Chapter 8 - The Night the Mansion Went Dark
Dominic did not react the way Norah expected.
He did not shout.
He did not threaten Victor.
He became completely still.
That frightened her more.
“Where is he?” Dominic asked.
Victor laughed quietly through the phone.
“You spent twenty-eight years wishing him dead. Don’t pretend concern now.”
Dominic’s eyes turned to ice.
“I asked where he is.”
“You have something that belongs to the family.”
“It belonged to my mother.”
“It belongs to everyone whose life could be destroyed by it.”
“Then you should have thought of that before helping murder her.”
Silence.
Victor’s voice returned colder.
“You have until sunset.”
The call ended.
Dominic lowered the phone.
Frank rushed into the room seconds later.
“What happened?”
“You didn’t answer.”
“I was downstairs. No signal in the vault corridor.”
Dominic studied him.
“Victor has my father.”
Frank’s face changed.
“What?”
“Maria called.”
Frank pulled out his phone.
Nothing.
Dominic walked toward him.
“How did they take Salvatore from a guarded estate?”
“I don’t know.”
“You run the guards.”
“I know.”
“Then find out.”
Frank left immediately.
Norah stared at the evidence.
“Victor wants the original documents.”
“Yes.”
“Give them copies.”
Dominic looked at her.
“He’ll know.”
“How?”
“He helped create some of them.”
Norah thought.
“Then what does he actually want?”
“To destroy the only proof linking him to Pietro.”
“No.”
Dominic frowned.
“If that were all he wanted, he’d ask for specific evidence.”
“He doesn’t know exactly what Elena had.”
“Exactly.”
Dominic looked at the package.
Norah continued.
“So we have leverage.”
Dominic stared at her for a moment.
“You think like a criminal.”
“I grew up with three brothers.”
That nearly earned a smile.
Almost.
Frank returned twenty minutes later with worse news.
The estate’s security cameras had gone offline for eleven minutes at 5:42 a.m.
Backup power failed simultaneously.
A maintenance supervisor had disappeared.
One SUV was missing.
Maria and the staff were unharmed.
Salvatore’s wheelchair was found beside the service entrance.
“They moved him into another chair,” Norah said.
Frank nodded.
“How much medication does he have with him?”
“None.”
Dominic looked at Norah.
“How long?”
“Without his blood-pressure medication? Depends. But stress makes everything worse. He’s already high risk.”
“How long?”
“I can’t promise.”
Dominic turned away.
Norah caught his sleeve.
“Do not turn this into a countdown.”
His eyes flashed.
“What would you call it?”
“A reason to think clearly.”
Dominic looked down at her hand.
Norah released him.
Frank placed a map on the table.
“Victor owns six properties within ninety minutes of the estate.”
Dominic studied them.
“He won’t use any.”
“Why?”
“Too obvious.”
Norah thought of Salvatore.
The old man had spent decades surviving people like Victor.
He might have left something.
“Did he take his communication board?”
Frank shook his head.
“Phone?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
“The robe he was wearing.”
“What robe?”
“Burgundy.”
Norah pictured it.
Her eyes widened.
“Wait.”
She had repaired a small tear in that robe two days earlier and noticed a stitched interior pocket.
Salvatore kept a rosary there.
And something else.
A small medical locator tag.
Norah had placed it inside after the agency recommended wandering protection for high-risk patients.
She pulled out her phone.
Dominic watched.
“What are you doing?”
“Your father may be stubborn, abusive, impossible…”
“Norah.”
“…but his nurse is smarter than his kidnappers.”
She opened the tracking app.
A location appeared.
Thirty-eight miles north.
Moving.
Frank leaned closer.
“Route 22.”
Dominic already had his phone out.
“No police.”
Norah looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because Victor has people in local departments.”
“Then what?”
Dominic gave Frank instructions.
Cars.
Trusted men only.
No broad communication.
Norah listened.
When he finished, she said, “I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Dominic.”
“No.”
“He may be medically unstable.”
“I’ll bring a doctor.”
“A doctor he doesn’t know. A doctor he may fight because he’s frightened.”
“He’s been kidnapped, Norah. This is not a house call.”
“Exactly.”
Dominic stared at her.
“This is the moment when a normal person becomes afraid.”
“I am afraid.”
That surprised him.
Norah continued.
“Courage and stupidity are not the same thing. I know this is dangerous.”
“Then stay.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Because Salvatore trusted her.
Because no one deserved to be taken from his bed like cargo.
Because Dominic’s face had changed when he realized the father he spent his life hating might die before they could speak honestly.
But Norah said only:
“He’s my patient.”
Dominic closed his eyes briefly.
“You are the most difficult woman I have ever met.”
“Your father threw a pitcher at me on my first day.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I expect him to be impossible.”
Norah raised an eyebrow.
Dominic almost laughed.
The convoy left fifteen minutes later.
The locator stopped moving at an abandoned private school near the Vermont border.
The property had once belonged to a religious order before being purchased through one of Victor’s holding companies.
Dominic knew the building.
He had attended summer lessons there as a child.
That detail disturbed him.
“He wants me to remember this place.”
“Why?”
“My mother used to bring me here.”
Norah understood.
Victor was not simply trying to destroy evidence.
He wanted to control the story.
Again.
They stopped two miles away.
Frank studied aerial photographs.
Dominic’s men prepared quietly.
Norah hated every second.
“This is insane.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Now you decide?”
“I’m allowed to reconsider.”
He stepped closer.
“You stay in the car.”
“I’m not arguing.”
“That’s new.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He hesitated.
Then removed his jacket and placed it around her shoulders against the cold.
The gesture was so unexpectedly gentle she forgot what she planned to say.
Dominic walked away.
Norah watched him disappear through the trees with Frank and four men.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Nothing.
Then the lights inside the abandoned school suddenly died.
Norah sat upright.
A moment later her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Hello?”
Salvatore’s broken breathing came through.
“Mr. Moretti?”
A faint sound.
Then Victor.
“He keeps trying to say your name.”
Norah’s blood chilled.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to tell Dominic something.”
“What?”
“That his father killed Elena.”
“No.”
“You weren’t there.”
“Neither were you when the car crashed.”
A pause.
Victor laughed.
“I see why Salvatore likes you.”
Norah looked toward the dark building.
“Is he hurt?”
“He’s old.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“He’s alive.”
“Put him on.”
“Why?”
“Because if you want Dominic to believe anything, you need his father alive enough to confirm it.”
Victor considered.
Then breathing again.
Norah spoke quickly.
“Salvatore, listen to me. If you can hear me, tap the phone once.”
A faint knock.
“Good.”
Twice.
Norah frowned.
He tapped again.
Two.
Pause.
Four.
Pause.
One.
Medical shorthand.
Norah understood.
“Two-four-one?”
More tapping.
Room 241.
She looked toward the building.
Victor returned.
“Time is running out.”
He ended the call.
Norah immediately texted Dominic.
ROOM 241.
No response.
Then gunfire cracked faintly in the distance.
Norah ducked instinctively.
More sounds.
Then silence.
Her heart pounded.
One minute.
Two.
The rear door opened.
She nearly screamed.
Frank.
“Come on.”
“What happened?”
“Dominic found him.”
Norah ran.
Inside the old school, emergency lights flickered dimly.
They reached Room 241.
The door stood open.
Salvatore sat in a chair near the wall.
Dominic knelt in front of him.
The sight stopped Norah.
Dominic was holding his father’s face between both hands.
Not angrily.
Not accusingly.
He was saying something too quiet to hear.
Salvatore’s left hand rested on his son’s shoulder.
Victor was gone.
He had escaped through a rear corridor.
But he had left something behind.
On the desk sat one photograph.
Elena Moretti beside Victor.
And written across the bottom in Victor’s hand:
ASK YOUR FATHER WHO REALLY ORDERED IT.
Dominic stared at the words.
Salvatore began shaking his head.
The truth had shifted again.
May you like
And the deeper Norah looked into the Moretti family’s past, the less certain she became that Pietro had been the man at the top.
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