Chapter 4 - THE GREEN COAT
“Adrian Bellini was in my mother's room.”
Luca held the train ticket beneath the music room lamp.
His voice was dangerously quiet.
Anna stood beside the green coat, watching him struggle with a memory he had avoided for more than twenty years.
His mother had loved this room.
She played piano every Sunday.
She kept flowers on the windowsill.
And on the last afternoon Luca saw her alive, she'd worn that same green coat.
“Why would Adrian put a train ticket here?” Anna asked.
Luca examined the paper.
“He didn't necessarily put it here. It could have fallen out while he was searching the coat.”
Anna looked at the repaired lining.
“Then what was he looking for?”
Luca didn't answer.
Instead, he moved toward the piano.
There was a family photograph on top.
A young Luca stood between his mother and grandmother.
His father was absent.
Anna had always wondered why.
Luca picked up the frame.
“My mother used to tell me that money was useful only when it made somebody's life better.”
He smiled without happiness.
“Then she'd tell me to hide that advice from my father.”
Anna waited.
“He believed our family owed nobody anything.”
“And she disagreed?”
“She spent half her life trying to prove him wrong.”
Luca opened the piano bench.
Inside were old sheet-music books and a yellow envelope.
He frowned.
“This wasn't here before.”
Anna noticed the dust.
Most of the room was covered in it.
But the envelope was clean.
Luca opened it.
Inside was a photograph taken outside Willow Street Apartments.
His mother stood beside a younger Eleanor.
Between them was a teenage girl wearing a blue cardigan.
On the back, someone had written:
Remember what we promised her.
Luca turned the photograph over again.
“I don't recognize the girl.”
Anna studied her face.
“She looks like someone.”
“Who?”
Anna hesitated.
Then her stomach tightened.
“Vanessa.”
Luca took another look.
The girl had the same dark eyes.
The same sharp cheekbones.
But the photograph was at least twenty-five years old.
“That can't be Vanessa,” Luca said.
“No.”
Anna pointed at the girl's necklace.
A small silver crescent.
“Vanessa wears one almost exactly like it.”
Luca stared.
The door opened behind them.
Eleanor stood with Marcus.
“I thought I'd find you here,” she said.
Luca handed her the photograph.
The old woman's face changed immediately.
“Where did you get this?”
“In Mother's piano bench.”
Eleanor sat heavily.
Anna reached for her arm.
“Mrs. Moretti?”
The elderly woman whispered a name.
“Celia.”
Luca frowned.
“Who was Celia?”
Eleanor looked toward the window.
“Celia Bellini. Vanessa's mother.”
Luca stared.
“I thought Vanessa's mother died when she was a baby.”
“She died when Vanessa was seventeen.”
Luca's expression hardened.
“Vanessa lied to me.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Perhaps she was told the wrong story.”
Anna pulled a chair closer.
“What happened to Celia?”
Eleanor held the photograph.
“She worked for your mother at Willow Street. She was bright, hardworking, and raising two children while her husband disappeared for weeks at a time.”
“Vanessa and Adrian?” Luca asked.
“Yes.”
Luca looked at the image again.
“Why have I never heard about her?”
Eleanor's voice became strained.
“Because your father accused her of stealing.”
The room went silent.
“Stealing what?” Anna asked.
“Money from the family trust.”
Luca looked toward his grandmother.
“Was she guilty?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“I believed so at the time.”
“And now?”
“Now I know the accounting records were incomplete.”
Luca sat on the piano bench.
For years, he'd accepted the stories his father told him about the family's past.
The loyal employees.
The dishonest employees.
The people who deserved help.
And those who supposedly didn't.
Now those stories were beginning to unravel.
Marcus examined the train ticket.
“Adrian came to Chicago under his own name. He may have thought nobody would notice because this floor is rarely used.”
Anna turned toward him.
“Can we find out what he did while he was here?”
“We can ask the railway for travel records and check the house's access logs.”
Luca nodded.
“Do it.”
Eleanor was still staring at the photograph.
“Celia had something your mother gave her.”
“What?” Luca asked.
“A small wooden box.”
“What was inside?”
“I never knew.”
Anna touched the silver crescent in the photograph.
“Do you think Vanessa knows?”
Eleanor hesitated.
“I think Vanessa grew up believing this family ruined her mother.”
Luca leaned back.
Suddenly, Vanessa's anger toward Eleanor seemed less random.
Her brother's obsession with family properties seemed less mysterious.
Perhaps it wasn't simply greed.
Perhaps they believed they were recovering something.
But that didn't explain Ben.
Or Daniel.
Or the stolen foundation money.
“Even if my father treated their mother badly,” Luca said, “nothing excuses what happened to that boy.”
“No,” Eleanor agreed. “It doesn't.”
Anna felt the weight of the conversation.
She had spent her own childhood watching adults make decisions children couldn't understand.
Her father had left when Michael was young.
Her mother had worked until exhaustion made her ill.
And Anna had learned early that grown-ups could be wrong without ever admitting it.
“Mr. Moretti,” she said, “we should ask Vanessa about her mother before assuming we know what she believes.”
Luca studied her.
“You still want to give her a chance to explain?”
“I want the truth.”
For a moment, he looked at Anna differently.
Not as an employee.
As someone whose judgment he trusted.
Marcus checked his watch.
“The detectives are questioning Vanessa in the library. They can decide whether another conversation is appropriate.”
Luca nodded.
When they reached the library, Vanessa was sitting beside an officer.
Her suitcase remained by the fireplace.
She looked exhausted.
Luca placed the photograph on the table.
“Who is this?”
Vanessa looked down.
Her expression crumbled.
“Where did you find that?”
“My mother's room.”
Vanessa picked up the photograph.
For several seconds, she couldn't speak.
Then she touched the teenage girl's face.
“My mother.”
Luca sat opposite her.
“Why didn't you tell me she worked for my family?”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“Because I wanted you to love me before you learned to hate my name.”
“Vanessa—”
“My mother lost everything because of yours.”
Eleanor entered behind him.
“That isn't the whole story.”
Vanessa rose.
“You don't get to rewrite what happened.”
Eleanor didn't argue.
Instead, she unfastened the silver watch from her cardigan.
“Your mother gave me a message before she left Chicago.”
Vanessa went still.
“What message?”
Eleanor opened the watch.
Behind the faded photograph was a tiny folded piece of paper.
She handed it to Vanessa.
The handwriting was faded but legible.
Vanessa read it.
Then covered her mouth.
Luca moved closer.
“What does it say?”
Vanessa looked at him with tears gathering in her eyes.
“She didn't steal from your family.”
Eleanor nodded.
“No.”
Vanessa held out the paper.
Luca read the sentence written in his mother's handwriting.
CELIA KNOWS WHERE THE ORIGINAL TRUST AGREEMENT IS HIDDEN. IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, PROTECT HER CHILDREN.
Luca looked toward Eleanor.
His voice was barely audible.
“Grandma, why didn't you tell me?”
Eleanor lowered her head.
“Because the morning your mother died, Celia disappeared with that agreement.”
Vanessa stared at her.
Then whispered:
“Celia didn't disappear.”
Luca turned.
May you like
Vanessa's next words silenced the room.
“YOUR FATHER PAID HER TO LEAVE.”
