Chapter 3 - ELEVATOR SIX
For the first time that night, I forgot I was an employee.
I reached across Luca Moretti’s table and took the photograph from his hand.
Nobody stopped me.
My father looked forty in the picture.
Healthy.
Broad-shouldered.
His work jacket was unzipped over a blue shirt.
He stood beside Vittorio Bellini, Luca’s father, and the unknown woman.
On the back, written in faded blue ink, were four words.
HALSTED BUILDING — ELEVATOR 6.
My fingers went cold.
“I remember that jacket.”
Luca watched me.
“You were five.”
“Yes.”
“How do you remember a jacket?”
“Because my mother burned it.”
That changed his expression.
Vanessa sat down slowly.
Her earlier cruelty seemed almost absurd now.
Like something from another dinner.
“What happened?” Luca asked.
“I don’t know.”
That was the truth.
But it wasn’t the whole truth.
“My father came home after midnight. There was blood on his shirt.”
I swallowed.
“My mother made me and my brother go upstairs. I remember hearing them argue.”
“What did she say?”
I closed my eyes.
Twenty-two years disappeared.
I could almost smell our old apartment.
Laundry detergent.
Tomato sauce.
Metal from Dad’s toolbox.
“She kept saying, ‘Tom, you promised me this was just a repair job.’”
Luca leaned forward.
“And your father?”
“He said, ‘I didn’t know who they were.’”
Vittorio stood abruptly.
“This is ancient history.”
Luca looked at him.
“Then you should have no trouble discussing it.”
“I have spent thirty years listening to your family turn rumors into facts.”
“My father is in the photograph.”
“So am I.”
“And Emma’s father.”
Vittorio’s gaze shifted toward me.
Something in it bothered me.
Not hostility.
Recognition.
“You look like your mother,” he said.
I froze.
“You knew my mother?”
Vittorio did not answer.
Vanessa stared at him.
“Dad?”
Luca’s voice hardened.
“Sit down.”
Vittorio sat.
Luca placed the photo between us.
“Who is the woman?”
Vittorio looked toward the ceiling as if searching for patience.
“Catherine Reed.”
My stomach dropped.
“No.”
My mother had been Catherine Reed.
She had died six years earlier after a short illness.
I grabbed the edge of the table.
“That isn’t my mother.”
Vittorio finally looked at me.
“Yes, it is.”
I stared at the woman in the photograph.
Her hair was dark and pinned back.
She wore a tan coat.
She looked perhaps thirty-five.
My mother had always worn her hair lighter.
But photographs lie strangely across decades.
Then I noticed her left wrist.
A silver bracelet.
Three small stars.
I knew that bracelet.
It was in the top drawer of my dresser.
My mother had given it to me two weeks before she died.
I sat down without realizing I was doing it.
Vanessa whispered, “Emma?”
“That’s hers.”
“What?”
“The bracelet.”
Luca looked at the photograph.
“My mother gave me that bracelet.”
Vittorio looked away.
Suddenly the dinner felt too warm.
Too bright.
Like thirty-two people had been invited to witness something none of us understood.
Luca turned toward his security man.
“Clear the room.”
Nobody argued.
Guests stood quickly.
Coats were collected.
Voices remained low.
Within five minutes, the enormous dining room held only Luca, Vanessa, Adrian, Vittorio, two guards, and me.
I should have left too.
I didn’t.
Luca didn’t ask me to.
When the doors closed, he looked at Vittorio.
“Tell us about Elevator Six.”
Vittorio rubbed both hands over his face.
For the first time, the powerful old man looked tired.
“The Halsted building belonged to my brother.”
“Which brother?”
“Marco.”
Vanessa frowned.
“You never had a brother named Marco.”
Vittorio looked at her.
“Yes, I did.”
The answer stunned her.
“He died before you were born.”
“How?”
Vittorio’s eyes moved toward Luca.
“In Elevator Six.”
Silence.
Luca said, “My father?”
“Was there.”
“What happened?”
Vittorio hesitated.
“A meeting went wrong.”
My throat tightened.
“What kind of meeting?”
“One you’re better off not understanding.”
“I think we passed that point.”
Luca almost smiled.
Vittorio did not.
“Marco had been moving money through construction contracts. Giuseppe Moretti discovered it.”
Luca’s father.
“They met at Halsted to settle the problem privately. Thomas Reed was called because the service elevator had malfunctioned earlier that afternoon.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“Why was my mother there?”
Vittorio’s eyes hardened.
“She should not have been.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“She followed Thomas.”
I stared at him.
“My mother hated his night calls.”
“She had reason.”
Luca said, “What happened inside the elevator?”
Vittorio looked at his hands.
“Marco pulled a gun.”
Vanessa covered her mouth.
“On who?”
“Giuseppe.”
“Then?”
“Thomas tried to stop him.”
My heartbeat filled my ears.
“The elevator moved unexpectedly.”
Vittorio’s voice had become distant.
“Something failed. The doors opened between floors. There was a struggle.”
He stopped.
“Marco fell.”
I whispered, “Down the shaft?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
That explained the blood.
Maybe.
But not the note.
ASK WHO WALKED OUT.
AND ASK WHO WAS LEFT INSIDE.
Luca caught the same problem.
“Who was left inside?”
Vittorio did not answer.
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Vittorio.”
The older man looked at me.
“Your mother.”
I stood.
“No.”
“She was injured.”
“You said she came home.”
“I didn’t say that.”
My breath stopped.
Of course he hadn’t.
I had assumed.
My childhood memory returned in pieces.
My father entering alone.
My mother’s voice upstairs—
No.
Not that night.
I had blended memories.
Children do that.
I gripped the chair.
“My mother lived another sixteen years.”
“Yes.”
“Then what do you mean she was left inside?”
Vittorio looked toward the photograph.
“She wasn’t supposed to survive.”
Nobody spoke.
Vanessa whispered, “Dad.”
Vittorio ignored her.
“Someone cut the emergency line before the meeting. Someone disabled the alarm. When the elevator jammed after Marco fell, Catherine was trapped inside with a serious head injury.”
Luca’s expression darkened.
“Who cut the line?”
“I never knew.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I spent years trying to find out.”
I stared at him.
“My father got out?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He climbed through the opening after the car stopped.”
“And left my mother there?”
Vittorio’s face changed.
“No.”
The answer came sharply.
“He went back.”
I swallowed.
“What?”
“Everyone else ran. Giuseppe. Me. Two of Marco’s men.”
Luca stiffened.
“My father left her?”
Vittorio looked at him.
“Your father believed the elevator could fall.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
“Because?”
“Thomas climbed into the machine room.”
Vittorio turned to me.
“He held that elevator in place with a manual brake for forty-three minutes until the fire department arrived.”
My eyes filled.
“He saved her.”
“Yes.”
Something inside me broke open.
For twenty-two years I had remembered blood.
Fear.
A burned jacket.
Now I understood why.
But Luca was staring at Vittorio.
“You said my father ran.”
“He did.”
“Why?”
Vittorio’s jaw tightened.
“Because the police were coming.”
Luca’s face went cold.
That was not the father he had expected to hear about.
Vanessa whispered, “What does any of this have to do with tonight?”
Vittorio looked at the kitchen ticket.
“I don’t know.”
Adrian spoke from the end of the table.
“I do.”
We all turned.
He had been quiet for nearly ten minutes.
Now his hands were shaking.
Vanessa stood.
“Adrian?”
He reached into his jacket.
Luca’s guards moved instantly.
Adrian raised both hands.
“It’s not a weapon.”
He removed a folded restaurant receipt.
The paper had been creased so many times it was nearly torn through.
He placed it on the table.
On the back was a handwritten list.
SEA BASS — MORETTI.
CHICKEN — VANESSA.
MAKE THE CHANGE AT 7:40.
I recognized the handwriting.
I had seen it every day since taking the job.
On pantry orders.
Flower deliveries.
Household schedules.
I looked toward the service doors.
“No.”
Luca picked up the paper.
His expression hardened.
“Where did you get this?”
Adrian swallowed.
“From your house manager’s office.”
Luca looked toward the doors.
Then at me.
“Mrs. Caruso?”
I nodded slowly.
Mrs. Caruso had hired me.
She had trained me.
May you like
She had been running this house for twenty-six years.
Adrian whispered, “She’s the one who changed the plates.”
