Chapter 5 - THE TICKET TO NOWHERE
The paper crinkled loudly in the suffocating silence of the hallway.
Answer one: Elena Moretti hadn't been murdered in a carjacking five years ago. She had faked her death to escape the mafia life, and Vanessa had helped her do it—keeping the bracelet as payment, not a trophy.
Luca stared at the train ticket bearing his supposedly dead wife's name. His imposing frame seemed to freeze, struck by a truth that defied logic.
"She's alive," Luca whispered, the words tearing out of his chest. "Elena is alive."
"Vanessa lied," I said, my heart pounding. "She didn't orchestrate a hit. She orchestrated an escape. Elena wanted out of the syndicate, and Vanessa used her disappearance to take her place."
Open two: If Elena is alive, why is the train ticket dated for tomorrow? And why did Vanessa keep it hidden in the bracelet?
"Vanessa was planning to meet her," Luca realized, his dark eyes hardening with a terrifying new clarity. "The blackmail from New York... it wasn't about a murder. It was about Elena being alive. If the syndicate council found out my wife ran away, I would lose my seat at the table for looking weak."
He took the ticket from my hands.
"Vanessa was going to use Victor to hand Sophie over to New York," Luca deduced rapidly. "And then she was going to use this ticket to run to Montreal and disappear, leaving me with nothing."
"But if Elena is in Montreal," I asked gently, "why would Vanessa need a ticket with her name on it?"
Luca looked at me, realizing the implication.
"Because Elena isn't in Montreal," Luca said. "She's here. In Chicago. Vanessa is using Elena's fake identity."
Luca turned and sprinted down the stairs toward the basement. I followed, unable to stop myself.
We burst into the holding cell. Vanessa was sitting on a metal chair, her engagement gown ruined.
"Where is she?" Luca roared, slamming the train ticket onto the metal table.
Vanessa looked at the ticket and paled. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Elena is alive," Luca said, his voice echoing in the cold room. "You faked her death. You kept her identity documents in the bracelet. Where is she hiding?"
Vanessa laughed, a high, desperate sound. "You think she wants to be found, Luca? She was terrified of you! She begged me to help her vanish!"
Before Luca could interrogate her further, Vanessa's designer purse, sitting on a nearby chair, buzzed loudly.
I reached over and opened the clasp to grab the ringing phone.
As I pulled the phone out, a small, torn photograph fluttered to the concrete floor.
I picked it up.
It was a picture of a man and a woman sitting at a diner. The woman was Elena Moretti—I recognized her from the portraits upstairs.
But the man sitting across from her, smiling gently and holding her hand...
My breath caught in my throat. My knees went weak.
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It was my father.
TITLE: THE TORN PHOTOGRAPH
