Chapter 2
Luca kept the phone against his ear long after the call ended.
Nobody spoke.
Vanessa stared at him.
Aunt Sofia looked as if she had seen a grave open.
Clara still knelt beside my injured leg.
I could hear the clock in the hall.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Luca lowered the phone.
“Call her back.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“The number won’t work.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it never does.”
He turned.
“Never?”
Another mistake.
Vanessa closed her eyes.
Luca’s voice dropped.
“How many times has she called you?”
No answer.
He stepped closer.
“How many?”
“Three.”
Sofia gasped.
Luca laughed softly.
It was a dangerous sound.
“My dead aunt has called my fiancée three times.”
Vanessa looked up.
“She is not my aunt.”
“Apparently she is mine.”
“I didn’t know that at first.”
“When was the first call?”
“Two years ago.”
Luca’s jaw flexed.
“And you kept this from me for two years?”
“She threatened me.”
“With what?”
Vanessa shook her head.
Luca held up the phone.
“With what?”
“She said if I told you, people would die.”
The room changed.
Sofia whispered, “Elena always talked like that.”
Luca looked at her.
“You believe it was her?”
“I know her voice.”
“You haven’t heard it in thirty years.”
“A sister knows.”
Luca turned away.
His shoulders were rigid beneath the charcoal suit.
For a moment he looked less like the man everyone feared disappointing and more like a son being handed pieces of a family nobody had let him know.
I looked at key 318 in Clara’s palm.
Black metal.
Small.
Ordinary.
It had caused too much blood already.
My own.
Maybe others.
Luca suddenly looked at me.
“You need a hospital.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“The cuts are superficial.”
Clara frowned.
“Several are deeper than I like.”
“I’m fine.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“You are not fine.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
“Why?”
Because if I left, the conversation would continue without me.
Because Vanessa had already tried to destroy the only thing that led here.
Because I had found the sewing box in an old linen cabinet only after hearing Vanessa arguing on the phone near the closed laundry room.
Because someone had hidden it behind a false panel.
Because something about the Bellini name felt connected to why I had been hired.
I looked down.
“I found it.”
“That does not obligate you to bleed for it.”
“No.”
I met his eyes.
“But I want to know why she was so afraid of me finding it.”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“This is not about you.”
I turned.
“Then why did you threaten me?”
Her mouth closed.
Luca looked at her.
“Good question.”
Vanessa walked to the sideboard.
Poured water.
Her hand shook.
“I told you. I panicked.”
“Why?”
She drank.
Did not answer.
Luca’s expression hardened.
“I’m done asking the same question.”
He looked at Clara.
“Call Dr. Hayes.”
Clara nodded.
“He can come here.”
Luca looked back at Vanessa.
“You’re going to explain every call.”
She laughed.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“At the table?”
“Yes.”
“With the maid listening?”
I felt the words land.
Luca did too.
His voice became very calm.
“Her name is Emma.”
“I know her name.”
“Then use it.”
Vanessa looked at me.
For one second, hatred surfaced.
Then fear swallowed it.
“The first call came after your mother’s memorial.”
Luca frowned.
“Two years ago?”
“The private memorial at St. Agnes.”
“Yes.”
“That was family only.”
“I was there.”
“So was Sofia.”
Sofia nodded.
Vanessa continued.
“When I got home, my phone rang.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked whether Lucia’s grave had been opened.”
Luca’s eyes sharpened.
“Why would it be?”
“I didn’t know.”
“And the second call?”
“Eight months ago.”
“What did she say?”
Vanessa looked toward the sewing box.
“She asked whether key 318 was still hidden.”
Luca turned slowly.
“You knew about the key before tonight.”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
The truth she had denied.
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“And tonight?”
“She called before dinner.”
“What did she say?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“That the box had been moved.”
I stared.
Luca looked at me.
“How could she know?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Where was the box supposed to be?”
“Behind the wall in the laundry room.”
I went cold.
“You knew exactly where it was.”
“Yes.”
“You sent me to clean that room.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
Luca looked at her.
“You sent Emma there?”
“I needed to know if the box was still hidden.”
“So you used her to find it.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I thought if it was there, she would see nothing.”
“But she saw a false panel.”
Vanessa looked at me.
“How?”
“The wall sounded hollow.”
She gave a small, incredulous laugh.
Luca did not.
“So Emma found the box. Then what?”
“I followed her.”
“To the laundry room?”
“Yes.”
“And attacked her.”
“I tried to stop her.”
“Same thing.”
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
“You don’t understand what Elena said would happen if the keys were together.”
Luca glanced at 318.
“They aren’t together.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“They can be.”
His face went still.
“My mother’s grave.”
“Yes.”
Sofia stood suddenly.
“No.”
Everybody looked at her.
“No one opens Lucia’s grave.”
Luca’s voice remained calm.
“Why?”
“Because she wanted 317 buried.”
“That is not a reason.”
“It was her dying request.”
“To hide evidence?”
“To protect you.”
He closed his eyes.
Again that word.
Protect.
I saw it anger him.
“You all protected me into ignorance.”
Sofia’s face crumpled.
“Luca.”
“No. You knew my father had a first wife. You knew my mother’s sister was alive. You knew Room 318 existed.”
“We were afraid.”
“Of what?”
Sofia looked at Vanessa.
Then at me.
Then at the windows.
“Of Elena.”
The name changed the room.
Luca heard it.
“You’re afraid of her now.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sofia whispered, “Because Elena did not survive St. Catherine’s by accident.”
Nobody moved.
“What does that mean?”
“She started the fire.”
Luca stared.
“To escape?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone die?”
Sofia’s eyes filled.
“Four people.”
I felt cold.
“Patients?”
“Two.”
“Staff?”
“One nurse.”
“And the fourth?”
Sofia looked at Luca.
“A Bellini.”
Vanessa whispered, “Which one?”
Sofia closed her eyes.
“Lucia was supposed to be there that night.”
Luca froze.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“She wasn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Antonio took her away.”
Luca stepped back.
“My father knew there would be a fire?”
Sofia’s silence answered.
His face hardened.
“What did he do?”
“He helped Elena escape.”
Vanessa whispered, “Why would he help a woman he had institutionalized?”
Sofia looked at her.
“Because he did not put her there.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Who did?”
Sofia whispered:
“Lucia.”
The word landed like glass.
Luca stared.
“My mother put her own sister in a psychiatric hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Elena threatened to expose Antonio.”
“For what?”
Sofia shook her head.
“I never knew.”
“You knew enough to keep keys.”
“No. Lucia kept 317. Antonio kept 318.”
I looked at the paper again.
317 IS MINE. 318 IS HIS.
“Lucia wrote the note?”
Sofia nodded.
“When?”
“After Antonio died.”
Luca’s face changed.
“My father died thirteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
“So she found his key after his death.”
“Yes.”
“And hid it.”
“In the sewing box.”
“With the note.”
“Yes.”
“Why not destroy it?”
Sofia whispered, “Because Elena said if either key was destroyed, she would release everything.”
Luca looked toward Vanessa’s phone.
“She’s been controlling this family for thirty years.”
Sofia said nothing.
Dr. Hayes arrived fifteen minutes later.
He cleaned my leg at the dining room table while Luca questioned Vanessa.
The cuts burned.
One needed two stitches.
The rest were taped closed.
“You’ll limp,” the doctor said.
“I already do.”
“Try not to make a hobby of it.”
Luca almost smiled.
Then Vanessa’s phone buzzed.
Everyone froze.
Not a call.
A message.
One image.
A cemetery.
Lucia Moretti’s grave.
Taken at night.
Fresh dirt beside the marble crypt.
Luca stood.
“What the hell?”
A second message arrived.
YOU HAVE SIX HOURS.
BRING 318.
A third.
OR I OPEN 317 MYSELF.
Sofia gasped.
Luca’s eyes hardened.
“She’s at my mother’s grave.”
Vanessa whispered, “She wants both keys.”
“No.”
I looked at the image.
At the fresh dirt.
Then at the black key on the table.
Something bothered me.
“Wait.”
Luca turned.
“What?”
I zoomed in on the photograph.
There.
Near the lower edge of the crypt.
A flower vase.
White roses.
And beside it—
today’s newspaper.
But the date was wrong.
“It’s not tonight.”
Vanessa stared.
“What?”
“The paper.”
Luca leaned closer.
Yesterday’s date.
I looked at him.
“This photo was staged before dinner.”
His face changed.
Meaning Elena—or whoever sent it—had planned for key 318 to be found tonight.
Before I ever opened the wall.
Before Vanessa followed me.
Before the blood.
Luca looked at Vanessa.
“You were meant to send Emma into that room.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“No.”
“You got a call before dinner.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did Elena say?”
Vanessa stared at the phone.
Then whispered:
“She said, ‘Put the girl where Lucia left the thread.’”
My skin went cold.
Luca looked at me.
“The girl.”
Vanessa nodded.
“She meant Emma.”
Nobody spoke.
I had never met Elena Bellini.
Never heard her name.
May you like
Yet before dinner, she knew exactly who I was.
And she had wanted me to find key 318.
