Chapter 2 - THE PHOTOGRAPH IN THE LIBRARY
Teresa did not deny it.
That frightened Luca more than any denial could have.
Vanessa stood near the doorway with one hand on her purse, watching his face as though she had finally found the weapon she came prepared to use.
Luca looked at his aunt. “You were in the car?”
Teresa’s mouth tightened. “Earlier that evening.”
“How much earlier?”
“Fifty-three minutes.”
The precision made him flinch.
Vanessa gave a small, satisfied smile.
I hated her for that smile.
Not because Teresa looked guilty.
Because Vanessa wanted her to.
Luca picked up the old photograph again. “Start talking.”
Teresa looked at the guests.
He understood.
“Dinner is over.”
Nobody argued.
Within minutes, chairs scraped backward, coats appeared, and thirty people found polite reasons not to look directly at Luca Moretti. The staff began clearing untouched food. The musicians in the adjoining room stopped playing halfway through a song.
Vanessa did not leave.
Neither did I.
I should have.
But Luca’s mother’s plate was still on the table, and my hands had nowhere else to go.
When the last guest disappeared into the foyer, Luca turned to Vanessa.
“You too.”
Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“You wanted privacy.”
“I’m your fiancée.”
“Not tonight.”
The words hit harder than shouting.
Vanessa’s face changed.
“You cannot humiliate me in front of your staff.”
Teresa leaned on her cane. “Apparently he can.”
Vanessa looked at me.
There it was again.
Staff.
A category she could use like a wall.
“Emma,” she said, “leave.”
Luca answered before I could.
“She stays.”
Vanessa stared at him. “Why?”
“Because she saw what happened before dinner.”
“She is housekeeping.”
“She is a witness.”
The word landed exactly where Teresa’s had earlier.
For the first time since I started working in that house, my job title did not make me invisible.
Vanessa noticed.
She hated it.
Luca led us into the library.
The room smelled like leather, old wood, and cigar smoke that had probably belonged to his father. Portraits of dead Morettis watched from the walls with the stern expressions of people who had never been told no.
Luca closed the door.
“Fifty-three minutes,” he said.
Teresa sat slowly.
“It was snowing.”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
Luca ignored her.
“Where were you and my mother going?”
“We weren’t going anywhere. She drove to my house.”
“Why?”
“Because she was afraid.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Of Salvatore?”
Teresa glanced at Vanessa.
“Yes.”
Vanessa laughed. “This is fantasy.”
Teresa reached into her handbag again.
Vanessa’s laughter stopped.
This time, Teresa removed a brass key.
Small.
Old.
A strip of faded blue ribbon had been tied through the top.
Luca stared at it.
“I’ve seen that.”
“You should have.”
“Where?”
“Your mother wore it around her neck.”
His expression changed.
A memory passed over his face.
“I thought it was jewelry.”
“It opened a box.”
“What box?”
“One Lucia asked me to hide after Marco vanished.”
Luca’s voice dropped. “Where is it?”
Teresa pointed toward the wall of books.
“Still in this house.”
Even Vanessa looked surprised.
Luca turned toward the shelves.
Teresa shook her head.
“Not behind the books.”
She pointed lower.
At the built-in cabinet beneath the portrait of Antonio Moretti.
Luca crossed the room and opened it.
Inside were old decanters, photo albums, and a stack of yellowing newspapers.
Nothing else.
Teresa looked at me.
“Emma, do you clean this room?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever noticed one floor panel inside that cabinet sits higher than the others?”
I had.
I thought it was warped wood.
I knelt.
Vanessa made a sound of disgust.
Of course she did.
I ran my fingers along the cabinet floor until one edge lifted.
Beneath it was a shallow space lined with dust.
Inside sat a black metal box.
Nobody spoke.
I lifted it out.
Vanessa’s eyes went directly to the key.
Luca saw that.
“You knew about this.”
“No.”
“You looked at the key before Teresa explained it.”
“So did you.”
“I remembered it.”
Vanessa looked away.
That was answer enough.
Teresa handed Luca the key.
His hand closed around it, but he did not unlock the box.
Instead he looked at his aunt.
“What happened in the car?”
Teresa’s eyes filled.
“Lucia came to my house after fighting with Antonio. She said Marco had found documents connecting Salvatore Bellini to money missing from one of Antonio’s companies.”
Vanessa scoffed. “My father was never an employee of Moretti Holdings.”
“No,” Teresa said. “He was a partner.”
Luca looked at the photograph.
Teresa continued.
“Marco believed Salvatore was stealing from both families. He told Lucia he had proof.”
“And then he disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“What did my father do?”
“He told Lucia to stop asking questions.”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“That sounds like him.”
“He said protecting the family sometimes meant burying the truth.”
A bitter laugh escaped Luca.
“That sounds even more like him.”
Teresa looked down at her hands.
“Lucia refused.”
“What happened next?”
“She took the box from the house. She came to me. She asked me to keep the key and hide the box somewhere Antonio would never think to search.”
“So you hid it in his library.”
A tiny smile touched Teresa’s mouth.
“Your mother had a sense of humor.”
Even Luca smiled for half a second.
Then it vanished.
“You said you were in her car.”
Teresa nodded.
“I begged her not to go home.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to confront Antonio one last time.”
“About Salvatore?”
“About Marco.”
Luca looked at Vanessa.
Vanessa lifted her chin.
“My father had nothing to do with any crash.”
Teresa’s eyes moved back to Luca.
“I got into Lucia’s car because I thought I could stop her. We argued. She told me she was done being frightened.”
“What happened?”
“She drove me back to my house.”
“And then?”
“I got out.”
Luca waited.
Teresa’s voice broke.
“She drove away.”
Silence filled the library.
“I called her twelve minutes later. She didn’t answer.”
Luca sat opposite her.
“Then?”
“Antonio called me.”
“How did he know you had been with her?”
“I never asked.”
That made Luca look up.
Teresa wiped one eye.
“He said Lucia had crashed on Lake Shore Drive.”
Luca stared at the box.
“And fifty-three minutes passed between you getting out and the crash.”
“Yes.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“So there. Teresa was not in the accident.”
Teresa looked at her.
“No.”
“Then why make it sound mysterious?”
“Because of what Antonio asked me.”
Luca went still.
“What?”
Teresa looked at him.
“He asked whether Lucia had given me a key.”
Everyone looked at the brass key in Luca’s hand.
The room seemed to shrink.
Luca whispered, “Before you told him about the box?”
“I never told him about the box.”
Vanessa’s face changed again.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
So did Luca.
He inserted the key into the lock.
Vanessa moved toward him.
“Maybe we should call an attorney.”
Luca did not look up.
“Why?”
“These could be old business records.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about.”
“I’m thinking of you.”
“No. You’re thinking faster than everyone else.”
He turned the key.
The lock clicked.
Inside were three objects.
A leather ledger.
A cassette tape.
And a sealed envelope.
Written across the front in Lucia Moretti’s handwriting were the words:
FOR LUCA, WHEN HE IS OLD ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND HIS FATHER.
Luca’s fingers stopped above it.
Teresa covered her mouth.
I thought that was the worst part.
Then I noticed Vanessa.
She was not looking at the envelope.
She was looking at the ledger.
More specifically, at one name visible on the first open page.
REED.
My name.
I stepped closer.
Beneath it, written twenty-seven years earlier, was another name.
DANIEL REED.
My father.
But my father had spent twenty years refusing to talk about the first job he held after college. Whenever I asked how an accountant from Bridgeport ended up knowing so much about corporate contracts, he said he had worked for people who taught him what not to become.
“You know that name.”
“It’s my father’s.”
Vanessa actually laughed.
Not loudly.
Just enough to make me feel poor, exposed, and ridiculous in a room filled with dead millionaires.
“Of course it is,” she said. “The housekeeper’s father is suddenly part of a twenty-six-year-old conspiracy.”
I turned toward her.
“You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know he isn’t a Moretti.”
Luca closed the ledger.
“Neither are you.”
Vanessa’s smile disappeared.
He looked back at me.
“Did your father ever work for my family?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“He doesn’t talk about that part of his life.”
Teresa stared at me differently now.
“What is your father’s full name?”
“Daniel Joseph Reed.”
The cane slipped against the rug.
Teresa caught herself.
Luca noticed.
“You know him.”
She whispered, “I knew a Daniel Reed.”
My heartbeat climbed.
Vanessa stepped backward.
That was the detail I remembered later.
Not her insult.
May you like
Not the old box.
The fact that Vanessa Bellini looked afraid when Teresa said my father’s name.
