Chapter 5 - THE SECRETS BENEATH MY BED|
By midnight, the mansion was almost empty.
The flowers were still beautiful.
The champagne glasses still glittered beneath the chandeliers.
But the celebration had been destroyed, and nobody seemed interested in pretending otherwise.
Olivia had been taken upstairs to rest.
Vanessa remained with her attorney while Detective Torres finished interviewing witnesses.
And Luca had ordered Marco DeLuca, his longtime security coordinator, to surrender his access credentials and remain available for questioning.
Marco had worked for the Moretti family for nearly twelve years.
He had accompanied Luca to business meetings, guarded Olivia during hospital visits, and attended the funeral of their mother.
The idea that he might have helped someone harm Olivia seemed impossible.
But I had already learned what impossible meant.
It meant nothing.
At 12:43 a.m., Detective Torres drove me to my old apartment on Chicago's North Side.
Luca followed in a separate vehicle.
I hadn't wanted him to come.
Part of me blamed him for everything.
If I had never accepted a job at his mansion, perhaps Daniel would never have become involved with these people.
But another part of me knew the truth was more complicated.
Daniel had made his own decisions.
And I was beginning to suspect those decisions had started long before I met Luca Moretti.
My apartment building looked exactly as it always had.
The paint was peeling near the front entrance.
The hallway smelled of laundry detergent.
Someone had left a broken umbrella beside the mailboxes.
For four years, this had been the place where I returned on my days away from the mansion.
It was the last place Daniel and I had called home together.
I unlocked the door.
Our wedding photograph still stood on the bookshelf.
I stared at it for a long moment.
Daniel was smiling at the camera.
His arm was wrapped around my waist.
I remembered thinking his love would protect me from anything.
What a cruel thing memory could become.
"Where is the box?" Detective Torres asked.
I pointed toward the bedroom.
"Beneath the bed."
She asked me to wait while she checked the room.
Then she called me inside.
The blue metal box sat exactly where I remembered leaving it.
Its paint was chipped.
There was a small dent near the handle.
Daniel had bought it at a hardware store during our first year of marriage.
I had once teased him for treating an inexpensive box like a bank vault.
Now my hands shook as I opened it.
Our marriage certificate lay on top.
Beneath it were photographs, birthday cards, and a silver watch Daniel's father had given him.
Then I found something unfamiliar.
A black USB drive wrapped in tissue paper.
Detective Torres carefully collected it for examination.
Underneath the drive was a thick envelope.
Across the front, in Daniel's handwriting, were four words.
For Claire, if necessary.
I felt my throat tighten.
"May I read it?"
The detective photographed the envelope before allowing me to remove the letter.
I unfolded the paper.
Claire, if you're reading this, then the people I trusted have finally turned against me.
There are things about my work that I never told you.
I thought money could solve our problems.
Instead, I became part of something terrible.
I cannot ask you to forgive me.
But whatever happens, remember that you were never part of my choices.
Tears rolled down my cheeks.
The letter was dated two years earlier.
Two years after Daniel supposedly died.
He had entered our apartment while I was away.
He had touched our belongings.
He had placed this letter beneath our bed.
Then he had walked away and allowed me to keep grieving.
I pressed my fist against my mouth.
"He was here."
Luca stood near the doorway.
"Claire?"
"He came back to our home."
My voice broke.
"He knew I was still waiting for him."
Luca looked away.
For the first time, I saw genuine shame on the face of a man who had built his reputation on fear.
Detective Torres examined the documents inside the envelope.
There were bank transfers, construction invoices, and copies of contracts involving the North Star Foundation.
I recognized the foundation's name immediately.
Luca's parents had established it decades earlier to support rehabilitation services and affordable housing for families with disabilities.
Olivia had become one of its trustees after their deaths.
Vanessa had recently joined its fundraising committee.
A series of payments had been transferred to a company called Lakefront Community Partners.
The amounts were enormous.
Four hundred thousand dollars.
Nine hundred thousand dollars.
More than two million dollars in a single transfer.
By the time Detective Torres reached the final page, the total exceeded eight million dollars.
"What's this company?" I asked.
Luca stared at the documents.
"I've never heard of it."
The detective studied a corporate ownership statement.
"Someone wanted it to look independent."
She pointed toward a name buried beneath several layers of ownership.
Graham Ward.
Vanessa's father.
I looked at Luca.
His face had lost all color.
"He's a real estate developer," Luca said.
"Vanessa told me his business was struggling."
Torres continued examining the papers.
"And apparently somebody used your family's charitable foundation to help him."
I turned toward the USB drive.
"What's on that?"
"We'll have our forensic team examine it."
But Luca was staring at another document.
It was an invoice from a construction consulting company.
A company that had supposedly closed four years earlier.
At the bottom was a signature.
Daniel Bennett.
Beside it was the date.
Six weeks before his reported death.
And beneath his name was the signature of the person who had authorized the payment.
Vanessa Ward.
I felt my stomach twist.
She had known my husband before he supposedly died.
Long before she married Luca.
Long before Olivia's accident.
Luca looked at me.
"This wasn't something that began eighteen months ago."
Detective Torres nodded grimly.
"No."
I stared at Vanessa's signature.
My husband's fake death had not been the beginning of her scheme.
May you like
It had been part of a much older plan.
And someone had spent years preparing to destroy the Moretti family from the inside.
