Chapter 5 - THE SIGNATURE OF A DEAD MAN
“Your father signed Elena's hospital transfer?”
The words sounded strange even as I said them.
Luca was staring at the tiny paper in his hand.
“My father died seven years ago,” he answered.
Seven years.
Three years after Elena's final hospitalization.
He turned toward Daniel.
“Bring me the original hospital records.”
Daniel hesitated.
“Sir, the copies in our archives might not include the signature page.”
“Then request the complete records through the proper channels. I want to know exactly what my father authorized.”
Dr. Weber approached the desk.
“Mr. Moretti, there's something important you should understand. A transfer authorization doesn't necessarily mean the signer made a medical decision. Families sometimes designate representatives to handle administrative arrangements.”
Luca looked up.
“My father never told me he was involved.”
“Then we need to establish why.”
I watched Luca sit down.
For all his wealth and power, he suddenly looked like a man who had discovered the floor beneath his childhood home was rotten.
He'd lost his wife.
He'd trusted Vanessa.
And now even his memories of his father were being questioned.
“Tell me about him,” I said quietly.
Luca rubbed his forehead.
“My father, Antonio Moretti, believed loyalty was everything.”
He gave a humorless smile.
“He also believed he was always right.”
Daniel stood beside the desk.
“Antonio was a difficult man. But he loved this family.”
Luca glanced at him.
“Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.”
He opened Elena's notebook.
“Before Elena died, she and my father argued about the foundation. I thought it was about money.”
“What kind of argument?” I asked.
“She wanted to remove the Bellinis from financial management. He insisted Richard had been a family ally for decades.”
Luca swallowed.
“Father said she was letting emotion cloud her judgment.”
I looked down at Oliver's name.
“People say that when they don't want someone asking questions.”
Luca nodded.
Then he turned to Dr. Weber.
“Could Elena's illness have prevented her from pursuing the investigation?”
The physician considered his answer.
“I wasn't her treating doctor. From what you've told me, she became seriously ill during that period. We should not speculate about any connection without medical evidence.”
Luca looked disappointed.
But he accepted the answer.
I was beginning to see something different in him.
The man who'd ordered the gates locked now seemed determined not to let anger outrun facts.
Then Daniel's tablet chimed with a message from the household archivist.
He studied the screen.
“Sir, there's a scanned letter from Antonio dated two months before Elena's death.”
He turned the tablet toward us.
The letter was addressed to Richard Bellini.
It concerned a shipment of medical equipment.
At the bottom was Antonio's signature.
Luca examined it.
Then he compared it with the one copied onto Elena's hospital transfer notation.
“They match.”
Daniel nodded.
But Dr. Weber leaned closer.
“May I?”
He studied both signatures.
“Similar, certainly. But look at the date.”
I leaned forward.
The scanned letter carried a date that had been altered.
The original month was faintly visible beneath the darker ink.
July had been changed to September.
“Someone corrected it,” Daniel said.
“Or changed it intentionally,” Weber replied.
Luca stood.
“Find the original.”
Daniel left to contact the archive.
For several minutes, the study was silent.
Then I remembered something.
“My mother used to say that the foundation sent the same rejection twice.”
Luca looked at me.
“What do you mean?”
“The first letter said there wasn't enough funding. The second said Oliver's treatment had already been covered by another program.”
Weber frowned.
“Those statements contradict each other.”
“I know.”
“Does your mother still have them?”
“She keeps everything.”
Luca checked the time.
It was nearly midnight.
“Emily, I don't want to disturb your mother without warning.”
I looked toward Oliver's name.
“She deserves to know someone finally believes her.”
He nodded.
“Then we'll visit when she's ready. No surprise confrontation.”
For the first time since I'd come to work at the mansion, I felt he understood that my family wasn't simply part of his household staff.
We were people with our own losses.
Our own history.
Our own dignity.
Before I could thank him, Daniel returned.
“Arthur Keane has been living in Evanston.”
Luca straightened.
“Did you speak to him?”
“Briefly. He says he warned Antonio about the foundation years ago.”
Luca stared at him.
“Warned him about what?”
“He wouldn't discuss it over the phone. He offered to meet with an independent investigator in the morning.”
“And my father?”
Daniel's face tightened.
“Keane said Antonio discovered something that frightened him.”
“What?”
Daniel looked toward the watch.
“He said it concerned a shipment that never left Chicago.”
I thought of the black equipment case Sophia had seen carried from the music room.
Then I remembered another detail.
The men had not been transporting the piano.
They'd been taking something away from it.
“Daniel,” I said, “did you ever find out who those men were?”
He nodded.
“Two contractors hired through Bellini Property Services.”
“Where's the case they carried?”
“We haven't located it.”
Luca looked at him.
“Find the contractors. Ask them where it went.”
Daniel left again.
Luca turned toward the window.
His reflection looked unfamiliar in the glass.
He seemed older than thirty-seven.
“I spent years blaming myself for not being there when Elena got worse.”
I stood quietly.
“She was at the hospital for an examination,” he continued. “I was in New York. My father told me not to interrupt the trip. He said she was receiving excellent care.”
“Did you speak to her?”
He nodded.
“Once. Briefly.”
His expression changed.
“She asked me to promise I'd never let anyone make Sophia ashamed of needing help.”
I swallowed.
“And I promised.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
Then he reached for the watch.
“Perhaps Elena knew something was going wrong.”
He turned its face toward the light.
The moving inner ring caught the glow.
At first, the letters E, M, and K looked like initials.
But the letters were separated by tiny numbers.
4\.
1\.
7\.
I leaned closer.
“Could it be a location code?”
Luca frowned.
“Perhaps.”
Dr. Weber studied the pattern.
“Or a reference to records kept in multiple offices.”
Then a thought struck me.
“Why would Elena use a watch instead of simply writing the information?”
Luca looked at me.
“Because someone was searching her papers.”
“Exactly.”
I pointed toward the inner ring.
“Maybe it wasn't meant to be read as a message. Maybe it was meant to identify something only your father would recognize.”
Luca studied the watch again.
Then his expression changed.
“My father collected antique clocks.”
I glanced around the study.
There were no clocks except the large brass one on the mantel.
“He kept a personal collection in his old office,” Luca continued. “When he died, most of it went into storage.”
Daniel returned just as Luca finished speaking.
He held a thin archival envelope.
“Sir, the archivist found Antonio's handwritten notes from the month Elena went into the hospital.”
Luca opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Antonio standing beside Elena.
The two of them were in the music room.
Antonio held a small wooden clock.
Elena wore her gold wristwatch.
On the back of the photograph, Antonio had written:
I should have believed her sooner.
Luca's fingers tightened.
Beneath the photograph was a letter.
He began reading silently.
Then stopped.
His face went white.
“Mr. Moretti?” I whispered.
He looked up.
“My father didn't authorize Elena's transfer because he wanted to hide the evidence.”
He swallowed.
“He was trying to move her away from the Bellini-controlled hospital network.”
Dr. Weber stepped closer.
“Then why didn't the transfer happen?”
Luca stared at the final line.
And read it aloud.
“Transfer canceled at the request of the patient's husband.”
Nobody moved.
I looked at him.
“Luca...”
He shook his head.
“I never canceled anything.”
Then he showed us the document.
At the bottom was a signature.
His signature.
Dated the day before Elena lost consciousness.
For the second time that night, someone had apparently signed his name.
But this document contained something far worse.
Beside the signature was a handwritten note.
HUSBAND REQUESTS THAT PATIENT NOT BE INFORMED OF FOUNDATION INVESTIGATION.
Luca stared at those words.
Then looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“Someone made Elena believe I had betrayed her.”
May you like
And beneath the false signature, almost hidden by the hospital stamp, was a name neither of us expected to see.
AUTHORIZED WITNESS: VANESSA BELLINI.
