Chapter 2 - THE DEAD WOMAN'S SIGNATURE|
"That's not possible."
Vanessa Bellini's words were barely louder than a whisper, but in the silence of Matteo DeLuca's dining room, they sounded like a confession.
Twenty-eight guests stared at the woman in the red satin gown.
Her diamond engagement ring caught the chandelier light as her fingers tightened around the back of a chair.
Matteo stood beside Eleanor Price, holding a document that supposedly carried his dead mother's signature.
I had never seen him look so still.
Not angry.
Not yet.
Just terrifyingly still.
"Tell me what isn't possible, Vanessa," he said.
She blinked.
"I meant that someone must have made a mistake."
"That's not what you said."
"Matteo, darling, you're embarrassing me in front of our guests."
He looked around the dining room.
Then he turned toward the elderly woman sitting beside me.
"Ellie, have you eaten today?"
The question seemed to surprise everyone.
Eleanor lowered her eyes.
"I had some toast this morning."
"And since then?"
She shook her head.
Matteo looked toward the household manager.
"Bring her dinner."
Vanessa let out an irritated laugh.
"Are we seriously stopping our engagement celebration to feed a former housekeeper?"
Matteo turned toward her.
"My mother worked double shifts at a grocery store before she married my father."
Vanessa's smile disappeared.
"She used to tell me that the quickest way to recognize a cruel person was to watch how they treated someone who couldn't do anything for them."
He glanced at Eleanor.
"And this woman held my hand at my father's funeral when I was nine years old."
Nobody spoke.
"She stayed awake beside my bed when I had pneumonia."
His voice grew quieter.
"She sold her own wedding ring once because my mother couldn't afford the medicine I needed."
Eleanor covered her face.
"Matteo, sweetheart, you don't have to tell them all that."
"Yes, Ellie."
He pulled a chair beside hers.
"I think I do."
I stood behind Eleanor, still holding the loose end of the ribbon I had used to repair her shoe.
Something inside my chest tightened.
I had worked in wealthy homes long enough to know that gratitude usually disappeared the moment the servants left the room.
But Matteo was looking at Eleanor as though the entire mansion had become unimportant.
Then he turned toward Robert Hale, his attorney.
"Explain the signature."
Robert placed the papers on the table.
"The transfer was recorded last Thursday."
"Six years after my mother's death."
"Correct."
"And you're telling me someone used her name to transfer property?"
"Not exactly."
Robert hesitated.
"The document appears to contain a notarized authorization supposedly executed by your mother before her death."
Matteo frowned.
"Then why is the transfer dated last Thursday?"
"Because the authorization was allegedly activated through a trust amendment."
"What amendment?"
Robert looked uncomfortable.
"One I have never seen."
Vanessa suddenly stepped forward.
"Perhaps we should discuss this privately."
Matteo ignored her.
"Who prepared it?"
Robert examined the lower corner of the page.
"Bellini Legal Holdings."
Vanessa's face went pale.
Matteo looked at her.
"Your brother's company."
"Adrian handles dozens of transactions."
"Did he handle this one?"
"I don't know."
"Then call him."
"Matteo, it's almost ten."
"Call him."
Vanessa stared at him for several seconds.
Then she reached for her phone.
But before she could unlock it, Eleanor caught my hand.
"Claire."
I leaned closer.
"Yes, Mrs. Price?"
"Margaret."
My stomach dropped.
I had almost forgotten the retired nurse waiting downstairs.
"She's still in the servants' sitting room," I whispered.
Eleanor nodded.
"Please bring her."
Vanessa's head snapped toward us.
"Absolutely not."
Matteo looked up.
"Why?"
"Because this evening has already become a circus."
Eleanor's hands began trembling.
"Margaret brought the original papers from your mother's estate."
Matteo stood.
"Claire, bring her upstairs."
Vanessa moved toward the doorway.
"Matteo, I really think—"
"Move, Vanessa."
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
She stepped aside.
I hurried into the hallway.
Behind me, I heard Matteo address the guests.
"Nobody is being detained, and anyone who wishes to leave may do so."
A chair scraped against the marble floor.
"But anyone who stays will hear the truth."
I reached the servants' staircase with my heart pounding.
The mansion had three floors, seventeen bedrooms, and enough security cameras to make a person feel watched even when nobody was around.
Yet the servants' sitting room was tucked behind the laundry corridor, far from the glittering chandeliers.
Margaret Collins sat on the edge of a narrow sofa.
She was fifty-nine, with short gray hair, a brown wool coat, and a leather document case resting across her knees.
When she saw me, she stood immediately.
"Did Eleanor find him?"
"Yes."
"Is she all right?"
"She's frightened, but she's safe."
Margaret closed her eyes.
"Thank God."
I noticed that her hands were shaking.
"Mrs. Collins, what's in that case?"
She looked toward the hallway.
"Something people have been willing to do terrible things to get."
A chill moved down my spine.
"What things?"
She hesitated.
Then she opened her handbag.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed a small white cottage with blue shutters.
The front window had been smashed.
Across the door, someone had spray-painted two words.
GET OUT.
"That happened yesterday," Margaret whispered.
"Who did it?"
"We don't know."
She slipped the photograph back into her bag.
"But two nights before that, someone came to my house asking about the estate documents."
"Who?"
"A man named Adrian Bellini."
I stared at her.
Vanessa's brother.
Margaret tightened her grip on the leather case.
"He told me those papers belonged to his client."
"Did you give them to him?"
"No."
"What happened?"
Her eyes filled with tears.
"He said I should think carefully about how much trouble an old woman could survive."
For a moment, I couldn't speak.
Then footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Both of us turned.
The household manager, Gordon Pike, stood near the doorway.
He was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties, always dressed in a perfectly pressed gray suit.
He had supervised the mansion's staff for eleven years.
And he had never liked me.
"Miss Bennett," he said.
"Mr. DeLuca asked me to bring Mrs. Collins upstairs."
Gordon looked at Margaret's case.
"That won't be necessary."
I frowned.
"Excuse me?"
"Miss Bellini has instructed me to arrange transportation for our visitors."
"Mr. DeLuca gave me different instructions."
Gordon's expression hardened.
"You're a maid, Claire."
"I know."
"Then remember your place."
Margaret stepped closer to me.
"I'd like to see Matteo."
Gordon smiled.
"Unfortunately, the family is occupied."
I could feel my pulse in my throat.
Six months earlier, when I first started working at the mansion, I would have apologized and stepped aside.
I needed the job.
My mother had died leaving behind medical bills, and my younger sister, Lily, was finishing nursing school.
Every paycheck mattered.
But I kept thinking about Eleanor standing alone in the hallway with her broken shoe.
Forty minutes.
A woman who had raised the owner of the house had been left standing for forty minutes because someone considered her unimportant.
I straightened my shoulders.
"Mr. DeLuca is waiting."
Gordon moved into the doorway.
"Give me the case."
Margaret backed away.
"No."
His smile disappeared.
"Mrs. Collins, don't make this difficult."
I stepped between them.
"Please move."
He stared at me.
Then he leaned closer.
"You have no idea what you're getting involved in."
"Maybe not."
I looked him directly in the eyes.
"But I know what Mr. DeLuca told me."
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then a deep voice sounded behind Gordon.
"Is there a problem?"
Matteo stood at the end of the corridor.
His black jacket was unbuttoned, and the tattoos climbing his neck were visible above his collar.
Two security guards stood behind him.
Gordon immediately stepped aside.
"Sir, I was simply assisting—"
"By blocking my employee?"
Gordon swallowed.
"Of course not."
Matteo looked at me.
"Claire?"
I hesitated.
Then I told him.
"He asked Mrs. Collins for her documents."
Matteo's gaze shifted toward Gordon.
"Did he?"
Gordon opened his mouth.
But Margaret spoke first.
"He told us to leave."
The hallway went silent.
Matteo looked at his security guards.
"Take Mr. Pike to my office."
Gordon's face drained of color.
"Sir, I can explain."
"You'll have the opportunity."
The guards escorted him away.
Matteo turned toward Margaret.
"I'm sorry."
Her eyes filled.
"You look so much like your father."
For the first time that evening, his expression softened.
"Hello, Maggie."
She reached up and touched his cheek.
"Hello, little lion."
I looked away.
It felt like witnessing something private.
Something that existed long before the mansion, the expensive suits, or the reputation that made people lower their voices when Matteo entered a room.
Margaret lifted the leather case.
"Your mother asked me to keep these safe."
Matteo stared at it.
"Why you?"
"Because I was there the night she signed them."
His expression changed.
"What night?"
Margaret swallowed.
"The night before her final surgery."
Matteo's jaw tightened.
"My mother was heavily medicated."
"Not that evening."
"She was barely speaking."
"She spoke to me for almost an hour."
He looked shaken.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Margaret's voice trembled.
"Because she made me promise not to open this case unless someone tried to take Eleanor's cottage."
Matteo stared at her.
Then he stepped aside.
"Come upstairs."
We returned to the dining room together.
The guests had stopped eating.
Several were whispering.
Vanessa stood near the fireplace, speaking urgently into her phone.
When she saw Margaret, she abruptly ended the call.
"Who invited her?"
Matteo answered.
"I did."
Margaret placed the leather case on the dining table.
Robert moved closer.
She unlocked two brass clasps.
Inside were several folders, an old photograph, and a sealed cream-colored envelope.
Across the envelope, in elegant handwriting, were four words.
FOR MY SON, MATTEO.
Matteo stopped breathing for a moment.
I could see it.
His hand hovered over the envelope without touching it.
"That's her handwriting," he whispered.
Margaret nodded.
"Yes."
Vanessa approached.
"Matteo, you shouldn't open something like that in front of strangers."
He looked at her.
"These people are strangers."
Then he looked at Eleanor and Margaret.
"They aren't."
He carefully broke the seal.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
He unfolded it.
And as his eyes moved across the first lines, the color slowly drained from his face.
I watched his fingers tighten around the paper.
Then he read aloud.
"My dearest Matteo, if Eleanor has brought you this letter, someone has betrayed the promise your father and I made to the people who helped build our family."
His voice faltered.
Eleanor began crying quietly.
Matteo continued.
"The seven cottages and the west wing are protected under a separate charitable trust, and no future spouse, business partner, or relative may claim them through marriage or inheritance."
Robert leaned forward.
"That's significant."
Matteo kept reading.
"I have placed the original trust deed with Margaret because I no longer trust the people handling our affairs."
Vanessa took a step backward.
Matteo reached the final paragraph.
His face changed.
Not with sadness.
With disbelief.
He read the words twice before speaking.
"Matteo, there is something about the night your father died that you have never been told."
The room seemed to shrink around us.
Matteo's father had been killed thirty years earlier in what everyone called a business-related shooting.
It was the tragedy that had shaped his childhood.
The tragedy that had turned a frightened nine-year-old boy into the most feared man in certain corners of Chicago.
Matteo slowly looked up.
"What does that have to do with the cottages?"
Margaret's eyes filled.
"Everything."
Vanessa suddenly reached for her handbag.
"I think I've heard enough."
Matteo turned toward her.
"Sit down."
She froze.
His voice was quiet.
"Because if my mother was afraid of someone inside this family, I intend to find out who."
Margaret removed one final document from the case.
It was an old photograph, its edges yellowed with age.
Three men stood outside a warehouse.
One was Matteo's father.
The second was a younger Robert Hale.
And the third was a man I recognized immediately.
I had seen him only once, in a framed photograph inside Vanessa's private dressing room.
Her father.
Victor Bellini.
Matteo stared at the picture.
Then he turned it over.
On the back, his mother had written a date.
October 17, 1996.
The night his father died.
Underneath the date were six words.
VICTOR KNOWS WHO OPENED THE DOOR.
May you like
And when Matteo looked toward Vanessa, she whispered something nobody else was supposed to hear.
"My father said those photographs were destroyed."
