Chapter 4 - A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE|
I stared at the phone until the words became meaningless.
I'm alive.
Four years of mourning.
Four years of loneliness.
Four years of imagining a husband buried beneath cold earth.
And now he was texting me as though he had simply been away on a business trip.
Luca stood across the desk, watching my face.
"Claire, don't answer until Detective Torres can examine the messages."
But anger was rising through my shock.
For years, I had carried Daniel's wedding photograph in my handbag.
I had visited his grave every birthday.
I had spent our anniversary sitting beside a headstone, telling him about the life he was missing.
If this was truly Daniel, I wanted answers.
I picked up the phone.
Where are you?
His reply came almost immediately.
Somewhere safe.
I laughed.
It was a broken, humorless sound.
Safe from what?
Three dots appeared on the screen.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Finally, he wrote back.
From the woman who hired me.
Luca leaned forward.
"Ask him who."
I typed the question.
The response arrived within seconds.
You already know her.
My blood turned cold.
Another message followed.
Vanessa Ward.
That was Vanessa's maiden name.
She had married Luca seven weeks earlier in an extravagant ceremony overlooking Lake Michigan.
I had spent three days arranging white roses for that wedding.
Now I wondered how many lies had stood beside the altar.
Luca took out his own phone and called Detective Torres.
He told her about the messages and asked her to return to the study.
But before she arrived, my phone rang.
The same unfamiliar number.
My thumb hovered above the screen.
"Claire," Luca said gently.
"You don't have to do this."
I looked at him.
"Yes, I do."
I answered.
For several seconds, all I heard was breathing.
Then a man's voice whispered my name.
"Claire?"
My knees weakened.
It was Daniel.
Older.
Rougher.
But unmistakably Daniel.
"Don't hang up," he said.
I gripped the edge of the desk.
"You died."
Silence.
"You let me bury you."
"Claire, I can explain."
"EXPLAIN?"
My scream surprised even me.
"I slept beside your photograph for four years!"
"I sold my wedding jewelry to pay debts you left behind!"
"I thought I had lost my mind because sometimes I heard your voice in the hallway!"
"How could you do this to me?"
His breathing became uneven.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't you dare say that."
I could barely see through my tears.
"Did you hurt Olivia?"
Another silence.
That silence was worse than any confession.
"Daniel."
"Did you try to kill her?"
"I wasn't supposed to hurt anybody."
My heart seemed to stop.
"What does that mean?"
"The job was supposed to scare her."
"That's all."
"Who hired you?"
He hesitated.
Then whispered, "Vanessa."
Luca's expression hardened.
"Put him on speaker."
I pressed the button.
"Daniel Bennett," Luca said.
"This is Luca Moretti."
The line went silent.
Then Daniel cursed under his breath.
"Of course you're there."
"Tell me where you are."
"No."
"Then tell me why you attacked my sister."
"Because your wife said Olivia was going to destroy everything."
Luca looked toward the closed study door.
"What everything?"
Daniel's voice became desperate.
"Listen carefully."
"Vanessa isn't working alone."
"She has people inside your house."
"People you've trusted for years."
Luca's jaw tightened.
"Names."
"I can't give you names over the phone."
"You already admitted to an attack on my sister."
"Names, Daniel."
A faint sound came through the speaker.
It sounded like a car door slamming.
Daniel suddenly stopped talking.
"Someone's here."
I leaned closer.
"Daniel?"
"Claire, listen to me."
"If anything happens, check the blue box."
My pulse quickened.
"What blue box?"
"The one beneath our old bed."
I remembered it.
A metal box containing photographs, our marriage certificate, and letters from Daniel's mother.
I had not opened it since the funeral.
"Daniel, what's inside?"
"Proof."
"Proof of what?"
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Proof that Vanessa paid for more than Olivia's accident."
Then I heard footsteps.
A man's voice shouted something in the distance.
Daniel gasped.
"Claire, run if anyone comes looking for you!"
The call ended.
I stood motionless, staring at the dark screen.
Luca immediately passed the information to Detective Torres when she entered the study.
She requested the call records and instructed me not to visit the old apartment alone.
But one thought consumed me.
The blue box.
I remembered seeing it under our bed just two months earlier when I returned to collect winter clothes from storage.
I had almost thrown it away.
Something had stopped me.
And suddenly, I understood that my husband's greatest secret might have been sitting beneath my bed for four years.
Then Olivia appeared in the doorway.
Her face was white.
"Luca, I remembered something else."
He turned toward her.
"What?"
"The night of my accident, Vanessa wasn't the only person who knew I was leaving the house."
She lifted her phone and showed us an old photograph from the mansion's security system.
A man stood beside Olivia's car in the garage.
He was holding a small black tool case.
Luca stared at the image.
Then he whispered a name.
"Marco."
May you like
His most trusted security coordinator had been standing beside Olivia's car less than an hour before her brakes failed.
And suddenly, we no longer knew whom to trust.
