Chapter 2 - GRACE HOLLOWAY
We reached Grace Holloway’s address at 2:18 in the morning.
It was a small farmhouse outside Valparaiso, Indiana.
White siding.
Dark porch.
One yellow light over the kitchen sink.
No cars in the driveway.
Marco wanted us to wait for backup.
Luca did not.
I surprised myself by agreeing with Marco.
“We don’t know who lives here.”
Luca looked at me.
“My son may live here.”
“That is exactly why you should not walk through the front door angry.”
His jaw tightened.
Then relaxed.
“Fine.”
Marco gave me a look that said nobody usually won that argument.
Ten minutes later, two additional security vehicles arrived.
Luca walked to the porch.
I stayed beside him.
He looked at me.
“You can wait in the car.”
“No.”
“Emma.”
“My father wrote her name.”
He nodded.
No argument.
Progress.
Luca knocked.
Nothing.
Again.
A floorboard creaked.
Then a woman spoke from behind the door.
“Who is it?”
Luca answered:
“Luca Moretti.”
Silence.
Long enough to become frightening.
Then three locks opened.
Grace Holloway was about sixty.
Gray-blond hair.
Sweater.
No makeup.
She held a small revolver pointed at the floor.
“Come inside.”
Marco moved first.
She looked at him.
“Not him.”
Luca frowned.
“Why?”
“Because Thomas said if you ever came, you would arrive with men carrying guns.”
Marco looked offended.
Grace lifted the revolver.
“Ironic.”
I almost laughed.
Nobody else did.
She let Luca and me inside.
Marco remained on the porch.
The kitchen smelled like cinnamon and old coffee.
Children’s drawings covered the refrigerator.
My heart started pounding.
One showed a blue dog.
“Where is Leo?” Luca asked.
Grace’s face tightened.
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“I need to know what you know first.”
“My father lied to me about his death.”
“Yes.”
“You helped.”
“Yes.”
“You raised him?”
“For six years.”
Luca’s breathing changed.
I watched him fight himself.
Every instinct said demand.
Take control.
Force answers.
Instead he sat.
“Tell me.”
Grace did.
Six years earlier, Luca’s former girlfriend, Elena Marini, went into labor at St. Vincent’s.
Complications.
Emergency surgery.
She died.
The baby survived.
A son.
Healthy.
Salvatore Moretti arrived before Luca.
He told hospital staff the child was at risk from people connected to Victor Bellini.
Vanessa’s father.
Luca went still.
“Victor wanted my son?”
Grace nodded.
“Not at first.”
“What does that mean?”
“Victor believed a Moretti heir would eventually control property he wanted.”
“Which property?”
“I don’t know.”
Luca laughed bitterly.
“Everyone knows exactly enough to ruin my life and never enough to finish a sentence.”
Grace ignored that.
Salvatore ordered the birth records altered.
The baby was moved through the hospital basement.
Thomas Reed helped.
My father.
He knew the maintenance tunnels.
The transfer was disguised as a neonatal evacuation after an electrical fire.
But the fire was not accidental.
Luca leaned forward.
“Who started it?”
Grace looked at him.
“Salvatore.”
Silence.
I stared.
“No.”
Grace turned to me.
“Your father tried to stop him.”
My chest tightened.
She continued.
“Salvatore believed smoke and evacuation would cover the transfer.”
“He risked patients?” Luca asked.
“He ordered a controlled electrical fire in an empty storage area.”
“Three people died.”
Grace’s eyes filled.
“It spread.”
Luca looked sick.
His father had hidden a child by starting a fire that killed three people.
No wonder the truth had been buried.
“What happened to Leo?” he asked.
“Thomas carried him through the service tunnel.”
“Then?”
“I took him.”
“Who are you?”
Grace looked toward the refrigerator.
“I was Elena’s aunt.”
Luca stopped.
“My Elena?”
“Yes.”
He stared.
“I was told she had no family.”
“Victor made sure of that.”
“Why?”
“Because Elena’s mother once worked for Bellini.”
Here we went again.
Money.
Old employers.
Old grudges.
Grace continued.
“Elena found financial records linking Victor to several criminal construction contracts. She planned to tell you after Leo was born.”
“Did my father know?”
“Yes.”
“And rather than expose Victor, he hid the baby.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor threatened to kill him.”
Luca laughed once.
“Which him?”
“You.”
Silence.
Grace looked at me.
“Salvatore believed if Luca publicly acknowledged Leo, Victor would attack both.”
“So he made Luca believe Leo died,” I said.
“Yes.”
“That is not protection.”
“No.”
Grace’s answer was immediate.
Good.
No excuse.
Luca stared at the floor.
“Where is Leo now?”
Grace’s face changed.
“He is not here.”
“Where?”
“Thomas moved him two days ago.”
My heart stopped.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because someone found us.”
“Vanessa?”
“Not directly.”
“Rinaldi?”
Grace nodded.
James Rinaldi.
The banker.
He had contacted Grace claiming Salvatore’s old security plan was compromised.
Thomas came.
He moved Leo to another location.
Then Thomas returned to Chicago.
“Why?”
“To retrieve proof.”
“What proof?”
Grace looked at Luca.
“Elena’s original file.”
“Where?”
“Your house.”
Luca stared.
“My house?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“She hid it before going into labor.”
“Where?”
“Behind the portrait in your father’s library.”
Luca’s expression hardened.
Vanessa had access to the mansion.
James had access to financial systems.
If either knew—
“Does Vanessa know?”
Grace looked toward me.
“She knows something exists.”
That explained the blackmail.
The half-million.
Thomas taken.
Someone was hunting both Leo and the file.
I asked:
“Did Dad know where Leo was after moving him?”
“Yes.”
“Then they took him because they need the location.”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
Luca stood.
“Where did Thomas move Leo?”
Grace shook her head.
“He refused to tell me.”
Luca’s eyes darkened.
“Why?”
“He said nobody should know everything.”
I almost smiled despite the fear.
That sounded exactly like my father before the stroke.
Then Grace walked to a drawer.
She removed a small recorder.
“Thomas left this.”
I pressed PLAY.
My father’s voice.
Slower than before the stroke.
But clear.
“Emma, if you hear this, I’m sorry.”
My eyes filled immediately.
“I should have told you years ago. But once you know a Moretti secret, you become part of it.”
Luca looked at me.
Dad continued.
“Leo is a good boy. He thinks his father died before he was born. I hated that lie every day.”
A pause.
“Salvatore made me swear.”
His voice shook.
“I kept that promise too long.”
I covered my mouth.
Then:
“If Vanessa found the drawing, James found the trust. If James found the trust, they’ll come for Leo.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“What trust?”
Dad’s recording continued.
“Elena Marini left everything to her son.”
Luca stared.
Grace closed her eyes.
“What did Elena own?” I whispered.
Dad answered.
“Forty-eight percent of Bellini Waterfront Development.”
Silence.
Vanessa’s father’s company.
Leo owned nearly half.
Luca whispered:
“That is why Victor wanted him dead.”
Grace shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Victor didn’t want Leo dead.”
She looked at Luca.
“He wanted him hidden until he could control the shares.”
A child as a locked safe.
My skin crawled.
The recorder continued.
“Emma, the place Leo is staying is connected to something only you and I know.”
I frowned.
Only us?
Then Dad said:
“Remember where your mother used to take you every July.”
My heart stopped.
Lake Michigan.
No.
More specific.
A small cabin near New Buffalo.
Owned by my mother’s cousin.
We had spent every summer there until she died.
I looked at Luca.
“I know where Leo is.”
Before we could move, headlights flooded Grace’s front windows.
Marco shouted from outside.
“Down!”
Gunfire hit the porch.
Grace dropped.
Luca pulled me behind the kitchen island.
Glass shattered.
Someone had followed us.
Marco returned fire.
Then a voice came from outside through a loudspeaker.
“Mr. Moretti.”
Luca went still.
James Rinaldi.
The banker.
“I know you found Grace.”
Luca’s face became cold.
James continued.
“Bring me Elena’s file.”
Luca shouted:
“I don’t have it.”
“Then find it.”
A pause.
“And if you want Thomas Reed alive by sunrise, come alone.”
I stopped breathing.
James had my father.
Before we left Grace’s kitchen, I walked back to the refrigerator.
One drawing showed the same blue dog.
Another showed a little boy standing beside a woman with gray hair and a man drawn only as a black shape with no face.
I pointed.
“Who is that?”
Grace looked at it for a long moment.
“Luca.”
He stared.
“But Leo thought I was dead.”
“He did.”
“Then why draw me?”
“Children invent pictures for missing people.”
That answer hurt more than I expected.
Grace opened a drawer and removed a stack of folded papers.
Birthday cards.
One for every year of Leo’s life.
None mailed.
Each signed:
Dad.
Luca picked up the first.
His hands shook.
“I didn’t write these.”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Thomas.”
My father.
Grace looked at me.
“He refused to let Leo grow up believing nobody on his father’s side remembered him.”
I felt my throat tighten.
“What did he tell him?”
“That his father loved him before he died.”
Luca closed his eyes.
A lie built to soften another lie.
Grace continued.
“Thomas hated it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because every year he wrote two versions.”
She handed me another envelope.
The second version was addressed to Luca.
Never sent.
Luca,
Leo likes trucks now.
He laughs when he gets nervous.
He has Elena’s eyes when he is angry.
I am sorry.
I almost told you today.
But a Bellini car sat outside the school for twenty minutes.
So I didn’t.
Luca sat down.
The next card.
Leo lost his first tooth.
He asked whether his father had gaps in his smile too.
I said yes.
I don’t know if that was true.
I am sorry.
Another.
He started kindergarten.
He wore a blue backpack.
He cried after Grace left but pretended he didn’t.
He is braver than any six-year-old should need to be.
I am sorry.
Luca stopped reading.
“I thought Thomas barely knew me.”
“He didn’t,” Grace said. “That may be why Salvatore trusted him.”
“Because he wasn’t loyal to me?”
“Because he was loyal to the child.”
Silence.
I looked at my father’s handwriting and understood something ugly and beautiful at the same time.
He had been keeping two families alive.
Mine in daylight.
Leo’s in secret.
No wonder the stroke had hollowed him out.
No wonder fear lived in his face whenever I mentioned the Moretti estate.
Luca folded the letters carefully.
“Can I keep these?”
Grace nodded.
“They were always yours.”
He put them inside his coat.
Then he looked at me.
“Emma.”
“Yes?”
“When we find Thomas, I want him to know I read them.”
My eyes filled.
“You can tell him yourself.”
“That is the plan.”
Outside, Marco shouted that the road was clear enough to move.
Grace turned off the kitchen light.
Before she left, she touched the refrigerator door once.
A goodbye to a house that had hidden a child for six years.
May you like
Then we stepped into the rain.
And he knew exactly how to force Luca back toward the mansion.
