Chapter 2 - THE COAT IN THE GUEST ROOM
Luca stared at the empty chair at the end of the banquet table.
The silence in the dining room was suffocating.
Forty guests held their breath.
“Lock the doors,” Luca said.
His voice didn't rise. It didn't tremble. But the two security guards standing by the grand staircase immediately moved. The heavy oak doors slammed shut, the brass locks engaging with a heavy click that echoed against the marble walls.
Vanessa's face was completely bloodless.
“Luca, please,” she stammered, stepping toward him with her hands raised. “You’re overreacting. Sofia is clearly having a mental break. You know she’s been unstable since—”
“Shut up.”
Luca didn’t even look at her. He kept his eyes on the empty chair.
“Where is my brother?”
Vanessa swallowed hard. “He… he went to the wine cellar. To get the vintage Barolo for the toast.”
Teresa squeezed my hand so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered.
Luca turned to me.
“The wine cellar is locked,” I said, my voice shaking. “I have the only key on the staff ring. Mrs. Bellini told me to lock it an hour ago because she didn’t want the caterers wandering down there.”
Vanessa spun toward me, her eyes flashing with pure venom.
“You lying little—”
“Did you bring my niece into this house?” Luca stepped closer to his fiancée. His dark eyes were terrifyingly calm. “Did you tell my mother her grandchild was dead, while you hid her under my own roof?”
“Of course not!” Vanessa cried. “Luca, think about this! Why would I do that?”
I looked down at the floor, trying to piece together the evening.
Vanessa had arrived early this afternoon. She had bypassed the main entrance and come through the service elevator. I remembered because she was carrying something strange.
“The pink coat,” I blurted out.
Everyone looked at me.
“What coat, Hannah?” Luca asked softly.
“At three o’clock today,” I said, my heart pounding against my ribs. “Mrs. Bellini came through the service elevator. She was carrying a heavy duffel bag and a little pink winter coat. She told me she was donating clothes to charity. She took it into the East Wing guest suite.”
Vanessa lunged at me.
She didn't reach me. Luca caught her wrist, his grip so tight she gasped in pain.
“Stay here,” he ordered her. Then he looked at the guards. “If she moves toward the door, put her on the ground.”
Luca looked at me. “Show me the room.”
I led him up the sweeping staircase, my apron rustling in the dead silence of the house. We ran down the East Wing corridor. When we reached the heavy mahogany door of the guest suite, it was slightly ajar.
Luca pushed it open.
The room was empty.
But the bed was rumpled. A child’s indentation was pressed into the center of the down comforter.
“She was here,” Luca whispered.
I walked toward the nightstand. Sitting perfectly in the center of the glass table was a tiny, sterling silver bracelet. The kind they give infants at baptisms. I picked it up. Engraved on the inside was a single name: Lily.
“We’re too late,” I said, handing it to him. “Michael took her.”
Luca stared at the silver metal, his jaw clenching.
Then a cold draft hit the back of my neck.
I looked toward the far wall. The French doors leading out to the second-floor balcony were wide open, the silk curtains blowing wildly in the October wind.
Luca rushed to the balcony, and I followed. We looked down at the sprawling, dark gardens below.
There were footprints in the fresh mud beneath the trellis. But they weren't leading away from the estate.
They were leading toward the frozen lake.
And then, I saw it. Caught on the sharp thorns of the rosebushes directly below the balcony.
A piece of pink wool.
Luca gripped the stone railing. “He didn't leave.”
I looked closer into the darkness of the tree line. My breath hitched.
May you like
“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, pointing to the water's edge.
A man’s silhouette was standing on the wooden dock, holding a small, unmoving bundle over the black, freezing water of the lake.
