Chapter 2 - THE VOICE BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR|
“Daddy, she called me Stellina.”
Isabella's trembling voice seemed to travel through every corner of the Moretti dining room.
Luca Moretti didn't move.
For a moment, the powerful man who controlled half of Chicago's underground business empire looked as though someone had reached into his chest and stopped his heart.
“Say that again, sweetheart.”
Isabella wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“She called me Stellina.”
The little girl looked toward the staircase.
“Mommy always said I was her little star because I made the dark feel less scary.”
Luca gripped the edge of the banquet table.
Elena had invented that nickname when Isabella was only three months old.
She had whispered it while rocking their daughter through sleepless nights.
She had sung it into Isabella's hair during thunderstorms.
And eighteen months earlier, according to the official account, Elena Moretti had whispered that same name during a final phone conversation before her car disappeared into Lake Michigan.
Nobody outside the family should have known it.
Certainly not a mysterious woman locked inside Elena's old bedroom.
“Vanessa.”
Luca spoke softly.
That frightened me more than shouting would have.
His fiancée stood near the dining room entrance, clutching her expensive purse against her stomach.
“Luca, darling, please don't let a confused child turn this into something ridiculous.”
He ignored her.
“Antonio, bring me every key you have.”
The locksmith reached into his leather case.
“Immediately, signore.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“You cannot simply open those rooms.”
Luca turned his head.
“Watch me.”
She looked around desperately at the guests.
“Someone needs to explain to him that the woman upstairs is receiving private medical treatment.”
A strange silence followed.
Medical treatment.
My mind returned to all the unusual things I'd noticed during my eleven months at the mansion.
The covered trays carried upstairs after midnight.
The medication bottles Vanessa insisted on collecting herself.
The strange humming I sometimes heard through the ventilation shaft.
The laundry bags I was forbidden to touch.
I had assumed Vanessa was keeping expensive dresses or family heirlooms inside Elena's room.
Now I wondered how many clues I'd walked past without understanding them.
“What woman?” Luca asked.
Vanessa swallowed.
“A distant relative who needed somewhere quiet to recover.”
“Whose relative?”
“Mine.”
“What's her name?”
Vanessa glanced toward the staircase.
“That's confidential.”
Luca took one step toward her.
“My daughter has been terrified in her own home, and you've been keeping someone behind a door that locks from the outside.”
His voice grew quieter.
“You have five seconds to tell me what's happening.”
Vanessa looked at Antonio.
The locksmith lowered his eyes.
“Mr. Moretti,” he said, “I believe you should see the room yourself.”
Luca turned toward the guests.
“This evening is over.”
Nobody argued.
Chairs scraped against the marble floor.
Men in tailored suits rose without touching their unfinished champagne.
Women gathered their handbags and hurried toward the entrance.
Even the musicians stopped playing.
Within minutes, the enormous dining room had emptied.
Only Luca, Vanessa, Antonio, Isabella, and I remained.
Two of Luca's security men stood beside the staircase.
Luca looked at them.
“Marco, Daniel, nobody leaves this property until we understand what happened here.”
Vanessa's face went pale.
“You can't imprison me.”
“I'm not imprisoning anyone,” Luca answered.
“I'm preserving evidence while I call the police.”
For the first time, she looked genuinely frightened.
I felt Isabella's fingers tighten around mine.
“Emily?”
I knelt beside her.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“If it's Mommy, will she remember me?”
I couldn't answer.
Because I was afraid of giving her hope that might destroy her.
Luca heard the question.
Something changed behind his eyes.
He crouched in front of his daughter.
“Bella, whatever happens upstairs, none of this is your fault.”
She nodded.
“Promise you won't let Vanessa lock me in again?”
He pulled her close.
“Never again.”
I had seen Luca intimidate men twice his size without raising his voice.
But holding Isabella, he looked less like a feared mafia boss and more like a father discovering how badly he had failed his child.
He stood and turned to me.
“Emily, stay with Isabella.”
I nodded.
Then Isabella refused to release my hand.
“I want Emily to come.”
Luca hesitated.
“Bella, I don't know what we'll find.”
“She's the only one who believed me.”
Those words hit him harder than any accusation.
He looked at me.
“Can you carry her if necessary?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then stay beside me.”
We climbed the staircase together.
Vanessa followed reluctantly, accompanied by Marco.
The mansion had never felt so enormous.
Every chandelier seemed too bright.
Every footstep echoed.
At the second-floor landing, Antonio stopped in front of Isabella's bedroom.
He examined the brass lock.
“This is the first installation,” he explained.
“A deadbolt operated exclusively from the corridor.”
Luca stared at the mechanism.
“Remove it.”
Antonio began working immediately.
The soft scrape of metal against wood filled the hallway.
Isabella buried her face against my shoulder.
Within moments, the locksmith placed the entire locking assembly into a small evidence bag provided by Daniel.
Luca looked toward the next door.
Elena's bedroom.
Its white-painted frame was decorated with tiny carved flowers.
I remembered cleaning those flowers when I first started working at the mansion.
Back then, the room had been sealed, and Vanessa told me that Luca couldn't bear to see his late wife's belongings.
I had believed her.
Antonio inserted another key.
Vanessa suddenly lunged toward him.
“Don't open it!”
Marco stepped between them.
Luca didn't look away from the door.
“Open it.”
The lock clicked.
Then another mechanism slid back.
And another.
Three separate locks.
All operated from the hallway.
Antonio stepped aside.
Luca wrapped his tattooed fingers around the handle.
For several seconds, he didn't turn it.
I watched his chest rise and fall.
He was afraid.
Not of the woman behind the door.
But of the possibility that his daughter had been telling the truth.
Finally, he pushed.
The door opened six inches.
A faint smell drifted into the hallway.
Lavender.
Medicine.
And something stale, like a room that hadn't been aired for months.
“Hello?” Luca called.
No answer.
He pushed the door wider.
A small lamp glowed beside the bed.
The curtains were drawn.
A wheelchair stood near the window.
On the bedside table sat several prescription bottles, a glass of water, and a framed photograph of Isabella as a toddler.
Then I heard movement.
A woman sat in a high-backed chair facing the window.
She wore a pale blue nightgown.
Her dark hair hung loosely over thin shoulders.
One hand rested on the armrest.
The other trembled around a folded handkerchief.
Luca stopped in the doorway.
The woman slowly turned.
Her face was painfully thin.
There were shadows beneath her eyes.
But the shape of her mouth, the curve of her cheekbones, and the familiar hazel eyes were unmistakable.
Luca made a sound I had never heard from another human being.
“Elena?”
The woman looked at him.
Her lips parted.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then she whispered one word.
“Luca.”
Isabella slid from my arms.
“Mommy?”
The woman began shaking.
“Stellina?”
Isabella ran forward.
Luca caught her before she reached the chair.
“Wait, Bella.”
But Elena was already reaching out.
“My baby.”
Her voice broke.
“My beautiful little star.”
Isabella struggled free and threw herself into her mother's arms.
The sound that came from Elena wasn't quite a sob.
It was the desperate cry of someone who had been drowning and finally reached the surface.
Luca remained frozen.
Eighteen months of grief stood between him and the woman he had buried in his heart.
Elena looked over Isabella's shoulder.
“Luca, please.”
He took one step forward.
Then another.
“Who did this to you?”
Elena's eyes moved toward Vanessa.
And the fear that crossed her face was unmistakable.
“Don't let her give me the medicine.”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
“Elena, you're confused.”
Elena screamed.
“DON'T LET HER TOUCH ME!”
Isabella flinched.
I immediately pulled the little girl gently into my arms.
Luca turned toward Vanessa.
His expression had become terrifyingly calm.
“What medicine?”
Vanessa took a step backward.
“Luca, she suffers from memory disturbances.”
Elena gripped the chair.
“No.”
She struggled to stand.
Her knees buckled.
Luca caught her before she fell.
For a moment, husband and wife stared at each other.
Elena touched his face.
“You thought I died.”
Luca couldn't speak.
She began crying.
“I tried to tell you.”
His arms tightened around her.
“Tell me what?”
Elena looked past him.
Directly at Vanessa.
Then she whispered something that made every person in that room turn toward the doorway.
“Luca, I wasn't in the car when it went into the lake.”
Vanessa's purse slipped from her hand.
Elena gripped her husband's shirt.
“She made you bury an empty coffin.”
May you like
And as Luca stared at the woman he'd mourned for eighteen months, she whispered one final warning.
“The people who helped her are still inside this house.”
