Chapter 5
The gun clicked in the dark.
I stopped breathing.
Luca moved before I did.
One arm came around my shoulders.
He pulled me down behind the steel vault door.
“Stay low.”
A shot exploded.
Metal screamed beside us.
Vanessa shouted.
Matteo returned fire from somewhere near the crates.
The warehouse filled with echoes.
I pressed both hands over my ears.
Another shot.
Then another.
Luca leaned around the edge of the vault.
“Matteo!”
“I’m good!”
“Vanessa?”
A voice answered from farther left.
“I’m here!”
Arthur’s speaker was silent.
The emergency lights came on.
Dim red strips along the floor.
Enough to see shapes.
Not faces.
A man moved between two shipping containers.
Matteo fired toward the ceiling above him.
“Drop it!”
The shadow disappeared.
Luca grabbed the letter from the floor.
He shoved it inside his coat.
Then he looked at me.
“Can you run?”
“My knees—”
“I know.”
He lowered himself slightly.
“Get on my back.”
“What?”
“Anna.”
Another bullet struck the vault door.
I did not argue.
I climbed onto him.
Pain shot through my knees, but Luca stood with me against his back as if I weighed nothing.
He moved fast toward the side wall.
Matteo covered us.
Vanessa crouched behind a forklift.
“Door’s locked!”
“Loading bay!”
Luca shouted.
“No! Too exposed!”
A security officer crashed through a glass side panel.
“Mr. Moretti!”
Luca turned.
“Clear?”
“South corridor!”
We ran.
Or Luca ran.
I held on.
The warehouse shook with another gunshot.
Security flooded inside.
Someone yelled to get down.
Then I heard a man scream.
A weapon hit concrete.
We reached the side corridor.
Luca lowered me carefully.
“Stay with Ramirez.”
“No.”
He gave me a look.
I shook my head.
“The journal.”
His eyes went toward the warehouse.
Still on the table.
Vanessa appeared behind us.
Blood ran from a small cut above her eyebrow.
“Arthur wants us looking at the journal.”
Luca stared at her.
“What?”
“That’s why he left it in the open.”
Matteo joined us.
“Shooter’s down. Not Vale.”
“Who?”
“Private contractor. Won’t talk.”
Vanessa wiped blood from her face.
“My father never does anything without an exit and a distraction.”
Luca looked back toward the vault.
“He wanted us to open it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Vanessa pointed toward the red metal case.
“Because he couldn’t.”
I looked at her.
“The key opened the door.”
“Not the case.”
She walked back into the warehouse.
Luca caught her shoulder.
“Careful.”
She shrugged him off.
“I know how my father thinks.”
“That hasn’t helped us much.”
She flinched.
Luca saw it.
His anger remained, but he released her.
We approached the vault again.
Security surrounded the building now.
The red metal case sat on the shelf.
No lock.
Just a numbered dial.
Three digits.
Vanessa stared.
“314.”
Matteo turned the dial.
Three.
One.
Four.
Click.
The case opened.
Inside was a ledger.
Not red.
Black.
And a small cassette tape.
Luca frowned.
“Where’s the journal?”
I looked toward the table.
The red leather book still sat beneath the lamp.
Page edges yellowed.
Luca picked it up.
He opened to page forty-seven.
Black ink.
My mother’s letter had said green.
“This isn’t it.”
Vanessa whispered, “A decoy.”
Matteo flipped through.
“Names. Numbers. Dates.”
“Real enough to hurt people,” Luca said.
“But not the original,” I replied.
He looked at me.
I held out my hand.
He gave me the book.
Page forty-seven listed a series of payments from twenty-three years ago.
One name repeated.
ARTHUR VALE.
Another:
G. MORETTI.
Then:
C. BELLINI.
My mother.
Beside her name was a payment of $75,000.
Purpose:
RELOCATION.
My stomach tightened.
Luca turned to the black ledger in the case.
“What’s in that?”
Matteo opened it.
Blank pages.
Every single one.
Except the last.
A handwritten sentence.
LUCA, YOUR FATHER IS WAITING.
Below it:
ST. VINCENT’S, ROOM 6.
Vanessa stepped back.
“No.”
Luca stared.
“What is St. Vincent’s?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Matteo pulled out his phone.
“Could be a hospital.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“Not in New York.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Arthur wouldn’t write it plainly.”
Luca turned to me.
“Your mother’s letter said my father didn’t die in the boating accident.”
“Yes.”
“He would be seventy-three now.”
“If he’s alive.”
Vanessa whispered, “He is.”
We all looked at her.
Luca’s face went cold.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I know what Arthur meant.”
“What?”
Her voice trembled.
“St. Vincent’s was a house.”
“Where?”
“Upstate.”
“Whose house?”
“My father’s.”
Silence.
“When I was a child, he called it St. Vincent’s because there was a statue of Saint Vincent in the garden.”
Matteo stared.
“You’re saying Vale kept Giovanni Moretti in a house for twenty years?”
“I’m saying my father wants us to think that.”
Luca looked at the cassette tape.
“What’s on this?”
Vanessa’s face changed.
“I have an idea.”
We found an old tape player in the vault.
Matteo checked it for wires.
Nothing.
He pressed play.
Static.
Then a woman’s voice.
Isabella.
Luca went still.
The recording was old.
Her voice sounded younger.
Stronger.
“If anything happens to me, this recording goes to Rose.”
A man answered.
Arthur.
“Nothing is going to happen to you.”
“You said the same thing about Giovanni.”
Luca’s face drained.
The tape continued.
Arthur said:
“Giovanni chose this.”
“No. You offered him a choice between prison and disappearance.”
“He would have destroyed Luca.”
“He is Luca’s father.”
“He was poison.”
Isabella’s voice shook.
“You had no right.”
“I protected your son.”
“You protected yourself.”
A long silence.
Then Arthur said:
“You signed the papers.”
“I signed because you told me Giovanni would be safe.”
“He is.”
“Where?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“I am his wife.”
“You are the widow of Giovanni Moretti.”
Luca closed his eyes.
I watched him hear his entire childhood rewrite itself in one recording.
The tape clicked.
Then Isabella whispered:
“What about Claire?”
“She’ll disappear too.”
“She has a daughter.”
“That is why she’ll cooperate.”
“You threatened the child?”
“No.”
Arthur’s voice became soft.
“I explained consequences.”
My skin went cold.
Isabella sounded disgusted.
“You are a monster.”
“No. I am the man who keeps monsters from eating each other.”
The tape ended.
Nobody spoke.
Luca stared at the machine.
Vanessa covered her mouth.
I felt anger rise so fast it frightened me.
Arthur Vale had threatened me when I was twelve.
Used me against my mother.
Then spent eighteen years deciding who could know what.
Luca picked up the cassette.
“I’m going to St. Vincent’s.”
Matteo nodded.
“Not tonight.”
“Tonight.”
“Luca, we don’t know where—”
Vanessa interrupted.
“I do.”
He looked at her.
She swallowed.
“My father sold the property ten years ago.”
“To whom?”
“A shell company.”
“Of course.”
“I can find it.”
“How?”
“I used to do his books.”
Matteo laughed bitterly.
“Does everyone in this family keep secret books?”
Vanessa ignored him.
“The company was called Montclair Holdings.”
Luca already had his phone out.
“Matteo.”
“I’m checking.”
Minutes later he looked up.
“Property in Dutchess County. Twenty-eight acres. Main house registered to Montclair Holdings LLC.”
Vanessa nodded.
“That’s it.”
I asked, “How far?”
“About two hours.”
Luca looked at me.
“No.”
I almost laughed.
“We already did this.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
“You’ve had a gun fired at you.”
“So have you.”
“I am not taking you to a property where my possibly-alive father has possibly been kept prisoner for twenty years.”
“My mother may be connected.”
“We don’t know that.”
“We know Arthur connected both disappearances.”
“Anna.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“You’re injured.”
“I’m also involved.”
“You are not a detective.”
“Neither are you.”
Matteo made a small coughing sound.
Vanessa looked away, hiding what might have been a smile.
Luca glared at both of them.
Then he looked at me.
“Why are you impossible?”
“Rose hired me.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“Maybe she liked impossible.”
For the first time that night, Luca almost smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
“Fine.”
I blinked.
“Again?”
“Under one condition.”
“What?”
“We go back to the estate first.”
“Why?”
“Because none of us are walking into Dutchess County at three in the morning after a gunfight.”
“I can.”
“I know you can.”
His voice softened.
“I’m asking you not to.”
That stopped me.
Not ordering.
Asking.
I nodded.
“Two hours.”
“Three.”
“Two and a half.”
Matteo groaned.
“You’re negotiating sleep?”
I ignored him.
Luca said, “Two and a half.”
Vanessa stared at us.
Something unreadable crossed her face.
Then security approached.
“Mr. Moretti, we found something on the shooter.”
The officer held out a plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a hotel key card.
Room 602.
Hotel name:
THE ARLINGTON.
Luca frowned.
“Why does that matter?”
Vanessa stared at it.
Her face went white.
“It matters.”
“What?”
She looked at me.
Then Luca.
“My father used the Arlington whenever he brought someone into the city who couldn’t be seen at his house.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Security handed Luca a second item.
A folded receipt.
One room.
Paid cash.
Guest name handwritten.
C. Bennett.
I stopped breathing.
The check-in date was yesterday.
My mother had been in New York.
Yesterday.
Luca looked at me.
I looked at him.
May you like
Two hours to Dutchess County no longer mattered.
My mother might be ten minutes away.
