My Three Daughters Were Silent for 14 Months—Then They Named the Killer Living Under My Roof 3093

Nobody moved.

Olivia's voice had been so quiet that another room might have swallowed it.

The kitchen did not.

Sebastian looked at her as if he had never seen her before.

"Liv," I said.

She flinched at the sound of her name.

I hated myself for it.

I sat down.

Not because I wanted to. Because Grace had been right. Standing made me larger. Louder. More like the men my daughters had spent a year learning to fear.

"You don't have to say anything else," I told Olivia.

Her eyes stayed on Sebastian.

He gave a soft laugh that failed halfway out.

"She's remembering a car. There were probably fifty cars in that lot."

"You said you were in Queens," I said.

"I was."

"Then why are you explaining Garden City?"

His jaw tightened.

"Because you're looking at me like you want an excuse."

"I want the truth."

"You had the truth fourteen months ago."

Sophie appeared beside Olivia.

She held the bent photograph in both hands.

Then she pointed at Sebastian.

"Blue car," she whispered.

Grace closed her eyes for half a second.

Sebastian took one step backward.

"This is insane."

Nora began humming.

It was the song again, but only the first four notes.

Over and over.

Grace immediately knelt beside her.

"We're done," she said.

Her voice was directed at me, not Sebastian.

"Take them upstairs."

"I was going to."

"Use Isabelle's old room. Lock the door."

That made Sebastian snap his head toward me.

"Lock the door? Against me?"

"Against everyone."

"Dominic—"

"Not another word until they're upstairs."

The girls left with Grace.

Mrs. Donnelly came in from the hall carrying a dish towel. She took one look at the room and stopped.

"What happened?"

"Go with Grace."

"Dominic, I—"

"Please."

I almost never said please in my own house.

She heard what I could not say and went.

Sebastian waited until the stairway door closed.

Then he turned on me.

"You think I killed Isabelle?"

The question was too direct.

I had expected denial before accusation.

"Did you?"

He stared at me.

"You're out of your mind."

"Maybe."

"I held you together after she died."

"I remember."

"I found the funeral home when you couldn't choose one. I slept outside those girls' rooms because you were running around the city trying to start a war. I handled your meetings. I kept the family from tearing itself apart."

"I remember all of that too."

"Then what are we doing?"

I walked to the counter and picked up the spilled milk glass. The outside was cold and wet in my hand.

"Olivia spoke."

His face changed again.

There it was—not guilt, exactly. Fear.

"After fourteen months," I said. "She spoke when you were in the room. She said her mother told them to get down. Sophie pointed at your picture. Nora screamed when you reached toward her."

"They're traumatized."

"Yes."

"Traumatized children mix things up. That's why those therapists told you not to pressure them."

"Interesting you remember that."

"I was in the meetings."

He was.

Every one of them.

The thought made me sick.

Sebastian ran a hand through his hair.

"Call Dr. Feldman. Right now. Ask him what memory after trauma looks like in children. Ask him whether a five-year-old can attach a familiar face to something she doesn't understand."

It was a reasonable point.

I hated him for making it.

"I will."

"Good."

"And I'm reopening everything else."

His hand stopped in his hair.

"What everything else?"

"The police file. Security logs. Tolls. Phones. Cars. Everybody's alibi. Mine too."

He laughed again, sharper this time.

"You want Nassau County crawling through our lives?"

"My wife was murdered."

"Your wife was murdered because of our lives. You invite cops back in, they're not going to stop at Isabelle."

"Then maybe I should have thought about that fourteen months ago."

He stared at me as if he did not know who I was.

That was fair. I did not know either.

"You punished the people who did it," he said.

A cold weight settled behind my ribs.

"Did I?"

He looked away.

One second.

Maybe less.

"Dom."

"Did I?"

"That's what we knew."

"No. That's what you told me."

His face hardened.

"Careful."

The word came out almost gently.

I set the glass down.

"Are you threatening me in my kitchen?"

"I'm reminding you what grief did to you. You were not thinking straight. None of us were."

"You seemed pretty clearheaded."

"Somebody had to be."

That sentence stayed with me.

Somebody had to be.

At eight thirty, Sebastian went to the west wing and shut his door.

I did not stop him.

I called two men I trusted and told them nobody left the property without my approval.

Then I called Detective Marisol Reyes.

She had been the Nassau County homicide detective assigned to Isabelle's case. Forty-something, dark hair going gray at the temples, patient eyes, and a talent for making silence feel like a request rather than a weapon.

She answered on the fourth ring.

"Romano."

No hello.

I deserved that.

"I need to talk to you."

"You needed to talk to me fourteen months ago."

"I know."

The line went quiet.

"That sentence cost you something," she said.

"My daughters started speaking today."

I heard a chair move on her end.

"What did they say?"

"I don't want to coach them."

Another silence.

This one felt different.

"Good," she said. "Don't."

"One of them named someone."

"Who?"

I looked toward the ceiling, toward the locked room where my girls were sleeping with Grace on a chair outside the door.

"My brother."

Reyes did not react the way anyone in my world would have.

No curse.

No accusation.

No dramatic pause.

Just a question.

"Is Sebastian Romano in the house right now?"

"Yes."

"Do not confront him again."

I looked at the broken shape of our dinner on the table.

"Too late."

"Of course it is."

She sighed.

"Listen to me now. Keep the children away from him. Don't discuss details in front of them. Don't search his rooms. Don't touch his devices. Don't decide you're the police because you own men with guns. I can come tomorrow morning with a child forensic interviewer, but only if you let us do our jobs."

"Come tonight."

"No. The girls are exhausted, and if you want anything they say to survive scrutiny later, you don't turn this into a midnight interrogation."

My fingers tightened around the phone.

Every part of me wanted action.

Doors kicked open. Answers dragged into daylight.

"Tomorrow," she repeated.

I looked at Isabelle's empty chair.

"Tomorrow."

Before I hung up, Reyes said, "Dominic?"

"Yeah."

"If your brother knows the girls spoke, assume he may act differently now."

I glanced toward the hallway.