marrying someone else. Only days after Sophie went after him in public."
    Guilt, ugly and fierce, bared its teeth inside Sophia. "Goddamn it, Ty, if either of us was going to kill him, we'd have done it years ago."
    Tyler shifted his gaze to Sophia's. The energy was back, he noted, and it was furious. That, he decided, was a plus. "Is that what you're going to say to the cops? Is that what you're going to say to the reporters when they start calling? Publicity's your business, Sophie. Think."
    Her breath was coming too fast. She couldn't stop it. Something inside her wanted to explode, to burst out of the fragile skin of control and scream. Then she felt her mother's hand tremble in hers, and reeled it back in. "All right. But not yet. Not now. We're entitled to mourn first." She drew her mother closer. "We're entitled to be human first."
    She got to her feet, walked to the door on legs that felt stiff and brittle. "Would you go down, talk to Nonna and Eli? Tell them what they need to be told. I want to be alone with my mother."
    "Okay. Pilar." He bent down, touched her knee. "I'm sorry." He met Sophia's eyes as he walked out. The great, dark depth of them was all he saw as she closed the door between them.

CHAPTER TEN
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    Ty was right, but Sophia would stew about that later. It might help to have something petty to brood about. The reporters started to call less than ten minutes after she'd told her mother, and before she'd been able to go downstairs and speak with her grandmother.
    She knew the line they would take. Unity. And she was prepared to go head-to-head with the police to soften the blow for her mother.
    There would be no comment to the press until she was able to write the appropriate release. There would be no interviews. She was perfectly aware her father's murder would generate a media circus, but the Giambellis would not step into the center ring and perform.
    Which meant she had a great many phone calls to make to family members and key employees. But the first—damn Tyler—was to Helen Moore.
    They needed legal advice.
    "I've called Aunt Helen," she told Tereza.
    "Good." Tereza sat in the front parlor, her back ruler-straight, her face composed. "Your mother?"
    "She wanted a few minutes alone."
    With a nod, Tereza lifted her hand, took Sophia's. It was a connection, and it was