Chapter 9 - THE GRAVE THAT WAS NEVER OPENED
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Vanessa sat in a secure interview room at the police station, her hands folded on the table.
When Dominic and Isabella entered, she looked up.
For the first time since they had met, she appeared to have no interest in controlling the room.
“Is it really you?” Vanessa whispered.
Isabella stood beside Dominic.
“You knew I was alive.”
“I suspected.”
“You knew my mother?”
Vanessa's eyes filled with tears.
“Yes.”
Isabella placed the photograph on the table.
“Tell me everything.”
Vanessa looked at the image for a long time.
“Your mother was alive when I met her. She was working under another name, trying to escape the people who had taken her daughter away.”
Isabella gripped the back of a chair.
“What do you mean, taken away?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“Your father told you she abandoned you because he believed it was the safest explanation. But Elena was forced to leave you with him after Vincent threatened to kill you both.”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“Why didn't she come back?”
“She tried. Your father refused to let her near you because he believed she would bring Vincent back into your life.”
Dominic's expression hardened.
“Salvatore knew about Elena?”
Vanessa nodded.
“He helped hide her for years. Then, when Vincent discovered she was alive, your father made a deal to keep her safe.”
“What deal?”
“He agreed to surrender control of several accounts and properties. In return, Vincent promised to leave Elena alone.”
“And he broke that promise.”
Vanessa lowered her head.
“He always does.”
Isabella stared at the photograph.
“Where is she now?”
Vanessa looked at Dominic.
“That's why I wanted to speak to you. I know where the grave is, but I don't know whether the woman buried there is Elena.”
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
“Explain.”
“Twenty years ago, Vincent staged a funeral for a woman he claimed was Elena. There was a closed coffin. Your father attended. Everyone believed she was dead.”
“But the grave was never opened,” Isabella said.
Vanessa nodded.
“I found the original burial record. The name on it was false.”
Dominic stood.
“Why didn't you tell me this before?”
“Because I was afraid of Vincent. And because I wanted to marry you.”
Her honesty was almost more disturbing than another lie.
“I thought if I became your wife, I could protect myself. I convinced myself that locking Emma away from me was discipline. I told myself that frightening her would keep her quiet.”
Isabella's expression hardened.
“You made my daughter afraid of her own home.”
Vanessa began to cry.
“I know.”
“No. You know you were caught.”
Vanessa flinched.
Dominic stepped between them before the confrontation could escalate.
“Tell us the cemetery address.”
An hour later, they stood beneath a gray sky in a neglected cemetery surrounded by pine trees. Marcus and a team of officers searched the grounds while Dominic and Isabella approached the grave marked with Elena Rossi's name.
The stone was cracked. The dates were incomplete.
Isabella knelt and touched the cold marble.
“Mother, if you're here, I'm sorry I never found you.”
Dominic crouched beside her.
“We'll know the truth soon.”
A forensic team carefully examined the grave. After hours of work, they discovered the coffin contained no human remains.
Inside lay only a folded piece of fabric and a small metal box.
The box held a photograph of Elena standing beside a child.
The child was Isabella.
On the back was a message.
If my daughter ever finds this, tell her I never stopped looking for her.
Isabella pressed the photograph to her chest.
Then Marcus called from the other side of the cemetery.
“Boss! We found something.”
Beneath a collapsed stone angel was a narrow tunnel leading to an old underground crypt. Inside were boxes of records, several passports, and a small medical kit.
But the most important discovery was a journal.
Its first pages described the years Elena had spent hiding from Vincent. The later entries were written in a shaky hand.
Vincent says the child is dead.
I don't believe him.
I saw a photograph of her in a newspaper. She's alive. She's grown into a woman who has no idea what her father did.
Isabella began crying.
Dominic turned another page.
The final entry was dated six months earlier.
If I cannot reach Isabella, I will reach her daughter.
A child's drawing had been tucked between the pages.
It showed a little girl holding a brown teddy bear.
Emma.
Dominic felt a cold weight settle in his stomach.
Someone had been watching his daughter long before the recorder was discovered.
A sound echoed through the tunnel.
A single gunshot.
Marcus shouted for everyone to get down.
Dominic pulled Isabella behind the stone wall as officers rushed toward the entrance.
When the shooting stopped, they found one of the guards wounded and the journal missing.
The attacker had escaped through a second passage that opened beyond the cemetery fence.
Dominic's phone rang.
An unfamiliar voice spoke.
“You've been looking in the wrong place, Dominic.”
“Who is this?”
“The woman you're searching for has been living under your roof for years.”
Dominic froze.
“What did you say?”
The caller laughed softly.
“Ask your daughter's maid about the name she used before she came to work for you.”
The line went dead.
Dominic slowly turned toward Isabella.
They both knew what the message meant.
Sophie Bennett had been protecting Emma.
But someone now claimed Sophie had a connection to Elena Rossi.
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And if that was true, the young maid might be the only person who knew where Isabella's mother had gone.
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