Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS NEVER DEAD|
Nobody moved after Elena's warning.
The only sound came from Isabella, who was crying softly against my shoulder.
Luca still held his wife as though releasing her might make her disappear.
“Who helped Vanessa?” he asked.
Elena's eyes darted toward the hallway.
“I don't know who I can trust.”
“You can trust me.”
Her expression crumpled.
“I trusted you before.”
The words struck Luca visibly.
He looked down at her trembling hands.
There were small bruises along both wrists.
A faded hospital bracelet circled her left arm, its writing almost completely worn away.
Luca touched it carefully.
“Where have you been?”
Elena swallowed.
“In this room for six months.”
Six months.
I nearly lost my balance.
Vanessa had been engaged to Luca for eight months.
That meant Elena had been brought into the mansion while Vanessa was already wearing his engagement ring.
“Where were you before that?” Luca asked.
Elena closed her eyes.
“A private medical facility outside Chicago.”
“What facility?”
“I don't remember its name.”
She pressed her fingers against her temple.
“Sometimes they told me I was recovering from an accident.”
“Sometimes they said you had abandoned Isabella and were receiving psychiatric treatment.”
Her breathing quickened.
“They kept giving me pills, Luca.”
Vanessa found her voice.
“Those medications were prescribed by a licensed physician.”
Luca turned.
“Then you won't mind giving the police his name.”
Vanessa said nothing.
Luca looked at Daniel.
“Call 911, request officers and paramedics, and make sure they know there's a possible unlawful confinement and medical emergency.”
Daniel immediately stepped into the corridor.
I had never imagined hearing Luca Moretti summon the police into his own mansion.
His reputation rested on controlling problems privately.
Tonight, however, the problem was his family.
And secrecy had already cost them too much.
“Emily,” Elena whispered.
I looked up in surprise.
“You know my name?”
She nodded weakly.
“I heard Isabella talking about you.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“She said you held her hand when she was frightened.”
I tightened my arms around the little girl.
“She was very brave.”
Elena smiled painfully.
“She always was.”
Then she looked at Luca.
“Vanessa told me you didn't want me to see her.”
Luca went rigid.
“She told you what?”
“That you'd moved on.”
Elena stared at the diamond ring on Vanessa's finger.
“That you'd found someone better.”
Vanessa lowered her hand.
“She wasn't mentally stable enough to understand the situation.”
Luca stepped toward her.
“Stop speaking for my wife.”
The word wife seemed to drain the color from Vanessa's face.
For eighteen months, she had played the role of grieving household confidante, indispensable business companion, and eventually future Mrs. Moretti.
Now Elena's existence threatened everything she had built.
But I was beginning to suspect that marriage wasn't the only thing Vanessa wanted.
“Mr. Moretti,” Antonio said quietly, “there is something you should inspect.”
He pointed to the doorframe.
A narrow wire ran beneath the molding.
Luca frowned.
“What is that?”
“A contact sensor.”
Antonio knelt and lifted a tiny metal cover.
“It alerts someone whenever the door opens.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“That's a medical safety precaution.”
“Where does it send the alert?” Luca asked.
Antonio followed the wire toward a small device behind the curtain.
He removed its casing.
“This unit transmits wirelessly.”
He looked toward the hallway.
“Someone may have been monitoring the room.”
Luca immediately called for Marco.
“Find the security supervisor and tell him to preserve all surveillance footage.”
Marco hesitated.
“Sir, Mr. Rinaldi left about ten minutes ago.”
Luca's eyes narrowed.
“Victor left?”
“Yes, sir.”
“After I ordered nobody to leave?”
“He said he had a security emergency at the gate.”
Luca looked toward Vanessa.
She stared at the carpet.
Victor Rinaldi had served as the mansion's security director for nearly four years.
He was tall, efficient, and rarely smiled.
I had always found him unsettling.
More importantly, he had been the person who told me never to enter Elena's bedroom.
“Luca,” Elena whispered, “Victor knows.”
He crouched beside her.
“Knows what?”
“About me.”
She began breathing faster.
“He brought me here.”
A terrible realization passed across Luca's face.
He had trusted Victor with his wife's funeral arrangements.
Victor had supervised the search after her disappearance.
And Victor had stood beside him when investigators announced that the wreckage recovered from the lake was too damaged to provide immediate answers.
Luca's hands curled into fists.
“Daniel,” he called, “tell the police Victor Rinaldi may be involved.”
A minute later, I heard sirens approaching the gates.
Vanessa heard them too.
Her expression changed.
She wasn't simply frightened anymore.
She looked calculating.
“Luca,” she said softly, “you're making a terrible mistake.”
He didn't answer.
“If the police investigate everything connected to this house, they'll ask questions you won't want answered.”
Luca stared at her.
“Are you threatening me?”
“I'm reminding you that your reputation isn't exactly spotless.”
He stepped closer.
“My reputation won't protect you from what you've done.”
Vanessa laughed shakily.
“You think Elena's going to save you?”
Elena flinched.
I saw Luca notice.
And for the first time, I understood that whatever Vanessa had done, it hadn't begun with the locked bedroom.
It had begun much earlier.
A physician from the responding ambulance team arrived with two paramedics.
Luca stepped aside while they examined Elena.
They checked her pulse, blood pressure, and awareness.
One paramedic asked what medication she had taken.
Elena glanced at Vanessa before answering.
“I don't know.”
The paramedic examined the bottles.
Several labels had been partially peeled away.
“We need to take her to the hospital for evaluation.”
Elena grabbed Luca's wrist.
“Please don't send me back.”
He knelt.
“You're not going back to whoever hurt you.”
“But they told me hospitals would send me away.”
“Then we'll make sure you're protected.”
Elena searched his face.
“Promise?”
Luca lowered his forehead against hers.
“With everything I have.”
I looked away.
It felt too private to watch.
But Isabella was staring at her parents with an expression that broke my heart.
She looked happy.
And terrified.
As though the smallest movement might make her mother disappear again.
While the paramedics prepared the stretcher, a police detective entered the bedroom.
She introduced herself as Detective Rachel Bennett.
She was in her early forties, with sharp gray eyes and a steady voice.
After hearing a brief explanation, she turned toward Vanessa.
“Ms. Bellini, we'd like to speak with you downstairs.”
Vanessa lifted her chin.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not at this moment.”
“Then I'm leaving.”
“You're free to decline an interview, but officers are securing the property under the appropriate emergency procedures.”
Vanessa glanced toward Luca.
“You'll regret humiliating me.”
Luca didn't respond.
She walked into the corridor with one of the officers.
But as she passed me, she leaned close enough that nobody else could hear.
“You should have handed over the key, Emily.”
Her smile was cold.
“Now your mother gets to pay for your mistake.”
I felt all the blood drain from my face.
Vanessa continued downstairs.
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
My mother.
She lived alone in a modest house on Chicago's Southwest Side.
Her health had been fragile since a serious illness the previous winter.
Vanessa knew her address because employee emergency-contact information was kept in the mansion's administrative office.
I pulled out my phone.
Three missed calls.
All from my mother.
My fingers shook as I called her back.
No answer.
I tried again.
Voicemail.
Luca noticed my expression.
“Emily?”
I swallowed.
“Sir, I need to go home.”
“What's wrong?”
I could barely force the words out.
“Vanessa just threatened my mother.”
His face hardened.
“Give me the address.”
I showed him my phone.
He immediately spoke to Detective Bennett.
She listened carefully, then dispatched officers to check the property.
I waited beside Isabella while every second seemed impossibly long.
Finally, my phone rang.
A number I didn't recognize.
I answered immediately.
“Hello?”
A man's voice spoke.
“Is this Emily Carter?”
“Yes.”
“I'm Officer Ramirez with Chicago Police.”
My knees weakened.
“Is my mother okay?”
There was a brief pause.
Then he said something that made me clutch the wall.
“Miss Carter, your mother's front door is open.”
I couldn't breathe.
“We're checking the house now.”
Another voice sounded in the background.
Footsteps.
A door opening.
Then Officer Ramirez spoke again.
“Miss Carter, we found a note on your mother's kitchen table.”
I closed my eyes.
“What does it say?”
His next words turned my entire world upside down.
“Tell the maid to stop asking about Elena Moretti, or she'll lose the only family she has left.”
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And beneath those words, written in thick black ink, was a name.
Victor Rinaldi.
