Chapter 3 - The House Where Lucia Slept
They left Manhattan before sunset.
Vincent used three cars and changed routes twice.
Evelyn noticed.
“You always travel like this?”
“Today I do.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“It isn’t supposed to be.”
Noah slept in the back seat with his head against Evelyn’s arm.
Vincent sat opposite them in the large SUV, watching the road reflected in the window.
Every few minutes his eyes drifted toward the boy.
He tried not to stare.
Failed.
Noah had Evelyn’s mouth.
Dominic’s eyebrows.
Vincent’s eyes.
There was also something in the way the boy slept with one hand closed tightly, thumb tucked beneath his fingers.
Vincent did the same thing.
His mother had teased him about it as a child.
Genetics was a cruel storyteller.
It revealed secrets people spent years burying.
They reached the lake house after dark.
Evelyn stared through the window.
“This is where your grandmother lived?”
“In summer.”
The house stood behind iron gates among tall pines overlooking black water. It wasn’t enormous by Moretti standards, which meant it was still larger than most houses Evelyn had ever entered.
Vincent’s security swept the property first.
Noah woke as they pulled into the driveway.
“Are we camping?”
Vincent almost smiled.
“No.”
Noah looked at the mansion.
“This is bigger than camping.”
Evelyn whispered, “Stay beside me.”
Inside, the house looked untouched by time.
Old photographs.
Dark wooden furniture.
A piano nobody had played in years.
Dominic had kept Lucia’s favorite flowers painted above the kitchen doorway.
Vincent stood in the entrance hall.
Memories pressed around him.
His grandmother laughing.
Dominic pretending not to smile.
Sunday lunches.
A family that had once looked normal from the inside.
“What does the note mean?” Evelyn asked.
Where Lucia slept.
Vincent led them upstairs.
Lucia’s bedroom remained exactly as she had left it.
Blue wallpaper.
Antique dresser.
A crucifix above the bed.
Noah wandered toward a framed photograph.
“Is that you?”
Vincent looked.
He was twelve in the picture, standing beside Lucia at the lake.
“Yeah.”
“You had weird hair.”
Evelyn laughed before she could stop herself.
Vincent looked at her.
It was the first time he had heard that sound in seven years.
For a moment, nobody was hiding.
Then Evelyn remembered herself.
The smile disappeared.
Vincent opened dresser drawers.
Nothing.
Samuel examined the writing desk.
Evelyn checked beneath the bed.
Noah stared at the photograph.
Then he said, “What’s that number?”
Everyone stopped.
“What number?” Vincent asked.
Noah pointed at the back of the photograph.
Vincent removed it from the frame.
Written behind it:
314 – FNB – ALBANY
Samuel smiled faintly.
“First National Bank.”
Vincent looked at him.
“You know it?”
“Dominic used them decades ago.”
Evelyn held up the brass key.
“Then we know where the box is.”
Vincent nodded.
“We go tomorrow.”
“No.”
He sighed.
“What now?”
“I go.”
“You think I’m letting you walk into a bank alone when someone just threatened you?”
“Your presence attracts attention.”
“My absence attracts bullets.”
“Vincent.”
“No.”
They stared at each other.
Samuel quietly left the room.
Noah looked between them.
“Are you guys always mad?”
Evelyn exhaled.
“No.”
Vincent said, “Probably.”
Noah thought about this.
“Mom says yelling doesn’t make you right.”
Vincent raised an eyebrow.
“She’s right.”
Evelyn seemed surprised.
He added, “Don’t tell her I said that.”
Noah smiled.
A tiny alliance formed.
Evelyn saw it and looked terrified.
Later, after Noah slept, Vincent found her standing on the terrace.
Moonlight moved across the lake.
“You hate me,” he said.
“I don’t.”
“That might be worse.”
She pulled her coat tighter.
“I spent seven years trying not to feel anything about you.”
“How’d that go?”
“Badly.”
Vincent leaned against the railing.
“Why didn’t Dominic tell me?”
“Because he didn’t trust what you would do.”
“He was right.”
“I know.”
“If I find the man who threatened you—”
“This is exactly what he was afraid of.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You want me to forgive him?”
“No.”
“You forgave him?”
“I never decided.”
She stared across the water.
“He helped me disappear. New documents. Money. A house in Portland. He made sure nobody found Noah.”
“And the price?”
“Silence.”
Vincent looked away.
“That sounds like him.”
“He told me the danger would pass.”
“It didn’t.”
“No.”
“So something changed.”
“The ledger.”
They both knew it.
Dominic had waited until death was near to bring Evelyn back.
Which meant the ledger contained something he believed could finally protect her.
Or destroy everyone.
Vincent’s phone buzzed.
Marco.
“We traced the plate from the cemetery.”
“And?”
“Stolen.”
“Camera footage?”
“Working on it.”
“Anything else?”
A pause.
Vincent’s instincts sharpened.
“What?”
“Someone broke into Ms. Carter’s hotel room.”
Evelyn heard.
Her face went still.
“Was anything taken?” Vincent asked.
“No idea.”
He ended the call.
Evelyn whispered, “My bag.”
“You have it.”
“No. My other bag.”
“What was inside?”
“Clothes. Noah’s medicine. Documents.”
“What documents?”
She looked at him.
“Our passports.”
Vincent felt anger rise.
“Under what names?”
Her silence answered.
Not Carter.
“What name have you been living under?”
“Elaine Morris.”
“And Noah?”
“Noah Morris.”
Vincent stared at her.
Seven years under false identities.
Seven years where he could have walked past them in an airport without knowing.
“What else?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“My laptop.”
“Anything important?”
“Pictures.”
“Of?”
“Noah.”
Vincent’s expression darkened.
Every birthday.
Every school photo.
Every clue someone could use.
Evelyn understood.
“I need to get it.”
“No.”
“I can’t leave it.”
“It’s already gone.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know whoever entered that room wasn’t looking for jewelry.”
She covered her mouth.
Vincent wanted to touch her.
He stopped himself.
“You’re safe here.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he admitted. “But I know nobody gets through those gates without me hearing about it.”
Evelyn lowered her hand.
“What happens tomorrow?”
“We open the box.”
“And if the ledger is there?”
“We read it.”
“And if it names someone in your family?”
Vincent looked toward the bedroom where Noah slept.
“Then they stopped being my family seven years ago.”
Neither of them noticed the small light blinking beneath one of the bookshelves inside Lucia’s bedroom.
A listening device.
Someone had arrived before them.
May you like
And someone now knew exactly where they would be going in the morning.
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