Chapter 7 - THE ENVELOPE BENEATH MY DOOR
By the time we returned to Chicago, Luca had transformed from quiet businessman into something colder.
Phones rang.
Cars appeared.
Security shifted around us.
Nobody raised their voice.
Nobody needed to.
The mansion moved according to Luca’s mood.
When angry, it became a machine.
The photograph sat on his desk.
Mom sleeping in her hospital bed.
Me beside her.
Timestamped 5:16 a.m.
I stared at it.
“Who had access?”
“Hospital staff, visitors, anyone with a phone.”
“That narrows it to humanity.”
Luca didn’t appreciate the joke.
Frank entered.
“Security footage from Claire’s building.”
He placed a tablet down.
At 11:48 the previous evening, a hooded figure had walked toward my apartment.
No face.
At 11:51, they walked away.
I looked at Luca.
“That’s when the note was probably left.”
Frank nodded.
“Camera across the street caught the vehicle.”
License plate obscured.
Black sedan.
Completely generic.
But Luca recognized it.
“Moretti fleet.”
Frank nodded.
My stomach dropped.
“Someone used one of your cars?”
“One assigned to corporate staff.”
“Who?”
Frank hesitated.
“Adrian Vale.”
Silence.
I remembered Adrian inside the guest room.
You really should have listened.
Luca picked up his phone.
“Find him.”
Frank left.
I said, “Wait.”
Luca stopped.
“This still feels too easy.”
“His car followed you.”
“Which makes him either guilty or spectacularly incompetent.”
“You’re defending him?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I’m defending logic.”
Luca stared.
“You realize most people don’t argue with me when I’m angry.”
“That sounds lonely.”
His expression changed.
I regretted it immediately.
Not because he looked offended.
Because he looked like I had accidentally told the truth.
Adrian arrived twenty minutes later.
Luca placed the photograph on the desk.
“Explain.”
Adrian looked at it.
His face drained.
“That wasn’t me.”
“Your car was outside Claire’s apartment.”
“I wasn’t driving it.”
“Who was?”
“My driver.”
“Name.”
“Samuel Price.”
Frank checked his phone.
“Price called in sick yesterday.”
Adrian stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Luca stepped closer.
“Why?”
“Because he drove me home at ten.”
Everyone stopped.
Frank looked at Luca.
“If Price was driving Adrian at ten, somebody else had the vehicle by eleven forty-eight.”
“Or Adrian is lying,” Luca said.
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“You’ve known me thirty years.”
“And Marco knew people longer.”
The name struck.
Adrian’s expression changed.
“This is about him again?”
“It never stopped being about him.”
“You think I killed your brother?”
Luca said nothing.
Adrian laughed once.
Bitter.
“Unbelievable.”
He looked at me.
“You want the truth, Claire?”
“Adrian.”
Luca’s warning filled the room.
Adrian ignored him.
“Ask Luca where he was the night Marco died.”
Luca’s face became stone.
I looked between them.
“Where were you?”
Luca didn’t answer.
Adrian did.
“With Matteo.”
Silence.
“Marco called Luca three times that night. Luca didn’t answer.”
“Enough,” Luca said.
“He was trying to tell him something.”
“Enough.”
“And Luca has spent sixteen years turning guilt into suspicion.”
Luca grabbed Adrian by the lapel.
Frank moved forward.
I froze.
No punch came.
No violence.
Luca simply held him there.
“You don’t say his name like you knew him.”
Adrian looked directly into his eyes.
“I knew him better than you think.”
Then Luca released him.
Adrian adjusted his jacket.
He left.
The room stayed silent.
I looked at Luca.
“Were you with Matteo?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My father ordered me to attend a meeting.”
“And Marco called?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t answer?”
“No.”
The guilt in his face was worse than any anger.
“Luca…”
“If I had answered, he might still be alive.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know I ignored him.”
“You were what, twenty-three?”
“Twenty-three is old enough to answer a phone.”
I didn’t argue.
Some guilt couldn’t be reasoned away.
It could only be carried differently.
That night Luca insisted I stay at the mansion.
“The guest suite.”
“I have an apartment.”
“Someone has access to your building.”
“You have someone inside your house too.”
“At least here I control the cameras.”
I hated that he had a point.
At midnight I couldn’t sleep.
The mansion was silent.
I walked downstairs for water.
When I returned, an envelope rested beneath my bedroom door.
I stopped.
Impossible.
Security stood at both ends of the corridor.
I picked it up.
Inside was a single key.
Old brass.
A small tag hung from it.
M.M.
Marco Moretti.
There was also a note.
THE WEST WING. 2:00 A.M.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH.
I checked the time.
1:43.
Every sensible part of me knew exactly what to do.
Wake Luca.
Call Frank.
Hand over the key.
Instead I remembered the notes.
The photographs.
Marco.
Missing money.
Sixteen years of secrets.
At 1:58, I stood in front of the west-wing door.
The key fit.
I turned it.
The lock opened.
I stepped inside.
And behind me, the door closed.
Then the lights came on.
A man was waiting.
Not Adrian.
Not Matteo.
Not Daniel Russo.
Someone I had seen every day since entering the mansion.
Someone nobody had considered suspicious.
Margaret Bell looked at me from across the room.
May you like
And said:
“You took long enough.”
