Chapter 4 - The Leather Journal in the Dark
The hallway to the east wing was heavily shadowed.
Luca carried a small flashlight. Sophie walked a step behind him, clutching her bandaged arm against her chest.
The party was still going downstairs. They could hear the faint string quartet playing in the ballroom.
Vanessa had told her parents she had a headache and had retreated to the guest suite. But Luca had already stationed two guards at the bottom of the stairs. She wasn’t leaving the house.
They reached the final door on the left.
Luca paused. He hadn’t touched this brass doorknob since the morning of Michael’s funeral.
He turned it. The door creaked open, releasing a wave of stale air and the faint scent of old cedar.
The bedroom was exactly as Michael had left it. A wrinkled blue bedspread. A stack of law textbooks on the desk. A pair of running shoes near the closet.
It felt like walking into a tomb.
“Where is the lockbox?” Sophie whispered.
“Under the floorboards beneath the window.”
Luca crossed the room and knelt. He pried up a loose plank of oak, revealing a heavy iron lockbox bolted to the joists.
He inserted the rusted brass key from the pocket watch.
It turned with a sharp click.
Luca lifted the lid.
Inside sat a single object: a black leather journal.
The pages were warped, the edges worn from use.
Luca pulled it out and opened it to the last marked page. The date was exactly one day before Michael’s car crash.
Sophie held the flashlight steady over his shoulder.
Luca began to read aloud, his voice strained.
“She lied to me. The baby isn’t mine. I found the medical records in her bag. She was two months pregnant before we even met. When I confronted her, she laughed. She said if I didn’t marry her and claim the child, she would tell her real lover about us. She said he would kill my entire family. She wasn’t asking for marriage. She was demanding a human shield.”
Sophie gasped quietly. “She was blackmailing him.”
Luca kept reading.
“I can’t let him hurt Luca. I can’t let him touch my mother. I’m canceling the wedding tomorrow. I’ve packed a bag. I’m going to drive to the lake house and hide until I can figure out how to expose her. But I’m leaving this journal just in case. If you are reading this, Luca... look at the rosary.”
Luca stopped.
He stared at the words.
“The rosary?” Sophie asked.
Luca’s eyes darted down the page.
“Vanessa wears a silver rosary. She told me it was her grandmother’s. It’s a lie. It’s his. The father’s. The crest on the back of the crucifix belongs to the only man she truly fears. Find the rosary, Luca. You’ll find the father.”
Luca slowly closed the journal.
The string quartet was still playing downstairs.
“She’s wearing a rosary tonight,” Sophie whispered, her voice trembling. “I saw it when I served the cake. A silver cross on a pearl chain.”
Luca stood up, slipping the journal into his jacket. “I have to get close enough to see the back of that cross.”
“How? You just broke off the engagement. She hates you.”
“She doesn’t know I have this journal. She thinks I’m just angry about her lies.” Luca turned to the door. “I have to go back downstairs and play the apologetic groom. I have to dance with her.”
“And if she realizes what you’re doing?”
“She won’t.” Luca looked at Sophie. “But I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“Go to the security room. Tell Gino to pull the cameras for the guest suite hallway. I need to know if she made any phone calls since she left the medical room.”
Sophie nodded. She turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway.
She looked back at the empty, dust-filled bedroom.
“Mr. Moretti?”
“Yes.”
“Vanessa said something earlier. Before you came into the laundry room.” Sophie swallowed hard. “She told me she knew why my mother really ended up in that wheelchair.”
Luca frowned. “Your mother had a stroke.”
“That’s what the doctors told me. But Vanessa smiled when she said it. Like it was a joke.”
Before Luca could answer, a shadow moved in the hallway outside the room.
Both of them froze.
A slow, deliberate clapping echoed from the dark corridor.
Vanessa stepped into the moonlight filtering through the window, still wearing her red dress.
But she wasn’t holding a champagne glass anymore.
She was holding a small, suppressed handgun, pointed directly at Sophie’s chest.
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“You really are a persistent little maid,” Vanessa said softly. “I told you to keep your mouth shut. But you just couldn’t help yourself, could you, Sophie? Or should I use your real name? The one you left behind in Seattle.”
TITLE: The Ticket to Nowhere
