Chapter 9 - The Life After Dying
Rafe Corsaro went to jail.
Dr. Prentiss went with him.
The legal process took months, but neither disappeared behind Corsaro money or family influence.
Emilio testified.
So did Etta.
So did Mrs. Tunney.
Nurse Delaney cooperated with prosecutors.
Patrick Malloy’s death was formally reclassified as homicide after investigators established that his vehicle had been sabotaged following his confrontation with Rafe.
For Etta, the finding brought no simple relief.
Justice could correct a record.
It could not return a father.
One afternoon she visited Patrick’s grave alone.
She sat on the grass.
“You were right,” she whispered.
Wind moved through the oak trees.
“You were unbelievably annoying about being right, so you’d enjoy this.”
She smiled through tears.
Footsteps approached behind her.
Emilio.
He stopped several yards away.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Etta shook her head.
He sat beside her.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Emilio placed something between them.
Patrick’s motorcycle key.
Etta looked at it.
“What’s this?”
“Your motorcycle.”
“You said legally it was yours.”
“I have received excellent legal advice.”
“Meaning?”
“I gave it back.”
She picked up the key.
“You finally learned.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“I remain extremely wealthy and irritating.”
“That part seems incurable.”
“Dr. Shah agrees.”
By spring, Corsaro House had changed.
The contaminated wing was stripped to its frame and rebuilt.
Every sealed window was replaced with functioning glass.
The diffusers disappeared.
Emilio converted the old medical suite into a reading room.
The criminal portions of the Corsaro organization were dismantled or turned over as part of agreements with authorities.
Several legitimate businesses survived.
Emilio kept those.
He sold others.
He established a foundation supporting vocational training and environmental health inspections in older residential buildings.
When someone suggested naming it after him, he refused.
It became the Patrick Malloy Foundation.
Etta cried when she discovered that.
Then she threatened Emilio because he had not asked permission.
“You would have said no.”
“Correct.”
“That is why I didn’t ask.”
“That means you learned the wrong lesson.”
“Possibly.”
She kissed him anyway.
By June, Etta completed the next stage of her medical training.
Emilio attended the ceremony.
He sat beside Mrs. Tunney and clapped louder than anyone.
Etta spotted him from the stage.
A year earlier, he had been dying.
Now he looked annoyingly healthy in a charcoal suit.
Afterward, he gave her flowers.
Only flowers.
She inspected them suspiciously.
“No jewelry?”
“I’m traumatized by your river threat.”
“Good.”
“There is dinner.”
“That’s acceptable.”
“And possibly dessert.”
“Continue.”
“And perhaps a question.”
Etta narrowed her eyes.
“Emilio.”
He smiled innocently.
Dinner happened in the conservatory.
Not a restaurant.
Not a ballroom.
The same room where he had first begun recovering.
Citrus trees surrounded a small table.
The doors were open.
Warm New Orleans air moved freely through the room.
Etta noticed immediately.
“You opened everything.”
“You taught me windows are useful.”
She laughed.
After dinner, Emilio took her hand.
His expression became serious.
“I spent most of my life thinking love was possession.”
Etta said nothing.
“My father loved us by controlling us. Rafe loved nothing except what he could own. I learned from both of them.”
“You unlearned it.”
“I’m trying.”
He touched her fingers.
“When I was dying, I asked you to stay because I was frightened of being alone.”
Etta remembered.
“But I don’t want you to stay because I’m frightened anymore.”
He reached into his pocket.
This time, it really was a ring.
Etta stared.
Emilio did not kneel immediately.
First he said, “You can say no.”
She looked at him.
“I know.”
“You can say not yet.”
“I know.”
“You can also throw me into the river.”
“Very tempting.”
“Please consider the suit.”
She laughed through sudden tears.
Then Emilio knelt.
“Etta Malloy, will you marry me?”
She let him suffer for five full seconds.
His face became progressively more alarmed.
“Five seconds feels vindictive.”
“It was.”
“Etta.”
“Yes.”
He froze.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
Emilio stood too quickly, became dizzy, and grabbed the table.
Etta burst out laughing.
“This is not how I imagined this.”
“You survived poisoning but almost lost to a proposal.”
“Please stop narrating my humiliation.”
She wrapped her arms around him.
This time he held her without fear.
Without desperation.
Without asking her to become smaller so he could feel powerful.
“I love you,” he whispered.
It was the first time he said it.
Etta pulled back.
“You waited until after I agreed?”
“I was strategically cautious.”
“Coward.”
“Absolutely.”
She kissed him.
“I love you too.”
Outside, thunder rolled over New Orleans.
Rain began striking the conservatory roof.
Emilio looked upward.
For a moment, Etta saw the memory cross his face.
Rain inside walls.
A sealed bedroom.
A body slowly failing.
She squeezed his hand.
“You okay?”
He listened.
Rain.
Wind.
Her breathing.
His own heartbeat.
“Yes.”
Then Gabriel entered carrying an envelope.
Emilio groaned.
“Unless Louisiana is currently sinking, leave.”
“You need to see this.”
The envelope had no return address.
Inside was a single photograph.
Emilio and Etta stared at it.
It showed their engagement dinner.
Taken less than ten minutes earlier.
From outside Corsaro House.
On the back was one sentence.
Rafe wasn’t the only Corsaro who knew.
Emilio looked toward the dark garden.
May you like
Etta’s hand tightened around his.
The nightmare, apparently, had one final secret left.
