Chapter 3 - LOCKER 214
Nobody accused Vanessa of lying.
That frightened her more.
Luca simply pulled out a chair.
“Sit.”
Vanessa remained standing.
“I don’t want to.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
She stared at him.
A month earlier, Emma would have expected Vanessa to challenge him.
Tonight, she sat.
Luca took the chair opposite her.
“Who paid you?”
“I never saw him.”
Daniel looked at her skeptically.
Vanessa snapped, “I’m not protecting him.”
“Then start talking,” Luca said.
She folded her hands to hide their trembling.
“A package arrived at my apartment before I moved fully into the mansion. Cash. A copy of that photograph. Instructions.”
“What instructions?”
“Find anything belonging to Anna Moretti. Destroy it before the engagement party.”
Emma looked toward the violin.
“The case.”
Vanessa nodded.
“And the locket?”
“I found it months earlier.”
“Why remove the photograph?”
Vanessa’s eyes shifted toward Anna.
“Because my mother was in it.”
That answer surprised everyone.
Vanessa continued.
“I recognized her. I’d never seen your mother young, but I knew mine. I thought Anna had been secretly meeting her before she died.”
Anna’s voice softened.
“We were friends.”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“You keep saying things that sound impossible.”
“And yet here I am.”
Luca leaned forward.
“What did the instructions say about locker 214?”
“Nothing.”
“Then how did you know the ticket mattered?”
“My father had the number engraved inside his watch.”
Silence.
Luca looked at Daniel.
“Her father’s watch.”
Vanessa stiffened.
“It disappeared when he died.”
Anna shook her head.
“No.”
Vanessa turned.
“What?”
“Elena had it.”
“My mother died before him.”
“No, Vanessa.”
Anna’s voice was careful.
“Your mother died the night of the crash. Your father lived another eleven months.”
Vanessa frowned.
“He died nine months after her.”
Anna looked toward Luca.
Then back at Vanessa.
“That is what you were told.”
Something shifted in Vanessa’s face.
For the first time, suspicion was not aimed at Anna.
It was aimed backward.
At her own childhood.
Daniel secured the cabinet and moved the guests into the adjoining ballroom while arrangements were made for them to leave individually.
Luca did not stop them.
Whatever had begun as a family mystery no longer justified holding forty frightened people inside.
Within an hour, the mansion was quiet.
Only Luca, Anna, Vanessa, Emma and Daniel remained near the fireplace.
Emma tried to leave too.
Luca stopped her.
“Emma.”
She turned.
“You’ve done enough tonight. More than enough.”
“That sounds like I’m being fired.”
A tiny flicker touched his expression.
“You’re not.”
Vanessa looked down.
Luca continued.
“You found the violin. You recognized the damage. You found the ticket. Stay until we know whether anything else you noticed matters.”
Emma nodded.
Anna studied her.
“Your grandfather’s name?”
“Patrick Sullivan.”
Anna’s rosary slipped through her fingers.
“What?”
Emma frowned.
“Patrick Sullivan.”
Anna stared.
“Savannah?”
“Yes.”
Luca noticed immediately.
“You knew him.”
Anna did not answer fast enough.
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
Emma’s stomach tightened.
“How?”
“He repaired my violin.”
Emma looked at the instrument.
“My grandfather repaired that?”
“Twice.”
Anna touched one of the mother-of-pearl flowers.
“The second time was after Luca was born.”
Emma remembered her grandfather’s workshop.
The smell of rosin.
The old wooden cabinet.
The rule he had repeated whenever she touched an instrument.
Never erase a repairer’s mark. History belongs to the instrument, not the owner.
“There should be a mark inside,” Emma said.
She lifted the violin toward the chandelier.
“May I?”
Luca nodded.
Emma examined the interior through the f-hole.
There.
Faded pencil.
P.S. 1988
Her throat tightened.
“That’s his.”
Anna smiled sadly.
“He saved that instrument after I dropped it down three stairs.”
“You dropped it?”
“I was carrying Luca.”
For the first time all night, Luca almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Emma saw a second mark.
Not pencil.
Ink.
Two letters.
E.B.
She turned the violin.
“Anna, did Elena Bellini ever play?”
Anna nodded slowly.
“Beautifully.”
Emma looked beneath the tailpiece.
Something thin had been tucked between the wood and the old protective cloth.
Not recently.
Years ago.
She eased it out with Daniel watching.
A narrow piece of photographic film.
Luca held it up toward the light.
Three men stood outside a warehouse.
One was Luca’s father, Carlo.
One Anna identified as Marco Bellini.
The third man had been scratched across the face with a blade.
On the warehouse wall behind them was a painted number.
214.
Vanessa stood.
“That’s not a locker.”
“No,” Daniel said.
Emma looked at the old ticket again.
The storage company logo read Union Central Storage.
Not Union Station.
Vanessa had assumed.
So had everyone else.
Daniel pulled out his phone to search public property databases, but Anna spoke first.
“South Halsted.”
Everyone turned.
“It was a furniture warehouse.”
Luca frowned.
“You knew it?”
“Carlo took me there once.”
“When?”
“The week before the crash.”
Vanessa rubbed her forehead.
“So locker 214 is actually warehouse unit 214?”
“No,” Anna said.
“The warehouse had rooms numbered like lockers.”
Luca looked at Daniel.
“Is it still there?”
Daniel checked.
“Building survived redevelopment. It’s privately owned storage now.”
Vanessa stood again.
“I’m coming.”
Luca looked at her.
“No.”
“If my father hid something there, I have a right—”
“You took fifty thousand dollars to destroy evidence.”
Her face hardened.
“Yes. Because I believed your mother murdered mine.”
Anna flinched.
Vanessa looked at Luca.
“I was wrong about some things. Maybe all of them. But you don’t get to ask me for the truth while keeping me away from mine.”
Emma expected Luca to refuse.
Instead he said, “Daniel goes between us.”
Vanessa blinked.
That reversal surprised her too.
They reached the warehouse shortly before dawn.
Room 214 had an old steel door inside a newer storage facility.
The claim ticket did not open it.
The brass key from the violin did.
Inside were no boxes of money.
No guns.
No dramatic treasure.
Only a chair.
A dusty music stand.
And one cedar coat chest.
Anna stopped at the doorway.
“That was Elena’s.”
Vanessa walked toward it before anyone could stop her.
Inside lay a woman’s blue winter coat.
A child’s red mitten.
Several music books.
And a man’s gold watch.
Vanessa picked it up.
Her father’s initials were engraved on the back.
M.B.
Her hands shook.
She opened the case.
Inside the watch cover, someone had scratched three numbers.
9—17—6
Emma stared.
Vanessa whispered, “That’s not what was there when I was a child.”
“What was?” Luca asked.
Vanessa looked at him.
“214.”
Daniel took the watch.
“The cover was replaced.”
“No.” Vanessa shook her head. “My father wore this every day. I used to open it during church.”
Anna reached into the chest and removed the blue coat.
Something heavy pulled at one pocket.
She reached inside.
Her fingers came out holding a small velvet bracelet box.
Vanessa went white.
“I know that box.”
Anna opened it.
Inside was a tiny hospital bracelet.
Faded.
Yellow with age.
The name printed on it was still readable.
Baby Bellini.
Vanessa whispered, “That’s mine.”
Anna shook her head.
“No, sweetheart.”
Vanessa looked up.
Anna’s eyes were full of grief.
May you like
“You were eight years old when that bracelet was issued.”
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