Chapter 5 - The House Beneath the Ashes|
The ruins of the Falcone estate stood on a wooded property forty miles outside Chicago. The mansion had burned six years earlier, long after Adrian's death, during a storm that destroyed most of the roof and left the stone walls blackened.
Matteo had not returned since the funeral for his father.
He had no intention of returning now.
Yet the note left at Elizabeth's grave had given him a reason to reconsider.
At dusk, he drove through the rusted gate with Norah in the passenger seat. Two security vehicles followed at a distance. The grounds were overgrown, and weeds had cracked the stone path. The empty windows stared out like dark sockets.
Norah looked at the ruined building.
“Your family lived here?”
“My father did. Adrian and I grew up here.”
“Did you like it?”
“No.”
“Because of your father?”
Matteo glanced at her.
“You ask questions other people avoid.”
“Most people ask questions because they want to hear an answer they already like.”
“And you?”
“I ask because I need to know whether I'm standing in danger.”
He parked beside what remained of the carriage house.
“Then the answer is yes.”
Norah almost smiled.
They entered through a side door that had survived the fire. Matteo carried a flashlight. Norah wore gloves and a jacket over her uniform, and she kept her phone in her pocket with the emergency call screen ready.
Inside, the air smelled of damp stone and old smoke.
They moved through the ruined kitchen and into a corridor where the floor had collapsed in places. Matteo remembered his brother sitting on the stairs with a book, refusing to join their father's dinners. He remembered Adrian defending a kitchen maid after their father accused her of stealing silver. He remembered the last argument they had ever had.
Adrian had told him that the family was built on lies.
Matteo had called him a coward.
Three days later, the warehouse burned.
“Where would he have gone to think?” Norah asked.
“His room.”
They climbed a narrow staircase to the second floor. Most of the bedrooms were ruined, but Adrian's room had been protected by a stone wall that prevented the fire from spreading completely.
The furniture was gone. The floor was warped. A blackened bookshelf lay across the wall.
Norah searched the debris while Matteo examined the fireplace.
“Your brother kept a list,” she said. “Maybe he hid it here.”
“He would have known this place wasn't secure.”
“Unless he thought nobody would look after the fire.”
Matteo stopped.
The fire that destroyed the estate had occurred years after Adrian's death. Someone might have used it to erase evidence that had remained hidden.
He knelt beside the fireplace and examined the stones. One near the base was slightly loose.
Behind it was a narrow cavity.
Inside lay a small metal case.
Norah held her breath.
Matteo pulled it free and opened the latch.
There was no list inside.
Instead, they found a cassette recorder, a photograph, and a sealed envelope addressed to Matteo.
His hands tightened around the envelope.
The handwriting belonged to Adrian.
He broke the seal.
Matteo,
If you're reading this, I failed to tell you the truth while I was alive. I kept waiting for the right moment. There was never going to be one.
Father was not the only person selling our secrets. Someone inside our own circle was moving money, routes, and names to people who wanted us destroyed. I found the payments. I found the signatures. And I found the name of the person who ordered the warehouse meeting that night.
I was going to tell you everything. Then Elizabeth warned me that someone had learned about the list. If I disappear, do not trust the official report. Do not trust the man who says he witnessed my death. And whatever you do, do not let them find the original.
Your brother,
Adrian
Matteo read the letter a second time.
Norah picked up the photograph.
It showed Adrian standing outside a warehouse with Elizabeth and a third person whose face had been scratched away.
On the back were three words.
The witness lied.
A sound came from the corridor.
Both of them turned.
A floorboard creaked.
Matteo extinguished his flashlight and moved Norah behind him.
“Stay here,” he whispered.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Norah—”
“You asked me to come. I'm not disappearing because someone made a noise.”
Before he could respond, a figure appeared at the doorway.
Peter Voss.
His face was bruised, and blood had soaked through the sleeve of his coat. He raised both hands.
“Don't shoot.”
Matteo's gun was already pointed at him.
“You have ten seconds to explain why you disappeared.”
Peter swallowed.
“Because the people who killed Adrian found out I was still alive.”
“Who killed him?”
Peter looked at Norah.
Then his eyes fell on the photograph in her hand.
“Elizabeth's daughter.”
Norah's face hardened.
“You knew my mother?”
“I watched her die.”
“Then tell me who killed her.”
Peter looked back at Matteo.
“I can't.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“You can, and you will.”
“No.” Peter's voice broke. “You don't understand. The person who ordered the fire is still alive. He's the reason your family survived the war, Matteo. He's the reason you became boss.”
“Who?”
Peter opened his mouth.
A gunshot shattered the silence.
Peter staggered backward, clutching his chest.
Matteo caught him before he hit the floor.
Norah dropped beside them, pressing her gloved hands against the wound.
“Call an ambulance!”
Matteo shouted for his guards.
Peter's fingers closed around Norah's wrist.
“Your mother,” he rasped. “She didn't die in that house.”
Norah stared at him.
“What are you saying?”
Peter struggled for breath.
“She escaped. She took the original list. And the man who helped her was—”
His eyes widened.
A second shot struck the wall above them.
Matteo dragged Norah behind the fireplace as glass shattered in the corridor.
When the gunfire stopped, Peter was motionless.
Norah pressed her hand against his neck.
Nothing.
Matteo rose and looked toward the broken window.
The shooter was gone.
On the floor beside Peter lay a small black envelope.
Inside was a recent photograph of Elizabeth Bennett.
She was standing outside a diner, her hair streaked with gray, her face older but unmistakable.
The photograph had been taken three days earlier.
On its reverse, someone had written:
If you want your mother, come alone.
Norah stared at the picture until the room blurred.
Matteo lowered his weapon.
“Norah, listen to me. This could be a trap.”
She looked up at him.
“For eleven years, everyone told me my mother was dead.”
“I know.”
“Now I have proof that someone has been watching her.”
Her voice shook, but her eyes did not.
“If she's alive, I'm going to find her.”
Matteo glanced at the photograph, then at the dead man who had finally tried to tell them the truth.
“Then we find her.”
Norah folded the picture and slipped it into her pocket.
Outside, sirens approached through the trees.
Neither of them noticed the small device attached beneath the broken windowsill, its red light blinking steadily.
Someone had been listening to every word.
And somewhere in Chicago, a telephone rang.
A man answered.
“They found the photograph,” the caller said.
The man on the other end remained silent for a moment.
Then he replied, “Good.”
He opened a drawer and removed a second photograph.
This one showed Norah as a little girl, standing between Elizabeth Bennett and a man whose face was hidden by shadow.
May you like
The man ran one finger across the girl's face.
“Now,” he whispered, “let's see whether Matteo Falcone finally learns who his brother really was.”
