Chapter 14 - THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED|
Daniel Price had disappeared from public records shortly after Anthony Moretti's death.
He had no current business registrations, no active phone accounts, and no verified address. His last known employer had reported that he resigned abruptly and left the country.
But Marco found an old passport record showing that Daniel had returned to the United States under another name.
The record placed him in Pennsylvania.
Near the residential dance academy Vanessa had tried to arrange for Sophie.
Luca stared at the address.
“Find the property.”
Marco nodded.
Within an hour, the team identified a private residence outside Philadelphia owned by a company registered to a third party. The building was not part of the academy, but it was located less than twenty minutes away.
Rebecca contacted law enforcement and provided the trust documents, the video, and the evidence of Sophie's abduction.
Luca wanted to leave immediately.
Rebecca stopped him.
“You cannot walk into an unknown property without coordinating with the authorities. Sophie is already frightened. If Richard has armed men, an uncontrolled confrontation could put her in greater danger.”
“She's my daughter.”
“And she needs you to bring her home alive.”
The words forced him to stop.
He looked toward Claire, who had come to the office after hearing that the search had moved out of state.
“Why did Daniel ask Sophie about the notebook?” she said.
Evelyn considered the question.
“Because Caroline may have hidden something inside it.”
Claire opened her notes from the night of the engagement dinner.
“Sophie said her mother gave her the notebook and told her to keep it safe. She never said she knew what was inside.”
Luca looked at the blue notebook.
He had examined it several times, but the pages appeared ordinary. He turned to the inside cover and ran his fingers along the binding.
A thin strip of paper came loose.
It contained a series of numbers and a short handwritten message.
The truth is not in the agreement. It is in the recording.
Luca stared at the note.
“Which recording?”
Evelyn's face changed.
“Your father made an audio archive of the trust negotiations. He recorded the meetings because he feared the agreement might be disputed.”
“Where is it?”
“The original archive was supposed to be stored with Daniel.”
Rebecca immediately called the investigator.
“If the recording exists, it could establish who authorized the amendment and whether anyone intended to remove Sophie from Luca's care.”
Luca looked at Claire.
“Did Sophie ever mention a recording?”
Claire thought for a moment.
“She told me once that her mother used to play music in the sitting room and sometimes recorded herself singing. I assumed she meant family videos.”
Luca remembered the piano.
Caroline's old music sheets.
The envelope.
The warning.
“Could the recording be hidden in her mother's music collection?”
“Possibly,” Evelyn said.
They returned to the mansion under security escort.
In Caroline's sitting room, Luca examined the piano bench again. Beneath a removable wooden panel, he found a small cassette recorder wrapped in a faded scarf.
A label had been placed on the cassette.
Meeting — Anthony, Richard, Daniel.
Luca inserted it into an old player found in the archive box.
Static crackled.
Then his father's voice emerged.
“We cannot transfer the child's rights without Caroline's consent.”
Richard answered.
“Caroline doesn't understand what she's protecting.”
A third voice spoke.
“Then we need to make sure she never gets the chance to interfere.”
The recording stopped abruptly.
Luca stood motionless.
He recognized Richard's voice.
May you like
But the third voice belonged to someone else.
Someone he had trusted for years.
