Chapter 2 - BLUE HARBOR
Luca's father was Salvatore Moretti.
Officially, he died fifteen years ago.
Heart attack.
Private hospital.
Closed family funeral.
Luca had been twenty-four.
Old enough to remember every detail.
Too young to question why the casket stayed closed.
"No," he said.
Vanessa wiped her face.
"I knew you'd say that."
"My father is dead."
"That is what Sofia believed too."
Luca's voice hardened.
"Believed?"
"Until three months ago."
There it was.
The first clear reason Sofia had been hidden upstairs.
Vanessa looked at Marco.
"I need everyone else out."
Luca shook his head.
"Rachel stays."
Vanessa glared at me.
"Of course she does."
"Why does that bother you?"
She said nothing.
Good question.
The remaining guests were escorted out through the front entrance.
The engagement dinner ended without dessert.
Nobody complained.
When the doors closed, Vanessa sat at the long table and told us what happened.
Three months earlier, her father, Victor Bellini, received a photograph.
Salvatore Moretti.
Older.
Alive.
Standing outside a private clinic in Montreal.
Victor thought it was fake.
Then Sofia appeared in Chicago two weeks later.
Alive too.
She contacted Vanessa first.
Why Vanessa?
Because she did not trust Luca.
That hit him.
"Why?"
Vanessa answered:
"Because she said you had become too much like Salvatore."
Luca stared.
No defense.
Interesting.
Sofia claimed Salvatore had staged his death after discovering evidence that could destroy the Moretti and Bellini families.
He disappeared to protect Luca.
At least that was his story.
"And you believed Sofia?" Luca asked.
"Not at first."
"Then?"
"She showed me the pendant."
The S.M. pendant.
The matching one belonged to Luca.
Salvatore had commissioned them when Luca was twelve.
One for Sofia.
One for Luca.
They were family emergency keys.
Not sentimental jewelry.
Keys to the old Harbor 4 facility.
Vanessa said Sofia wanted to bring Luca there.
Vanessa stopped her.
"Why?"
"Because my father begged me to."
Victor Bellini.
Alive, very much not dead.
He told Vanessa Harbor 4 was a trap.
That Salvatore wanted Luca back under his control.
That Sofia had been manipulated.
So Vanessa brought Sofia to the east wing.
"You imprisoned her," I said.
Vanessa snapped:
"I protected her."
"The door locked from outside."
She looked at me.
"She wandered."
"She asked me for help."
Silence.
Luca's jaw tightened.
Vanessa corrected herself.
"I should not have locked it."
Better.
Not enough.
She admitted sedating Sofia twice under instruction from a private doctor.
Not enough to keep her unconscious.
Enough to make her easier to manage.
Luca stood.
"Engagement is over."
Vanessa stared.
"What?"
"You drugged my aunt."
"To stop her from walking into a trap!"
"You kept her from me."
"Because she asked me to keep you away from Harbor 4 until she understood what Salvatore wanted."
Luca stopped.
"She asked?"
"At first."
There.
Important distinction.
Sofia had initially chosen secrecy.
Vanessa turned that choice into captivity when Sofia changed her mind.
Fear became control.
Again.
Then Marco found the missing Mercedes.
Abandoned near Lower Wacker.
No Sofia.
Inside, one envelope.
For Luca.
We drove.
The envelope was taped beneath the steering wheel.
Sofia's handwriting:
LUCA,
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, VANESSA FINALLY FAILED TO KEEP ME QUIET.
Vanessa closed her eyes.
Sofia continued:
DO NOT TRUST SALVATORE BECAUSE HE IS YOUR FATHER.
DO NOT DISTRUST HIM ONLY BECAUSE HE LIED.
MAKE HIM SHOW YOU WHAT HE DID.
Then:
BLUE HARBOR HOLDS THE RECORDS.
THE SONG IS THE COMBINATION.
RACHEL KNOWS THE FIRST FOUR NOTES.
I stared.
"Me?"
Luca looked at me.
I knew the melody.
I could hum it.
But why would Sofia assume I could help?
The answer was on the last line.
YOUR MOTHER TAUGHT ME THE REST.
My stomach dropped.
My mother, Ellen Cole, died six years ago.
She had been a piano teacher.
Not a nurse.
Not a Moretti employee.
A piano teacher in Evanston.
I stared at Sofia's note.
"My mother knew her?"
Vanessa looked at me.
For once, she looked as confused as I felt.
Luca said:
"We go to Harbor 4."
Marco objected.
"We secure it first."
"Fine."
Good.
No impulsive private raid.
Federal contacts were notified through Luca's attorney.
Not police alone.
If old Moretti and Bellini corruption involved law enforcement, we needed outside eyes.
At 1:20 a.m., we reached the riverfront warehouse district.
Harbor 4 looked abandoned.
Brick.
Broken windows.
Blue-painted loading doors rusted shut.
The Chicago River moved black behind it.
The brass piano key opened a side entrance.
Inside, the old freight floor was empty except for one thing.
A grand piano.
Dusty.
Impossible.
Luca stared.
"My mother played here."
He remembered.
Family parties when he was a child.
Sofia singing.
Salvatore laughing.
The song Blue Harbor.
Not a commercial song.
A family melody.
Written by my mother.
I knew then.
Mom had sold little compositions to private clients when I was young.
One was called Blue Harbor.
I had played it at recitals.
Four notes in the opening.
Then six more I barely remembered.
I sat at the piano.
My hands shook.
I played the melody.
Four notes.
Pause.
Then the rest returned from muscle memory.
A mechanism clicked inside the floor.
A rectangular section of wood lifted near the piano bench.
Stairs.
Down.
Below the waterline.
Luca stared at me.
"Your mother built the code."
"Apparently."
We descended.
Concrete room.
Metal shelves.
File boxes sealed in plastic.
Film reels.
Ledgers.
A tape recorder.
And one old man sitting at a desk.
Gray hair.
Oxygen tube.
Hands folded.
He looked at Luca.
Then smiled.
"Anthony."
Luca stopped breathing.
No one called him Anthony except family.
The man stood slowly.
"You grew into Michael's shoulders."
Luca's voice came out raw.
"Dad?"
Salvatore Moretti nodded.
Alive.
Fifteen years after Luca buried him.
Then Salvatore looked at me.
"Ellen Cole's daughter."
My skin went cold.
"You knew my mother."
"She saved Sofia."
Before I could ask how, a gunshot cracked from the stairwell.
Marco shoved us down.
The light shattered.
May you like
And Salvatore whispered one name into the darkness.
"Victor."
