Chapter 2 - THE FAMILY REPRESENTATIVE
I spent the first hour of the next morning pretending I could sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the scraping of the carving knife against Luca's collar, then Isabella’s quiet question: Did you really say that? My fractured arm had been secured in a cast and sling. The stitched cut burned beneath fresh dressing. The hospital physician wanted to observe me for a little longer because of the severity of the injury and the emotional shock of the night.
My room overlooked a parking garage and a strip of pale October sky. Not exactly the view from the Moretti mansion, but I had never been so relieved to see an ordinary city morning. Nobody could tell me to adjust a flower arrangement. Nobody could demand that I keep a lie hidden for the sake of a guest list.
At eight thirty, my phone was returned to me in an evidence bag after a detective documented where it had been found. The screen was cracked. There were six missed calls from my younger brother, Owen, and a message from my landlord reminding me that rent was due. I stared at those familiar worries until I almost laughed. Life, apparently, had not noticed the explosion in mine.
Owen answered on the first ring. “Grace? Why are there police outside the Moretti house on the news?”
“Because I did something incredibly stupid and something necessary, both in one night.”
“Are you hurt?”
I told him enough to make him insist on coming immediately. I begged him to finish his shift at the auto shop first. He was twenty-two and already spending more time worrying about me than he should. Our mother had died two years earlier; since then, we had tried to act older than our ages, with mixed results.
When I hung up, a woman with short silver hair entered, carrying a paper bag and a stack of notes. She introduced herself as Evelyn Shaw, an attorney hired to represent Isabella’s interests independently of Luca.
“I’m not here to ask you to protect my client’s father,” she said. “I’m here because Isabella says you were one of the few adults who listened to her.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s safe. That’s different from all right. She wants to see you when your doctor approves.”
Evelyn set down a container of soup from a restaurant near the hospital. I thanked her, then asked why Luca’s cousin Dominic was named on the file Quinn had found.
“Dominic Moretti is a partner in several family holding companies,” Evelyn said. “He also held temporary authority to approve certain household and educational expenses while Luca was overseas. That authority was narrow, but someone may have treated it as broader.”
“Did Luca know?”
“He knew about the expenses. He didn’t know a placement petition had been prepared.”
I had seen Dominic only a handful of times. He was forty, polished, and always smelled faintly of expensive cologne. He spoke to staff with an easy friendliness that never quite reached his eyes. At Christmas, he had given Isabella an enormous dollhouse, then seemed hurt when she preferred the battered stuffed owl her mother had sewn.
“Vanessa and Dominic were close,” I said. “I once saw him leave the music room after midnight. He told me he was checking the sound system.”
Evelyn wrote that down. “Do you remember the date?”
“September twenty-sixth. It was the night the downstairs boiler failed. I remember because I was carrying extra blankets.”
Her pen stopped. “That may matter.”
She explained that the proposed placement involved Briar Glen Academy, a private residential school several hours from Chicago. The brochure promised discipline, emotional support, and personal growth. The contract contained a separate clause allowing the institution to restrict calls during an initial adjustment period. No reputable placement decision, Evelyn said, should have been rushed through without parental authorization and appropriate safeguards.
“Isabella is not a difficult child,” I said. “She misses her mother and sometimes gets angry when people pretend that grief has a deadline.”
“That sounds like something she told you.”
“She did.”
Evelyn’s face softened. “Will you give a formal statement about your conversations? Only what you directly observed, not what you think other people intended.”
“Yes.”
At eleven, Detective Quinn returned with news. The laptop operator had been identified as Oliver Trent, an independent audio technician who had previously done advertising work for a Bellini-owned media firm. Police had not yet located him. They had, however, obtained a copy of his invoice through the mansion’s email system.
It listed three deliverables: a reconstructed paternal statement, a reconstructed child statement, and an ambient sound track meant to make both seem as though they had been recorded in Luca’s study.
“How could he imitate Luca so convincingly?” I asked.
“By using original audio,” Quinn said. “We’re examining the sources. Some may have come from family videos and company presentations.”
“What about Isabella’s voice?”
“Her school talent-show recording. We’re looking into who provided it.”
I remembered Isabella singing a quiet folk song in the library during the summer. Vanessa had asked me to film it. I had assumed she wanted to show Luca, who had been out of town. Had that innocent video become ammunition against the child herself? The thought made me feel sick.
That afternoon, I met Luca in a consultation room near the hospital chapel. Evelyn sat with us to ensure the conversation stayed focused on the evidence. Luca looked as though he hadn’t slept. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was a faint crease along his jaw where he had been grinding his teeth.
“I asked Dominic about the file,” he said. “He claims Vanessa had access to his electronic signature because they were planning the engagement logistics.”
“Do you believe him?” Evelyn asked.
“I believe he’s telling me only the part that can already be proved.”
Luca unfolded a photograph. It showed a weathered red-brick building on the shore of Lake Michigan, surrounded by old trees. A hand-painted sign read THE HARBOR HOUSE.
“Isabella’s mother, Sofia, founded a trust that supports this place,” he said. “It offers counseling and temporary housing to young families. Isabella becomes an adult beneficiary at twenty-one. Until then, the trust has safeguards against transferring its property.”
“What does that have to do with the school?” I asked.
“A guardian representative can participate in certain decisions if Isabella is declared unable to remain at home. Dominic was listed as temporary representative. Vanessa was named as his proposed deputy.”
Evelyn crossed her arms. “A school placement alone wouldn’t automatically transfer control of a trust. But the documents we found would have provided a foothold for a separate petition.”
I stared at the picture. Somewhere in that red-brick house were families who depended on decisions made by people they would never meet. The recording wasn't only about convincing a little girl her father hated her. It was about making that lie useful on paper.
“Isabella knows about Harbor House,” I said. “She makes cards for the children there every winter.”
“She does,” Luca replied. “Her mother used to take her.”
The door opened. Teresa Moretti, Luca’s aunt, walked in carrying a child's green notebook. She was small, with fierce gray eyes and a shawl thrown carelessly over one shoulder.
“Before you go hunting for villains,” she told Luca, “you should know what Isabella showed me.”
She placed the notebook on the table.
Inside were pencil sketches of a locked gate, a bus, and a little girl looking out a window. Beside the last picture Isabella had written: THEY SAID I WOULD BE GONE BEFORE DAD CAME HOME.
Luca turned the pages slowly. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She tried,” Teresa said. “Three weeks ago. You were on the phone with Dominic. Vanessa told her you were too busy.”
His face twisted with shame. “I remember. I promised I’d talk to her after dinner.”
“You never did.”
“No.”
Teresa's expression softened without excusing him. “Then talk to her now.”
That evening Luca took Isabella to the hospital so she could see me. She entered cautiously, carrying the same stuffed owl she slept with at home. She stopped when she saw the sling.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes,” I told her. “But the doctors have a plan.”
“I’m mad at everybody,” she announced.
“That sounds reasonable.”
“Even Dad.”
“You can be mad at him and love him.”
She looked over her shoulder at Luca. “Can I?”
He moved closer. “Yes. And I’ll listen.”
Isabella sat beside me and whispered that Vanessa had made her practice saying she wanted to go to Briar Glen. When she refused, Vanessa threatened to cancel her annual visit to Harbor House. She had also been told that Sofia’s letters were childish keepsakes that needed to be stored away.
“Did she take those letters?” Evelyn asked gently.
Isabella nodded. “From the blue box under my bed. She said they belonged in a safe.”
Luca’s posture changed. “The blue box?”
“Mom wrote me one letter for every birthday until I was eighteen,” Isabella said. “You told me that.”
“I did.”
“There should be eleven envelopes left. Vanessa took all of them.”
I watched Luca struggle to stay calm. The letters were not legal authority, but they were pieces of a mother’s love. Taking them away had been another way to make Isabella feel alone.
As the visit ended, Isabella approached the door, then turned. “Grace, when you get better, will you teach me how to tell whether a recording is fake?”
“I’ll help you learn how to ask questions,” I said. “That’s more important than guessing from a voice.”
After she left, Luca's phone rang. Daniel was calling from the mansion. His voice sounded tight enough that I could hear it across the room.
“Boss, the blue box is missing. So is the original trust binder from Sofia’s study.”
“Who accessed the room?”
“We’re checking. But someone used a staff credential that belonged to a woman who hasn’t worked here in seven years.”
Luca frowned. “Who?”
May you like
Daniel paused.
“Your late wife.”
