Chapter 3 - THE NIGHT HIS MOTHER BEGGED FOR HELP
“That's my signature,” Luca said.
He spoke so quietly that I almost didn't hear him.
“Then somebody used it to approve something I never agreed to.”
Margaret Shaw didn't immediately answer.
She carefully compared the medical authorization with several older documents from Luca's private files.
Salvatore remained beside the fireplace.
“Luca, before you accuse anyone, remember how much responsibility you gave the household staff.”
Luca looked at him.
“I'm not accusing the staff.”
“I'm saying mistakes happen.”
“My mother is dead, Uncle Sal. A mistake isn't a good enough explanation.”
Nicholas sat beside me, turning the loose end of his black tie around his fingers.
The tie had belonged to his mother, Lucia.
Luca had given it to him when he began asking questions about her.
Now it held evidence about the other woman he had lost.
Two people who should have been there to watch him grow up.
I gently covered his hands.
“You're safe here.”
He nodded.
But he kept watching his father.
Margaret finally placed two documents beside each other.
“Luca, do you remember signing a general medical authorization for your mother three years ago?”
“Yes. After she had a minor episode of dizziness.”
“Was she hospitalized?”
“For observation. She came home the next morning.”
“And did you authorize her physician to coordinate emergency care?”
“Yes.”
Margaret pointed to the signature.
“That's the document they used.”
Luca leaned forward.
The original authorization permitted physicians to consult one another and arrange emergency treatment.
It said nothing about withholding hospitalization.
Nothing about comfort-only care.
And nothing about continuing medication over Gianna's objections.
Someone had combined Luca's genuine signature with a different set of instructions.
Salvatore rubbed his forehead.
“That could be a clerical error.”
Margaret looked directly at him.
“Adding an entire medical directive to a signed authorization isn't a clerical error.”
Salvatore fell silent.
The first reversal was devastating.
Luca hadn't signed the order that contributed to his mother's death.
But someone with access to his private documents had made it appear that he had.
And that meant the deception hadn't begun with Vanessa.
It had begun inside the Moretti household.
Two years before their engagement.
Luca immediately ordered an independent forensic review of the original electronic records.
Margaret cautioned him that determining exactly who altered them would take time.
Then Dante returned.
“Boss, I've located the archived household security records from the week your mother died.”
Luca turned.
“You told me the system automatically erased footage after thirty days.”
“Most recordings were erased.”
“Most?”
Dante hesitated.
“There are several clips I saved.”
“Why?”
Dante looked toward Nicholas.
“Because your mother asked me to.”
The room became silent.
Salvatore straightened.
“Dante, be careful what you're suggesting.”
Dante ignored him.
“She knew someone was accessing rooms without permission.”
Luca stepped closer.
“And you didn't think to mention that after she died?”
“I was instructed to keep the recordings private.”
“By a dead woman?”
Dante lowered his head.
It wasn't an answer.
And for a man who had guarded the Moretti family for fifteen years, silence suddenly looked very much like guilt.
Luca told him to bring the recordings.
While we waited, Nicholas tugged my sleeve.
“Emily?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Grandma had a watch.”
“What kind?”
“A silver one. It didn't tick loud.”
He pointed toward the hallway.
“I have it upstairs.”
Luca heard him.
“Grandma gave you her watch?”
Nicholas shook his head.
“She said I should keep Grandpa's watch safe.”
Luca's father, Antonio Moretti, had died when Luca was twenty-eight.
He'd owned a silver pocket watch that his wife carried afterward.
Luca hadn't seen it since Gianna's funeral.
“Can we get it?” Nicholas asked.
Luca knelt.
“Of course.”
The boy went upstairs with a trusted housekeeper while Dante prepared the footage.
When Nicholas returned, he carried a small wooden box.
Inside lay the watch.
Its silver case had been polished until the engraved initials almost disappeared.
A.M.
Nicholas opened it.
The hands were stopped at 8:42.
Luca frowned.
“Has it always shown that time?”
Nicholas nodded.
“Grandma told me not to fix it.”
“Why?”
“She said I'd know when I was bigger.”
I looked at the clock.
Then remembered the medical documents.
Gianna had supposedly died shortly after eight that evening.
But why would she preserve a watch stopped at 8:42?
Margaret examined the case.
There was no hidden compartment.
No second inscription.
Just an old watch whose hands had been deliberately positioned.
“Maybe it records the time of something important,” she suggested.
Salvatore gave a strained laugh.
“Or perhaps an elderly woman stopped a watch because she liked the number.”
Nicholas looked offended.
“Grandma didn't do things for no reason.”
Luca rested a hand on his shoulder.
“I know, buddy.”
Dante finally opened the first recording.
The image showed the mansion's eastern service entrance.
The date was two years earlier.
The evening Gianna died.
At 8:37 p.m., Dante appeared in the corridor carrying a small rectangular package.
He walked toward the private medical wing.
At 8:42, another camera recorded him handing the package to a man standing just outside Gianna's room.
The man's face was partially hidden by the doorway.
But the distinctive leather medical case beside him was visible.
Luca recognized it.
“Arthur Keene.”
Dante nodded.
“He was supposed to receive a letter from your mother.”
“What letter?”
“She wanted him to know she was requesting an independent medical opinion.”
Margaret turned sharply.
“Your mother was challenging his treatment?”
“Yes.”
“Then why was that missing from her medical records?”
Dante said nothing.
The recording continued.
A second figure appeared farther down the hallway.
An older man.
Broad shoulders.
Dark overcoat.
One hand resting against the wall.
His face remained outside the camera's frame.
At 8:44, the figure disappeared toward the private staircase.
Luca watched the footage again.
“Who was that?”
Dante shook his head.
“I couldn't identify him from this camera.”
Salvatore leaned against his cane.
“Security men came through that hallway constantly.”
But Nicholas had stopped playing with his tie.
His small face had gone very still.
“Daddy.”
Luca turned.
“What is it?”
Nicholas pointed toward the screen.
“I saw that man.”
Luca crouched beside him.
“When?”
“That night. I was looking through the stairs.”
“Do you remember his face?”
Nicholas hesitated.
“No.”
I felt him begin to tremble.
He reached into his jacket pocket and removed a folded sheet of paper.
It was a drawing he'd made when he was eight.
I recognized his early handwriting and the uneven figures.
There was a bed.
A woman beneath a blue blanket.
A tall man holding something in his hand.
And beside the man, Nicholas had drawn a small red circle.
“What's the red thing?” Luca asked.
Nicholas looked at the picture.
“His ring.”
Dante leaned forward.
Then his expression changed completely.
“Boss,” he whispered, “that isn't a ring.”
Luca looked up.
Dante pointed toward the man's sleeve.
“It's a cufflink.”
Luca stared at the little drawing.
Dante swallowed.
“And I know exactly who owned a pair like that.”
“Who?”
May you like
Dante looked directly at him.
“YOUR UNCLE SALVATORE.”
