Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO KEPT THE RECEIPT
The drive to the bakery took twenty-three minutes.
Luca made it in sixteen.
I knew because I sat in the back of the black SUV with my injured hand tucked against my chest, staring at the dashboard clock while Chicago slid past the tinted windows.
I had expected him to leave me at the mansion.
He had not.
Vanessa had been escorted to the east guest wing by two security men and told, very politely, that she was not to leave the property.
She had laughed at first.
Then she had asked Luca whether he understood how humiliating this was.
He answered without raising his voice.
"Not as humiliating as burning an employee because you were afraid of a porcelain bride."
That ended the conversation.
Now Daniel sat in the front passenger seat while a driver took us north.
"Mara called from the bakery's landline," Daniel said. "She refused to speak over a cell phone. Says somebody has been watching her apartment for two weeks."
Luca stared out the window.
"Who?"
"She doesn't know."
"And Nathan?"
"His phone is off. His housekeeper says he left for New York this afternoon. His office says London. His driver says he hasn't seen him since yesterday."
Luca looked at Daniel.
"Three different stories."
"Yes."
"Freeze his access to every family account before he realizes we know."
Daniel nodded and began typing into his phone.
I looked at Luca.
"Can you do that?"
He glanced at me.
"It's my money."
"I meant without him knowing."
Something almost like humor moved through his expression.
"Lily, people rarely know what I can do until after I've done it."
I should have been frightened by that.
Maybe I was.
But after ten months working in his home, I had learned that Luca Moretti's reputation and Luca Moretti himself were not always the same person.
The reputation was cold.
The man had ordered a doctor for a housemaid before he asked why she had interrupted his engagement party.
The bakery was dark when we arrived.
A handwritten CLOSED sign hung inside the front window.
Daniel knocked three times, paused, then twice.
A woman opened the door just enough to look out.
She was in her late forties, with gray streaks in her dark hair and flour dust on one sleeve.
Her eyes went to Luca.
She immediately stepped back.
"Mr. Moretti."
"Mara Ellison?"
She nodded.
"Come inside. Quickly."
The shop smelled like sugar, coffee, and warm bread. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been comforting.
Tonight every shadow looked like it might contain a secret.
Mara locked the door behind us and pulled the blinds.
Then she saw me.
Her expression broke.
"Your hand."
"I'm okay."
"No, you are not. I should never have left you there."
Luca turned toward her.
"Start from the beginning."
Mara looked at Daniel.
"Who is he?"
"Someone I trust."
Her face tightened.
"Anna trusted people too."
The sentence landed badly.
Daniel's expression did not change, but Luca's did.
"Where is Anna?"
Mara walked behind the counter and took a brown paper envelope from beneath the register.
"I don't know. Not exactly. That's the point."
She placed the envelope on the glass display case.
"Six months ago, Anna came here after closing. We went to high school together. She was terrified. She said Michael was missing and nobody in your family believed her because Vanessa had already told everyone he left town over gambling debts."
Luca's eyes narrowed.
"Michael didn't gamble."
"Anna knew that. So did I. She said Vanessa was building a story before anyone had even confirmed he was gone."
Mara opened the envelope.
Inside were receipts, photocopies, and a small brass key taped to an index card.
"Anna gave me these. She told me if anything happened to her, I was supposed to wait. Not go to the police. Not go to you. Wait until Vanessa was close enough to marrying you that she would stop being careful."
I felt a chill.
"Why wait?"
Mara looked at me.
"Because Anna thought Vanessa was not working alone. She believed somebody inside the Moretti organization would intercept anything sent directly to Luca."
Daniel shifted beside us.
Just slightly.
I noticed because Mara noticed.
Her gaze went to him.
Luca said, "What does the key open?"
"A storage locker at Union Station."
"What's inside?"
"Anna said evidence Michael collected. Bank transfers. Recorded calls. Copies of trust documents."
"Why put the USB in the cake topper?"
Mara let out a breath.
"Because Vanessa chose our studio for the engagement cake. She didn't know Anna and I were friends. When I saw her order come through, I called the number Anna gave me for emergencies. Anna didn't answer, but two days later I got a package with the USB and instructions. Put it inside the bride. Make sure Luca receives it personally."
"And yesterday Vanessa sent someone to collect it."
"Yes. A driver. I thought that was the end of it. Then this afternoon I came to the house because I couldn't live with myself if she destroyed it before you saw it."
Mara looked at my bandaged hand again.
"I should have stayed."
"She would have hurt you too," I said.
Mara's mouth trembled.
Luca picked up the brass key.
"What locker?"
Mara handed him the index card.
Locker 318.
Union Station.
Then she said, "There's something else."
Nobody spoke.
Mara walked into the back room and returned with a photograph.
She handed it to Luca.
I watched his face.
His expression did not change at first.
Then something inside him seemed to stop.
The photograph showed a man standing beside a gas station at night.
The image was grainy.
But even I recognized him from family portraits in the mansion.
Michael Moretti.
Luca's younger brother.
Alive.
The date printed in the corner was three weeks ago.
Luca stared at it.
"Where did this come from?"
"Anna mailed it to me. No return address."
"Three weeks ago?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you contact me?"
Mara's voice cracked.
"Because the last time somebody tried to help Anna, that person disappeared."
The bakery went completely silent.
Luca looked at Daniel.
"Get the car."
Daniel hesitated.
"For Union Station?"
"Now."
Mara caught Luca's sleeve.
"Wait."
He looked down at her hand until she released him.
"Anna wrote something on the back."
Luca turned the photograph over.
There were five words in blue ink.
DO NOT TRUST THE FIRST KEY.
He looked at the brass key in his palm.
Daniel said, "Could be a warning about a trap."
Mara shook her head.
"I don't think she meant the locker key."
"Then what?" I asked.
Mara looked at Luca.
"Michael used to say your family had three kinds of keys. Keys to doors. Keys to money. And keys to people."
Luca's eyes hardened.
"Who was his key to people?"
Mara looked toward Daniel.
Daniel stopped moving.
My heart kicked against my ribs.
Luca did not look at him immediately.
That somehow made it worse.
Finally, he said, "Daniel."
"Yes?"
"Give me your phone."
Daniel's face became unreadable.
"Luca-"
"Your phone."
The bakery seemed to shrink around us.
Daniel slowly reached into his jacket.
Then the front window exploded inward.
Everyone dropped.
Glass sprayed across the tile.
A black sedan tore away from the curb.
Daniel shoved Luca behind the counter and drew his weapon, but no second shot came.
I crouched beside Mara, my injured hand pressed against my chest.
On the floor between us lay the photograph of Michael.
A round hole had punched through the exact center of his face.
Daniel moved toward the broken window.
Luca caught his arm.
"Don't."
"They could circle back."
"That's what they want."
Luca looked at the street, then at the photograph.
His voice was low.
"They weren't trying to kill us."
I stared at him.
"How do you know?"
He pointed toward the display case.
The glass in front of us was untouched.
The shot had been aimed low.
Precise.
At the photograph.
A message.
Mara began shaking.
Luca crouched beside her.
"Who knew you had that picture?"
She whispered, "Only Anna."
Daniel turned from the window.
"Then either Anna isn't alone..."
Luca finished the sentence.
"Or somebody has been reading her mail."
My phone buzzed in my coat pocket.
I froze.
I had forgotten Mrs. Carter returned it after the doctor examined me.
Unknown number.
One text message.
A photograph loaded slowly.
My sister Emma was standing outside her nursing school.
Taken less than ten minutes earlier.
Beneath the photo were seven words.
TELL LUCA TO STOP LOOKING FOR MICHAEL.
Luca read the message twice more, then held my phone toward Daniel.
"Trace it."
"Probably a burner."
"Trace it anyway."
Daniel photographed the screen and made two calls while Luca crouched beside me.
"Look at me."
I did.
"Your sister is not alone. I had someone near her building the moment you gave me her name. If she moved, we'll find her."
"They already did."
"They took a picture. That means they wanted you frightened, not silent. If they wanted silence, they would not have sent a warning."
The logic was horrible.
It was also the first thing anyone had said that made it possible for me to breathe.
Mara pressed both hands against her mouth.
"This is because of me."
"No," I said. "This is because of them."
I surprised myself with the certainty in my voice.
Maybe pain had finally burned through fear and left something harder underneath.
Luca stood.
"Mara, you close this bakery for a few days. Daniel will arrange somewhere safe."
"I have employees. Orders."
"Then your employees get paid. The orders get refunded."
"You can't buy every problem away."
"No," Luca said. "But I can remove the ones that cost money so we can focus on the ones that cost lives."
Mara had no answer to that.
We left through the back door.
As I climbed into the SUV, I looked once more at the shattered bakery window.
The hole through Michael's photograph had seemed like a warning when I first saw it.
May you like
After the picture of Emma arrived, it felt like something worse.
A promise that anybody standing near the truth could be placed inside the target.
