Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO RAN FROM THE TRUTH|
"STOP HER!"
Luca Moretti's voice thundered through the basement as Vanessa disappeared into the hallway.
But the moment he started toward the staircase, his father grabbed his wrist.
"Don't leave me, son."
Those five words stopped the most feared mafia boss in Chicago.
Luca looked down at his eighty-two-year-old father, trembling on the freezing concrete floor.
For the first time since I'd met him, Luca seemed genuinely torn between his anger and his love.
Then he made his choice.
"I'm not going anywhere, Dad."
He pulled out his phone and called his security chief.
"Henry, Vanessa is heading toward the garage."
"Stop her from leaving the property, but nobody touches her."
"Call the police and get an ambulance here immediately."
I knelt beside Frank and gently placed my cardigan around his shoulders.
His hands were ice-cold.
Rex finally stopped barking and pressed his enormous head against the old man's chest.
Frank began crying.
"Good boy," he whispered, stroking the German Shepherd's ears.
"You knew I was down here."
Luca watched them with an expression I couldn't quite understand.
It was grief, rage, and something that looked painfully like shame.
"Dad, why didn't you call me sooner?"
Frank closed his eyes.
"Because I thought I could handle her."
Before Luca could respond, footsteps pounded across the floor above us.
Henry Ward appeared at the top of the stairs.
The fifty-year-old security chief had worked for the Moretti family for nearly fifteen years.
"Boss, she's gone."
Luca slowly raised his head.
"What?"
"She took the silver Mercedes through the south gate."
"Who opened it?"
Henry hesitated.
"The gate system registered an emergency override."
Luca stared at him.
"An override requires authorization."
"I know."
"Then find out whose authorization she used."
Henry swallowed and hurried away.
Something about his expression bothered me.
He hadn't looked surprised that Vanessa escaped.
He'd looked frightened that Luca was asking questions.
Within fifteen minutes, paramedics arrived.
They carefully lifted Frank onto a stretcher while a police officer began securing the basement.
Frank had been trapped without food or proper water for most of the day.
His left wrist was swollen, and his breathing had become shallow.
As the paramedics carried him upstairs, he suddenly reached toward me.
"Claire."
I hurried closer.
"Yes, Mr. Moretti?"
"Don't let them take the papers."
I glanced at the document Luca still held.
"Nobody's taking anything."
Frank shook his head.
"Not those papers."
He struggled to breathe.
"The ones Rosa hid."
Luca froze.
"Mom hid papers?"
Frank's frightened eyes moved toward the dark basement.
"She knew somebody was going to hurt her."
Then the paramedics hurried him toward the ambulance.
I stood there trying to understand what I'd heard.
Rosa Moretti had died three years earlier.
According to everyone in the mansion, she had suffered a sudden heart attack at St. Catherine's Medical Center.
Luca rarely spoke about her.
Frank kept her photograph beside his favorite chair.
And every year on the anniversary of her death, Rex waited outside her bedroom door as though expecting her to return.
I'd always thought it was heartbreaking.
Now it seemed terrifying.
A woman who had supposedly died of natural causes had hidden evidence before her death.
And the woman who married her son had just tried to steal the family's properties.
Detective Maya Ellis arrived shortly afterward.
She was a sharp-eyed Chicago police detective in her forties, accompanied by her partner, Detective Tomas Ruiz.
She examined the damaged lock, the disconnected telephone, and the unsigned transfer document.
Then she turned toward Luca.
"Your father says your wife imprisoned him to force a signature?"
"Yes."
"And you're saying the same woman may have information about your mother's death?"
Luca's jaw tightened.
"I'm saying my father heard her discussing medical records with another man."
Ellis looked at him steadily.
"Mr. Moretti, I know who you are."
"Then you know I can find Vanessa."
"I'm asking you to let us do that."
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Luca placed the property document in an evidence sleeve Ellis offered him.
"Find her before somebody else gets hurt."
I was surprised by his answer.
The Luca Moretti I'd heard stories about never surrendered control to anyone.
But this wasn't an ordinary night.
His father had nearly died inside his own home.
And his dead mother's name was suddenly attached to a crime nobody had investigated.
Detective Ruiz began questioning the household staff.
I told him everything I'd witnessed.
Rex's behavior.
Vanessa's explanation about rats.
The knocking.
Frank's accusation.
When I mentioned Henry's suspicious reaction, Ruiz wrote something in his notebook.
"Did the security cameras cover this hallway?"
"Every entrance and hallway," I answered.
"At least they're supposed to."
That was when Luca's phone rang.
He answered without looking at the screen.
"Speak."
A man's frightened voice came through the speaker.
"Mr. Moretti, this is Malik from the security monitoring company."
"We found something wrong with today's recordings."
Luca straightened.
"What exactly?"
"The basement hallway footage was replaced with an old recording."
"Someone deliberately made it look empty."
Detective Ellis stepped closer.
"How long was the recording altered?"
There was a pause.
"From eight this morning until just after Mr. Moretti got home."
My stomach dropped.
Vanessa hadn't simply locked Frank downstairs.
Someone had helped her hide it.
Luca looked toward the staircase.
"Can you recover the original footage?"
"We're trying, sir."
"But there's something else."
Malik's voice became uneasy.
"The system logged a remote connection before the footage disappeared."
"Who connected?"
"An account belonging to Henry Ward."
Silence filled the room.
Then the detective's radio crackled.
A patrol officer reported that Henry's vehicle had just left the north service entrance.
Luca closed his eyes.
His closest security employee had vanished on the same night as his wife.
But that wasn't the worst discovery.
As Detective Ellis prepared to leave for the hospital, Frank's phone suddenly rang from the pocket of his discarded cardigan.
I picked it up.
The caller identification displayed a number without a name.
When I answered, nobody spoke.
Then a distorted male voice whispered something that made my knees weaken.
"Tell Frank Moretti that Rosa should have kept her mouth shut."
The call disconnected.
I stared at the screen.
May you like
And when Luca asked who it was, I barely managed to answer.
"Someone who knows what happened to your mother."
