Chapter 1
Vanessa said nothing.
For three full seconds, nobody in the dining room breathed loudly enough for me to hear.
Then Luca folded Sofia’s letter once.
Not carefully.
Not angrily either.
That was worse.
He folded it like a man who had just discovered the ground under his feet had been false for twenty-two years and had not yet decided whether to fall or start shooting.
“Where is she?” he asked again.
Vanessa’s hands tightened at her sides.
The diamond on her left ring finger caught the candlelight.
Their engagement ring.
The ring everyone at the table had spent the evening admiring.
“I have no idea what this woman has told you,” she said.
Luca looked at me.
“Rachel. Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding on my floor.”
The room remained silent.
I glanced down.
A thin red line had traveled from my calf to my ankle and collected inside my black shoe.
“I can stand.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
His voice never rose.
Still, one of the men at the far end of the table lowered his eyes.
I knew most of the guests only by face. Lawyers. Business owners. Two judges. A retired police captain. Three women wearing enough diamonds to pay off my mother’s mortgage twice.
People who smiled around Luca Moretti.
People who never interrupted him.
I sat on the nearest chair.
Luca turned back to Vanessa.
“My aunt,” he said. “Where is she?”
Vanessa gave a breathless laugh.
“Luca, this is insane.”
He held up the letter.
“Her handwriting.”
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves she wrote it.”
“It proves someone copied old cards and letters.”
His eyes moved to me again.
“You saw Sofia?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. And before that. More than once.”
A murmur moved around the table.
Vanessa snapped toward the guests.
“Would everyone please give us a moment?”
Nobody moved.
Luca did not even look at them.
“Stay.”
The murmur stopped.
Vanessa’s face changed.
For the first time since I’d met her, she looked less like the woman who controlled every room and more like someone trapped inside one.
Luca opened the letter again.
He read farther this time.
His jaw tightened.
“What does it say?” one of the older men asked.
Luca ignored him.
I watched his eyes move down the page.
Then stop.
He looked at Vanessa.
“What is the Orchard House?”
Her expression went still.
That told me the name mattered.
“I don’t know.”
Luca smiled once.
There was nothing pleasant in it.
“You answered too fast.”
Vanessa lifted her chin.
“I’m being accused by a maid with a golf club and a dead woman’s letter. Forgive me if I’m not choosing my words perfectly.”
I should have stayed quiet.
Instead I said, “Sofia mentioned an orchard.”
Vanessa turned on me.
“You have done enough.”
Luca stepped between us.
Not dramatically.
Just one step.
But it changed the air.
“Talk to her like that again,” he said softly, “and this conversation changes.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
The room felt colder.
I looked away first.
This wasn’t romance.
It wasn’t protection in the way novels made protection beautiful.
It was power.
And Luca had just moved his power three feet to the left so that it stood between Vanessa and me.
A man near the doorway reached for his phone.
Luca noticed.
“Marco.”
The man froze.
“Collect every phone in this room.”
Vanessa’s eyes widened.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m very serious.”
Marco started around the table.
Guests reluctantly surrendered their phones one by one.
Vanessa did not.
Luca extended his hand.
She stared at it.
Then at him.
“This is humiliating.”
“So is finding out my family buried someone who wasn’t dead.”
Her throat moved.
Slowly, she placed her phone in his hand.
He passed it to Marco.
“Lock the front gate. Nobody leaves until I say so.”
A woman in pearls protested. “Luca, surely we don’t need—”
“We do.”
That ended it.
He looked back at the letter.
“Rachel. Tell me everything.”
So I did.
I told him about the east wing.
The locked door.
The brass key I found behind a loose panel in the linen closet.
The room that smelled faintly of lavender and old books.
Sofia sitting by the window in a pale sweater.
The pendant.
The fear in her face whenever footsteps sounded in the hallway.
The tray of food that appeared twice a day.
The small white pills she said Vanessa insisted she take.
Luca interrupted only once.
“White pills?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see a bottle?”
“No label. They were in a silver case.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“This is fantasy.”
I kept going.
I told him Sofia knew things no stranger should know.
His childhood nickname.
The scar on his left wrist from a bicycle accident when he was nine.
The song his mother used to play at Christmas.
The fact that he hated pears but ate them anyway when his father was alive because his father believed refusing food at the table was disrespectful.
Luca’s expression changed at that.
Barely.
But I saw it.
Vanessa did too.
“She could have learned those things from anyone,” she said.
“Who?” Luca asked.
Vanessa hesitated.
He leaned against the piano.
“Name one person outside my blood family who knew about the pears.”
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
I continued.
“Yesterday she told me Vanessa was planning to move her.”
Luca’s eyes returned to the letter.
“She wrote that.”
“What else?”
“She said if she disappeared, you had to find the Orchard House. She said not to trust anyone who says your father ordered it.”
A chair scraped.
The older man who had spoken earlier stood.
His name was Dominic Rinaldi.
I knew because the staff had been warned to refill his bourbon before he asked.
He had white hair and a voice like dry paper.
“Luca,” he said, “perhaps this should be private.”
Luca turned slowly.
“Why?”
Dominic adjusted his cuff.
“Because your father has been dead six years, and not every rumor deserves resurrection.”
“Interesting choice of word.”
Dominic’s mouth tightened.
Vanessa stepped in quickly.
“This is exactly why we should stop. Sofia was unstable. Everyone knew that.”
My heart jumped.
Luca heard it too.
His head turned.
“You just said she was dead.”
Vanessa froze.
Nobody moved.
He pushed away from the piano.
“You said my aunt has been dead for twenty-two years.”
“I meant before she died. She was unstable before she died.”
“But Rachel didn’t tell you what Sofia was like twenty-two years ago.”
Vanessa’s face went pale again.
Luca walked toward her.
One step.
Two.
“Who told you she was unstable?”
Vanessa whispered, “Your family.”
“Which member?”
“Your father.”
“My father never spoke about her.”
“Maybe because it hurt him.”
“Or maybe because somebody made sure he believed she was dead.”
Dominic spoke sharply. “Enough.”
Luca looked at him.
The older man immediately seemed to regret using that tone.
“Sit down, Dominic.”
“I knew your father thirty years.”
“Then you can answer questions after Vanessa.”
Dominic sat.
Luca turned toward Marco.
“Bring security footage from the east wing. Yesterday and today.”
Marco’s face shifted.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“There is no east-wing footage.”
Luca stared at him.
Marco swallowed.
“The cameras have been offline since last month.”
“Who authorized that?”
Marco hesitated.
Vanessa said, “I did.”
Luca looked at her.
She lifted both hands.
“There were renovations.”
“There were no renovations.”
“Electrical work.”
“By who?”
She didn’t answer.
Luca’s eyes became very cold.
“Marco. Get Daniel. Search the house. Every room, storage space, basement corridor, attic, garage, and service area.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“You’re going to tear apart your own home because a bleeding employee tells you a ghost story?”
Luca’s voice dropped.
“No. I’m going to tear apart my home because my fiancée knows too much about a dead woman she claims she never met.”
He turned to me.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I can walk badly.”
Something almost like humor touched his mouth.
Gone instantly.
“Marco, get the doctor.”
“I don’t need—”
Luca cut me off with a look.
I stopped.
Then Vanessa did something I didn’t expect.
She sat.
Slowly.
Calmly.
Like the crisis had passed.
She reached for her champagne, remembered the glass was empty, and smiled.
“You won’t find her.”
Nobody spoke.
Luca turned.
“What did you say?”
Vanessa’s smile remained.
“I said you won’t find her.”
My skin went cold.
Luca walked closer.
“Why not?”
She looked directly at me.
“Because Rachel was too late.”
I pushed myself up from the chair.
Pain shot through my leg.
“What did you do?”
Vanessa’s eyes never left mine.
“You wanted to be the hero, sweetheart.”
Luca’s voice cracked like a whip.
“Vanessa.”
She finally looked at him.
“You should ask your loyal maid what else Sofia gave her.”
My breath stopped.
Luca’s gaze shifted toward me.
Vanessa saw it.
And smiled wider.
“There it is,” she said. “She didn’t tell you everything.”
I felt every person at the table turn toward me.
Luca spoke quietly.
“What else did she give you?”
I didn’t answer.
Not because I wanted to hide it.
Because suddenly I understood.
Vanessa wasn’t trying to save herself.
She was trying to make Luca distrust me before I could show him the second thing Sofia had placed in my hand.
A tiny brass key.
Stamped with one number.
17.
I had sewn it into the hem of my dress.
Exactly where the blood had soaked darkest.
Before Luca could ask another question, the lights above the dining table flickered once.
Vanessa looked toward the ceiling.
It was tiny.
A reaction most people would miss.
Luca did not.
Neither did I.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Old wiring,” Vanessa said.
Marco glanced toward the hallway.
“The generator is automatic.”
Vanessa’s eyes moved to him.
Too quickly.
Luca noticed again.
He stepped closer to me.
“Whatever else Sofia gave you, don’t show it here.”
I stared at him.
He had figured out Vanessa’s game before I had.
Across the room, Vanessa slowly set her empty champagne glass down.
For the first time that night, she looked toward the doors instead of the people around her.
As if she was waiting for someone.
Or warning them.
May you like
And suddenly the number 17 hidden in my dress felt less like a key.
It felt like a countdown.
