Chapter 4
|
## THE MAN IN THE FAMILY CRYPT
Luca found Sophie crouched beneath a console table with Emily shielding her body.
The gunshot had shattered a window in the east corridor. A security guard lay bleeding beside the staircase, alive but barely conscious.
Marco's men swept the grounds.
No intruder was found.
Yet the estate's main gates had opened remotely, and a black SUV had disappeared into the rain.
Luca carried Sophie upstairs himself.
"Stay with Emily until I come back."
"Are you going to find Mommy?"
"Yes."
"Promise?"
He pressed his forehead to hers.
"I promise I'll bring you the truth."
When he returned to the library, Vanessa was gone.
A rear window stood open.
On the desk, beside the recorder, lay a torn piece of paper.
Midnight. The family crypt. Come alone if you want Isabella alive.
Luca recognized Vanessa's handwriting.
Marco read the note over his shoulder.
"It's a trap."
"Probably."
"Then you aren't going."
Luca slipped the note into his pocket.
"She knows something about my wife. I'm not sending someone else to find out whether she's telling the truth."
"Sir, whoever fired that shot may still be on the property."
"Double the perimeter. Keep Sophie and Emily under protection. No one enters her room without your approval."
Marco nodded reluctantly.
At 11:55 p.m., Luca drove to the Moretti family cemetery with two men following at a distance.
The crypt stood behind an iron fence on a wooded hill. His father's name was carved into a marble slab above a sealed stone door.
Luca had visited the place dozens of times.
Tonight, he noticed fresh scratches around the lock.
He used the blue key.
The lock clicked.
Inside, candles illuminated a narrow staircase descending beneath the tomb.
Luca drew his weapon and went down.
At the bottom, he found a small room containing a bed, medical supplies, and photographs pinned to the walls.
Photographs of Isabella.
Some were years old. Others had been taken recently.
In one, she stood outside a grocery store wearing a gray coat.
In another, she was holding a folded newspaper dated six weeks earlier.
The date matched the letter.
Luca's pulse thundered.
A door opened behind him.
Vanessa stepped into the room.
"You came alone."
"Where is my wife?"
"Safe. For now."
"Why did you help her escape?"
Vanessa looked at the photographs.
"Because three years ago, I discovered your father had been using your shipping company to move people across state lines. Women who disappeared. Children whose families were paid to stop asking questions."
Luca's expression hardened.
"My father was a criminal. I know what he did."
"You know about the weapons, the money laundering, the men he had killed. You don't know about the children."
She pulled a photograph from the wall.
A little girl sat on a hospital bed, clutching a stuffed rabbit.
"Isabella found the records. She planned to give them to a federal investigator. Your father discovered what she was doing."
"And you helped him?"
"I was twenty-four. I was afraid of him."
"So you drove my wife to the river and let me believe she was dead?"
"I helped her escape. The car was mine. We staged the accident because your father had men watching every road leading out of Chicago."
"Why didn't she contact me?"
Vanessa's expression broke.
"Because someone sent her photographs of Sophie sleeping in her bedroom. The message was clear. If she returned, your daughter would die."
Luca lowered his weapon slightly.
"Who sent the photographs?"
Vanessa looked at him.
"Your father."
A metallic sound echoed above them.
Footsteps.
Slow, deliberate footsteps descending the staircase.
Vanessa backed away.
"I told you not to come alone."
Luca raised his weapon toward the doorway.
A man appeared at the top of the stairs.
His hair was almost entirely white. A deep scar crossed his left cheek. He leaned on a black cane.
But his eyes were unmistakable.
Luca's eyes.
Anthony Moretti smiled.
"My son," he said. "You should have let the dead stay buried."
Luca's finger tightened on the trigger.
Anthony lifted his cane.
"Before you shoot me, you might want to know who gave the order to have Isabella killed."
May you like
He paused.
"It wasn't me."
