Chapter 5 - THE FIANCÉE WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
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Dominic dropped beside Marcus.
“Stay with me!”
Blood spread across the investigator's shoulder. The bullet had passed through the flesh without striking his chest, but the wound was serious.
“Lock down the house!” Dominic shouted.
His guards flooded the hallway.
Nobody had entered through the front doors. Nobody had left through the rear entrance. Yet someone had crossed a guarded mansion, stolen a letter, and shot the only investigator Dominic trusted.
“Where's Vanessa?” he demanded.
A guard hurried toward the guest wing.
Thirty seconds later, he returned.
“The room is empty, boss.”
Dominic stood slowly.
“Find her.”
He wanted to tear the house apart with his bare hands, but Emma was upstairs. She had already endured enough fear to last a lifetime.
He ordered the staff to secure her bedroom and called a private physician for Marcus.
Then he searched the mansion himself.
He found Vanessa in the underground garage, attempting to open a service door with a stolen keycard.
Two guards seized her before she could escape.
“Dominic!” she cried. “Thank God. You have to listen to me.”
He stared at her.
“You disappeared from a locked room during a security lockdown.”
“I didn't shoot Marcus!”
“You stole Isabella's letter.”
“I was trying to save you!”
Dominic seized her arm.
“From what?”
Vanessa looked toward the staircase.
“From the truth.”
He released her so abruptly that she stumbled.
“Try me.”
She began crying.
“Vincent told me Isabella had been killed. He showed me photographs of the wreckage. He said if I told you anything, he'd have Emma taken away.”
“You expected me to believe you were protecting my daughter by locking her in her room?”
“I was afraid!”
“So was she!”
Vanessa flinched.
For the first time, she seemed unable to find a convincing excuse.
Dominic escorted her back to the living room and ordered the guards to search her belongings. Inside her handbag, they found a burner phone, a passport, and a folded sheet of paper.
The paper contained a set of instructions.
Bring the bear to the old chapel before midnight. Come alone. If Dominic follows you, the girl disappears.
Dominic read the message.
“Who sent this?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I don't know. It appeared on my phone this afternoon.”
“You were planning to take Emma's bear to the chapel?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Vincent told me the recorder contained something he needed.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“What?”
“I don't know!”
He watched her closely.
Vanessa's fear looked real. That did not make her innocent.
“What did you do to Isabella?”
Vanessa lowered her eyes.
“I argued with her. I took a folder from her. I thought it contained information that would destroy my future.”
“Did you arrange the accident?”
“No.”
“Did you know she would be attacked?”
Vanessa began sobbing.
“I knew Vincent wanted to frighten her. I never thought he'd kill her.”
Dominic went very still.
“You knew he planned to attack my wife?”
“I didn't know when or where!”
“That's not a denial.”
Vanessa pressed her hands against her face.
“I thought he would scare her into giving him the documents. I thought she'd come home afterward.”
Dominic stared at the woman he had once intended to marry.
He remembered choosing a ring. Planning a ceremony. Telling himself that Emma needed a mother figure and that Vanessa could help him build a quieter life.
He had mistaken ambition for stability.
“You're going to tell the police everything,” he said.
Vanessa shook her head desperately.
“Dominic, Vincent will kill me.”
“Then you should have thought about that before helping him.”
He ordered his guards to take her to a secure room and called the local authorities to arrange formal questioning.
But before the officers arrived, Emma appeared at the top of the staircase.
“Daddy?”
Dominic immediately went to her.
“What are you doing out of bed, princess?”
She held the teddy bear against her chest.
“I heard the gun.”
He knelt and wrapped his arms around her.
“It's over. You're safe.”
Emma shook her head.
“No, Daddy. It's not over.”
Dominic pulled back.
“What do you mean?”
She reached into the bear's pocket and removed a tiny folded piece of paper.
“I found this when Sophie fixed his shirt.”
Dominic unfolded it.
Three words were written in Isabella's handwriting.
Beneath the chapel.
He stared at the note.
“Did you know this was here?”
Emma nodded.
“Mommy put it there before she left.”
Dominic's heart lurched.
“Before she left where?”
Emma looked frightened.
“She told me it was a game. She said if she ever went away, I should keep the bear safe until you asked about the blue bird.”
Dominic struggled to keep his voice steady.
“Sweetheart, did Mommy say when she'd come back?”
Emma nodded slowly.
“She said she'd come back when the bad man stopped looking for her.”
Dominic felt the room tilt.
“Which bad man?”
Emma pointed toward the windows.
“The man who stood outside Mommy's room and whispered to her.”
Before Dominic could ask another question, the house alarm sounded again.
A guard rushed into the hall.
“Boss, we've got a vehicle approaching the north gate.”
“Who is it?”
The guard looked pale.
“A black sedan. No license plate.”
Dominic took Emma into his arms.
“Get her upstairs. Stay with Sophie.”
Then he headed toward the security room.
The camera showed a man standing beside the sedan.
He wore a dark coat and held a white envelope.
As Dominic watched, the man lifted his face toward the camera.
He was older, gray-haired, and smiling.
Dominic recognized him from childhood photographs.
His uncle, Vincent Moretti.
The man officially declared dead twenty years earlier.
The intercom crackled.
Vincent's voice filled the room.
“Hello, nephew.”
Dominic raised the microphone.
“Come inside and I'll kill you myself.”
Vincent chuckled.
“Still your father's son.”
“What do you want?”
“The teddy bear.”
“You'll never touch it.”
“Then you'll never see your wife again.”
Dominic froze.
Vincent held up the envelope.
Inside was a photograph of Isabella, alive and sitting in a wheelchair.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Tomorrow.
And beneath it:
May you like
THE DAY SHE FINALLY COMES HOME.
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