Chapter 5 - THE TICKET TO NOWHERE
I took the envelope from the priest.
My name, Emma, was written on the front in Sofia’s hurried, familiar handwriting.
Luca stared at me, his chest heaving, his gun finally lowered to his side. He didn’t demand I hand it over. He just waited, his eyes silently begging for a miracle.
My hands shook as I tore the seal open.
Inside was a single, heavy piece of cardstock.
It wasn’t a letter. It wasn’t a map.
It was an old, faded ticket stub for a carousel ride at Navy Pier.
I stared at it in confusion. “A carousel ticket?”
Luca stepped closer, looking over my shoulder. “Navy Pier? That’s in the middle of the city. Why would she go there? It’s too public. If Marcus’s men are looking for her, she’d be trapped.”
I flipped the ticket over.
On the back, written in thick black marker, was a single word and a number.
BLUE - 44.
My heart stopped.
The memory hit me with the force of a freight train.
“Mr. Moretti,” I gasped, clutching the ticket to my chest. “She didn’t go to Navy Pier.”
“Then what does it mean?”
“Three years ago, right before she left, Sofia and I used to hide in the basement library to get away from Vanessa. Sofia loved the old encyclopedia sets. Specifically, the ones with the blue leather binding.”
Luca’s eyes widened as he realized what I was saying.
“Blue leather,” Luca whispered. “Volume 44.”
“She hid something there,” I said. “Something she knew only I would remember. If Marcus’s men raided her room, they never would have looked in the basement library. Vanessa hated that room. She made the staff lock it up.”
Luca didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the baby’s duffel bag from the altar and slung it over his shoulder.
“Thank you, Father,” Luca said to the priest, pulling a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills from his jacket and pressing it into the man’s trembling hands. “Keep your doors locked.”
We sprinted back to the SUV.
“Back to the house,” Luca roared at the driver. “Faster this time!”
The drive back felt like an eternity. Luca gripped the silver rosary in his hand, praying silently. I held the carousel ticket, terrified of what we were going to find. If Sofia was leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, it meant she was running out of time.
We arrived at the mansion. The estate was eerily quiet, completely locked down by Luca’s heavily armed guards. The party guests were long gone. The catered food sat rotting on the tables.
Luca and I bypassed the grand staircase and rushed down the narrow servant’s corridor to the basement.
The heavy oak door to the library was locked.
Luca kicked it right near the handle, shattering the wood, and pushed his way inside.
The room smelled of dust and old paper. The walls were lined with thousands of vintage books.
I ran straight to the far corner, my hands tracing the spines of the massive encyclopedia collection.
Volume 41. Volume 42. Volume 43.
I stopped.
Volume 44 was missing.
There was a dark, empty gap on the shelf.
“It’s gone,” I panicked, turning to Luca. “Sir, the book is gone!”
Luca’s face hardened. He walked over to the shelf, shining the flashlight from his phone into the empty space.
“It wasn’t taken recently,” Luca noted, wiping a thick layer of dust from the wood beneath the gap. “It’s been gone for a long time.”
I backed away, running my hands through my hair. “Who would have taken it? Vanessa never came down here. Neither did Marcus.”
Then, I noticed it.
Sitting on a small reading table in the center of the room was a heavy glass ashtray.
And resting inside the ashtray was a half-smoked, expensive Cuban cigar.
Luca saw it, too. He walked over and picked up the cigar. He smelled it.
The color completely drained from his face.
“This is a Partagas Serie D,” Luca whispered. “Special import. Only one person in my inner circle smokes these.”
I didn’t know anything about cigars, but I knew the look of absolute devastation on Luca’s face.
“Who, sir?” I asked.
Luca slowly turned to look at me, his eyes filled with a grief so profound it made my chest ache.
“My Uncle Carmine,” Luca said hollowly.
I frowned. “But... you said your uncle died in a car crash three years ago.”
“He did,” Luca said, his voice trembling. “Two days before Sofia left.”
He stared at the fresh ash in the tray.
“This cigar was smoked today, Emma.”
The room suddenly felt ice cold.
Before I could process what that meant, the heavy wooden door to the library swung shut with a loud SLAM.
The lock clicked into place from the outside.
Luca dropped the cigar and lunged for the door, twisting the handle violently. It wouldn’t budge. He stepped back and kicked it with all his might, but this door was reinforced steel disguised as wood. It didn’t even splinter.
“Hello, Luca.”
The voice came from the intercom speaker mounted in the corner of the ceiling.
It was a raspy, gravelly voice of an older man.
Luca froze. He stared up at the speaker, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white.
“Carmine,” Luca whispered.
May you like
“It’s been a long time, Nephew,” the dead man’s voice echoed through the dark room.
“And I see you brought the maid who’s been causing so much trouble. It’s a shame you both decided to come down to the basement... just before the gas leak.”
