Chapter 7
Luca watched the video eleven times.
On the twelfth, I reached over and paused it.
"She's not going to become less alive if you keep replaying it."
His eyes stayed on the frozen image of Bianca Moretti stepping out of the gray sedan.
"I buried her."
"Did you see the body?"
He did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Marco stood near the window of my hospital room with two phones pressed together as he transferred files.
"Her funeral was closed casket," he said.
Luca looked at him.
"She had cancer. She was in hospice. I sat beside her bed the night before she died."
"Who pronounced her?"
I already knew before Marco checked.
His expression confirmed it.
"Samuel Reed."
Luca laughed quietly.
It was the ugliest sound I had heard from him.
"Of course."
I looked at the video again.
Bianca appeared thin and older than photographs I had seen, but alive. She leaned heavily on a cane. Reed helped her toward Cabin Fourteen. Carlo walked ahead.
"Maybe she really was sick," I said. "Maybe Reed faked the death because somebody needed her hidden."
Luca turned toward me.
"My mother allowed me to mourn her for eight years."
"I'm not defending her."
"I know."
His anger was not aimed at me.
That did not make being near it comfortable.
Marco's phone rang.
He answered, listened, then looked at Luca.
"Ward found the gray sedan."
"Where?"
"Train station parking garage. Abandoned."
"Cameras?"
"Being pulled."
"Any blood?"
"No. Wheelchair in the trunk. Medication bag too."
Luca's face sharpened.
"Medication?"
"No labels. Lab is checking."
I said, "What if Bianca isn't with Carlo willingly?"
Both men looked at me.
"She walked into the cabin," Luca said.
"With Reed holding her arm. That could mean help. It could also mean she couldn't get away."
Marco nodded slowly.
"Worth considering."
Luca paced to the window.
Outside, dawn had turned the hospital buildings gray.
"Vanessa said Bianca stopped the ambulance after Elena fell into the lake."
"Vanessa also believed Carlo was dead," I said. "Her information isn't exactly perfect."
Luca glanced back.
"You think she lied about Elena?"
"I think everybody in this story knows one piece and assumes it is the whole thing."
He was quiet.
Then the door opened.
Detective Ward entered with another officer.
She looked at Marco.
"You enjoy making my job difficult."
"Professionally."
"I need Luca and Kate downtown."
Luca folded his arms.
"Why?"
Ward looked at me.
"Because Vanessa Bellini has agreed to give a full statement."
"Good," I said.
"On one condition."
Luca's eyes narrowed.
"There it is."
Ward continued.
"She wants Kate present."
I stared.
"Me?"
"She says there is something she will only explain to you."
Luca immediately said, "No."
I looked at him.
"Stop doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Answering questions addressed to me."
"It's a bad idea."
"Most useful things tonight have been bad ideas."
Ward almost smiled.
Luca noticed and looked annoyed by the alliance.
An hour later, we sat in an interview room at the county investigations building.
Vanessa entered wearing hospital scrubs under a gray blanket. Her eye was purple. A small bandage crossed her forehead. Two officers removed one handcuff and secured the other to a ring beneath the table.
She looked at Luca first.
Then me.
"You look terrible," she said.
I stared at her.
"You made me kneel on cut knees. Your concern is touching."
She looked down.
"I know."
That almost disarmed me.
Almost.
Ward started the recorder.
"Vanessa Bellini, you requested this meeting. Talk."
Vanessa took a long breath.
"My father is not Luca's biological father."
Luca's head lifted.
"What?"
Vanessa looked at him.
"He told me that lie when I was sixteen. He told me Bianca had an affair with him and Luca was the result. He used it to keep me from ever seeing Luca as..."
She stopped.
"As what?" Ward asked.
Vanessa's face reddened.
"As someone I could genuinely love."
Luca stared at her.
"You knew before we got engaged?"
"I believed we were half-siblings. Yes."
His face hardened.
"And you still agreed to marry me."
Tears filled her eyes.
"Because my father said the marriage would be legal on paper only. He said it would last six months. He said we needed the voting shares."
Luca turned away in disgust.
I asked, "How do you know Carlo lied?"
Vanessa looked at me.
"Because I stole his DNA report."
Ward leaned forward.
"When?"
"Three months ago."
"And?"
"Luca is not related to him."
Luca went completely still.
Vanessa continued.
"I confronted Carlo. He hit me. Then he said biology didn't matter. The story had done what he needed it to do."
"Why keep planning the wedding after that?" I asked.
She closed her eyes.
"Because by then I was trapped in the financial scheme. My name was on everything. If I walked, he threatened to make it look like I designed the entire fraud."
Ward said, "Some of it was yours."
"Yes."
Vanessa did not flinch.
"The staged photographs were my idea."
Luca looked at her.
She met his eyes.
"I thought if the marriage broke publicly and I looked like the victim, I could keep the settlement and get away from my father."
"By destroying me."
"Yes."
"And Kate?"
Vanessa looked at my bandaged hands.
"I hired her because Carlo wanted Daniel Sullivan's evidence. I was supposed to search her apartment, copy anything useful, and fire her."
"But?" I asked.
"I found the camera months ago."
My heart jumped.
"You opened it?"
"Yes."
"What was inside?"
"A tiny cassette."
Luca leaned forward.
"Bianca's confession."
Vanessa nodded.
"I listened to it."
"What did she say?"
Vanessa looked at Ward.
"That Elena didn't die at the lake."
The room went silent.
I thought of Daniel's missing page.
ELENA DID NOT DROWN.
Luca's voice was quiet.
"Then where did she die?"
Vanessa's eyes moved to him.
"At Reed's clinic."
"Explain."
"Bianca panicked after Elena fell. Carlo arrived. Elena was breathing but disoriented. Reed was called because he handled private emergencies for both families. They took Elena to his clinic."
"And?"
Vanessa swallowed.
"She had a head injury. Reed said she needed a hospital. Carlo refused because Elena was threatening to expose everything. Bianca begged him. They argued."
Luca's hands curled against the table.
"What killed her?"
"Reed sedated her. Too much."
Ward said, "Accidentally?"
Vanessa shook her head slowly.
"I don't know. Bianca's recording said Carlo told Reed she could not wake up and start talking."
Luca stood.
The chair slammed backward.
Ward said, "Sit down."
He ignored her.
"Carlo ordered my sister killed."
Vanessa's eyes filled.
"I think so."
"You think?"
"I was eighteen. I only saw the lake. My father sent me home before the clinic. I believed the drowning story until I heard Bianca's tape."
I asked the question that mattered to me.
"Where is the cassette now?"
Vanessa looked directly at me.
"I gave it to someone."
"Who?"
"Your mother."
I stopped breathing.
"My mother died three years ago."
"I know. I gave it to her six months before she died."
"Why?"
Vanessa's voice softened.
"Because I was afraid Carlo would kill me if he knew I had it. And because Mary Sullivan was the only person I knew who had spent twenty years refusing to be bought by either family."
I stared at her.
My mother had hidden the truth from me.
But maybe she had also protected the last surviving proof.
"Where did she put it?"
Vanessa shook her head.
"She wouldn't tell me."
I tried to think.
My mother's apartment.
Her storage unit.
Her church locker.
The old sewing cabinet she never let anyone use.
Then Vanessa added:
"She said if anything happened to her, Kate would eventually find it because Daniel had taught her how."
I almost laughed.
"My father taught me how to make grilled cheese and cheat at cards."
Vanessa's expression did not change.
"He also taught you a number."
I froze.
"What number?"
"Mary said you'd know it. Four digits. Daniel's number for you."
My mind went blank.
Then memory arrived.
Every birthday card before my father disappeared had the same four numbers hidden near his signature.
0312.
March twelfth.
Not my birthday.
Not his.
I had asked once.
He told me it meant Lucky Kate.
I never understood why.
I whispered, "0312."
Vanessa nodded.
"That's what Mary said."
Ward leaned forward.
"What does it open?"
I thought of my mother's old sewing cabinet.
One drawer had a tiny combination lock.
She claimed it was broken.
I looked at Luca.
He saw it immediately.
"You know."
"Maybe."
Ward stood.
"Where?"
"My mother's storage unit."
Luca looked at her.
"We go with police."
Ward nodded.
Vanessa spoke before we left.
"Kate."
I turned.
Her eyes were wet.
"I'm sorry about your knees. Your waist. All of it."
I stared at her for a long time.
"Sorry doesn't make you safe."
"I know."
"And it doesn't make me forgive you."
"I know."
I opened the door.
Behind me, she said one more thing.
"But the tape might make your father heard again."
That stopped me.
Not alive.
Not returned.
May you like
Heard.
For now, that was enough to make me keep moving.
