Chapter 3 - The Housekeeper Who Knew Too Much
The gunman never saw Luca on the balcony.
One clean shot knocked the weapon from his hand.
Grace dropped.
My men moved.
The attackers scattered.
Two escaped.
Three were captured.
Grace ran into the mansion and wrapped both daughters in her arms.
Then she looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for being kidnapped.”
Her face crumpled.
In my study, she told me everything.
Salvatore had used her children as leverage.
Helen Bell passed messages.
Grace had tried to free Elena the night before because she learned they planned to move her to New Hampshire.
Someone ordered Grace to sedate Elena.
Instead, Grace unlocked the internal door.
That gave Elena the chance to knock from inside the wall.
Then Grace went back for her daughters.
But Mia had already crossed the courtyard carrying Sophie, convinced she had to clean my study to save their home.
Grace also told me Luca had been present on the night my mother died.
Elena produced an old photograph.
Ambulance lights.
My father.
Salvatore.
And Luca.
Luca had always claimed he met my family a year later.
I confronted him.
He placed his gun on my desk voluntarily.
“I lied.”
He had been recruited by Salvatore at eighteen.
Driving.
Surveillance.
Deliveries.
He had watched my mother because Salvatore suspected she was meeting investigators.
“Did Salvatore poison her?”
Luca looked down.
“Yes.”
The word split something inside me.
Then he added that my father found him outside Lucia’s room the night she died.
There had been blood on my father’s shirt.
He never knew whose.
My father later ordered Luca to protect me and never reveal the truth.
I suspended him.
He left.
Elena then led us back to the west room.
Under a floorboard beneath the bed was a metal case with my mother’s initials.
Inside were documents, photographs, bank records, a cassette tape, and a letter addressed to me.
Romy, if you are reading this, then I failed to protect you from the truth.
I read on.
Your uncle Salvatore is dangerous, but he is not the one I fear most.
The bottom of the letter had been cut away.
The name was missing.
May you like
Someone above Salvatore had been close enough to my mother to know where she hid the evidence.
And close enough to remove their own name.
