THE EMPTY HOSPITAL BED

I stopped walking. The rain plastered my hair to my face, but I couldn’t blink.

The bracelet was unmistakable. Three turquoise beads flanked by twisted silver wire. My father made it for my mother. She never took it off.

Not until the police gave us her personal effects after the car hit her. They said the bracelet must have been lost in the wreckage.

Vanessa Bellini was wearing it.

“Vanessa killed my mother,” I whispered, the words tearing out of my throat.

Luca snapped his head toward me. “What?”

“That hit-and-run seven years ago. It wasn’t an accident. Vanessa found out my mother was hiding Anna’s lockbox ticket. She ran her down and took her bracelet as a trophy.”

A cold, lethal silence settled over Luca. His eyes shifted back to Vanessa, standing in the headlights.

He stepped out from behind the shipping container.

“Vanessa,” Luca called out, his voice cutting through the storm.

Vanessa jumped, spinning the gun toward him. When she saw Luca, a twisted smile broke across her wet face.

“You came,” she yelled. “Where’s my father? Where’s the girl?”

“The girl is safe,” Luca said, walking slowly toward her, his hands empty and raised. “This is between us, Vanessa. Let Anna go.”

Anna looked up. Her face was bruised, her dark hair matted with blood, but her eyes locked onto Luca with a desperate intensity.

“Luca, don’t,” Anna coughed. “She’s out of her mind.”

“Shut up!” Vanessa struck Anna across the cheek with the barrel of the gun. Anna slumped sideways.

I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop a scream.

“You lied to me, Luca,” Vanessa cried, tears mixing with the rain. “You said you loved me! But you kept her a secret! You kept that bastard child a secret!”

“Lucy isn’t a secret,” Luca said calmly, closing the distance to twenty feet. “And she isn’t mine.”

Vanessa froze.

Anna squeezed her eyes shut.

I stared at Luca in shock.

“What are you talking about?” Vanessa demanded, her gun hand shaking.

“Lucy isn’t my daughter,” Luca said, his voice carrying clearly over the wind. “I haven’t touched Anna since she broke off our relationship ten years ago. Because Anna fell in love with someone else.”

Vanessa laughed hysterically. “You’re lying to save her!”

“I’m not.” Luca stopped walking. He looked directly at Vanessa’s wrist. “Why are you wearing the maid’s bracelet, Vanessa?”

Vanessa flinched, instinctively pulling her sleeve down. “I bought this in Paris.”

“You ripped it off Mary Sullivan’s wrist after you ran her down in an alley,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a terrifying growl. “You murdered Emma’s mother because she wouldn’t give up Anna’s location.”

Vanessa backed up toward the edge of the pier. The black water churned wildly behind her.

“She was a nobody!” Vanessa screamed. “A stupid janitor who thought she could blackmail my father!”

“And Anna’s husband?” Luca asked softly. “Was he a nobody, too?”

Anna let out a broken sob from the concrete.

Vanessa’s eyes widened in terror. She realized she had walked into a trap.