Chapter 3 - THE RECORDING IN ELENA'S JEWELRY BOX
By midnight, the Moretti estate had become a fortress.
Armed guards watched the gates. Dominic's team swept every room, checked the security systems, and examined the wardrobe for hidden compartments. Luca remained in Elena's former bedroom, surrounded by the few possessions he had been unable to give away.
Sophie slept in the adjoining room with Rosa, her longtime nurse.
Emily had been ordered to rest in the staff quarters, but she couldn't sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Sophie's frightened face disappearing behind those wooden doors.
At 12:23 a.m., someone knocked.
Luca opened the door to find Emily standing in the hallway, pale and breathless.
“I'm sorry to bother you, sir.”
“You should be resting.”
“I know. But there's something I didn't tell you.”
He stepped aside.
Emily entered and carefully lowered herself into a chair.
“When I worked in the west wing this afternoon, Mrs. Sterling asked me to clean your wife's bedroom. She told me not to touch the jewelry box.”
Luca looked toward the dressing table.
“Did you open it?”
“No. But I heard something rattling inside. I thought it was broken jewelry.”
He approached the table. The small ivory box sat exactly where Elena had left it three years earlier. Luca had never opened it. He had convinced himself that grief meant leaving the past undisturbed.
Now he lifted the lid.
Beneath a velvet necklace pouch lay a tiny digital recorder and a folded note.
His hands tightened around the note.
Lucky, if you're reading this, I was wrong to believe the truth could wait.
He stared at Elena's handwriting until the letters blurred.
Emily looked away, giving him privacy.
Luca pressed the recorder's button.
A burst of static filled the room.
Then Elena's voice emerged.
“If anything happens to me, don't trust Adrian. Don't trust anyone who tells you I was alone that night.”
Luca stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
“Your brother believes our father was murdered. He believes the family fortune was built on a lie. He's right about some things, but he doesn't understand what our father was protecting.”
A door slammed somewhere in the background of the recording.
Elena whispered, “Someone's here.”
A man's voice followed.
“Where's the ledger, Elena?”
Luca recognized it.
His father's voice.
Impossible. His father had died eight years earlier.
The recording crackled, then Elena spoke again.
“You told me he was dead.”
A second male voice answered.
“Not dead. Hidden.”
Then came a sharp impact.
The recording ended.
Luca stared at the recorder.
Emily's hand had risen to her mouth.
“Sir, what does that mean?”
He didn't answer.
He replayed the final seconds. The first voice sounded like his father, but the second belonged to someone younger. Someone breathing hard, as though he had run a considerable distance.
Dominic arrived minutes later after Luca summoned him.
“Boss, the hospital in that photograph was St. Catherine's. It closed five years ago. Records were transferred to a private archive.”
“Get them.”
“We're trying. But there's another problem.”
Dominic placed a printed photograph on the table.
A woman with silver hair stood outside the hospital's east entrance. Beside her was Elena.
The date on the photograph was three days after the boating accident that supposedly killed Adrian.
Luca looked at the timestamp twice.
“Who is she?”
“We believe her name is Margaret Vitale. She was listed as deceased in a private medical file, but we haven't confirmed the death certificate.”
Emily suddenly gripped the edge of her chair.
“Margaret?”
Both men turned.
“You know her?” Luca asked.
Emily swallowed.
“My mother used to work as a home nurse. When I was a teenager, she cared for an older woman named Margaret. She told me the woman had lost her family in a fire.”
“Where?”
“An apartment near the river. My mother said Margaret sometimes woke up screaming about a baby.”
Luca's eyes narrowed.
“What baby?”
“I don't know. My mother died before I could ask more.”
For a moment, the room seemed to shrink around them.
Elena had visited a hospital connected to the Vitale family. Margaret had apparently survived something the official records said she hadn't. And a mysterious ledger had been important enough to frighten Luca's dead father.
Before he could question Emily further, Sophie appeared in the doorway, clutching a small stuffed rabbit.
“Daddy?”
He immediately crossed the room.
“What's wrong, sweetheart?”
“I remembered something.”
He knelt in front of her.
“The man in your office wasn't just talking to Vanessa. He was holding Mommy's necklace.”
Luca felt his stomach tighten.
“Which necklace?”
“The little gold one she wore when she took me to the hospital.”
Elena's necklace had disappeared after her death. Luca had assumed it had been stolen during the chaos surrounding the funeral.
Sophie pointed toward the recorder.
“He said it opened the place where the baby was hidden.”
Luca stared at his daughter.
Emily whispered, “A baby?”
Sophie nodded.
“And then he said, ‘Once we find her, Luca will finally understand why Elena had to die.’”
Luca rose slowly.
His grief had become something colder.
“Dominic, find Adrian.”
Then he looked toward the darkened window.
“And find out which baby my wife was trying to save.”
His phone rang.
The caller ID displayed a number that had been disconnected five years earlier.
Adrian's old number.
Luca answered.
For three seconds, neither brother spoke.
Then a familiar voice whispered:
“Brother, if you want to know what happened to Elena, come alone.”
A pause.
“And don't bring the girl.”
May you like
The call ended.
---
