Chapter 9 - The Woman Who Died Twice
Alexander did not speak for several seconds.
Then he laughed.
It was not amusement.
It was the sound a person made when reality finally became too ridiculous to respect.
“My mother is dead.”
Helen Varga looked at him with pity.
“So was Thomas Carter.”
Nobody had an answer for that.
The hospital’s backup generator hummed through the walls.
Emma felt another tightening in her abdomen, milder this time.
Dr. Nolan crouched beside her.
“Braxton Hicks, maybe. But you are done running tonight.”
She almost told him that running had not worked particularly well anyway.
Alexander remained focused on Helen.
“I saw my mother’s body.”
“No,” Vittorio said quietly.
Alexander turned.
His father looked sick.
“I saw a closed casket.”
Alexander stared at him.
“You told me the accident was too severe.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Vittorio’s eyes dropped.
“Because that is what I was told.”
Emma whispered, “By whom?”
Thomas answered.
“Family counsel.”
Alexander’s head snapped toward him.
“Eleanor Voss?”
Thomas nodded.
The name landed with a different weight.
Eleanor Voss had been Moretti counsel for thirty-five years. She drafted the trust amendments. She handled Enzo’s estate. She certified Isabella’s death.
She also had full archive access.
Luca checked his phone.
“Voss is not at home.”
Vittorio cursed.
“Find her.”
Damien stepped away from the wall.
“The Montreal plane.”
Everyone turned.
He looked at Luca.
“I filed the flight plan using a corporate shell Eleanor controls. I wanted anyone watching me to think I was leaving.”
Luca typed rapidly.
“The passenger manifest just updated.”
Alexander’s voice went hard.
“Name.”
Luca looked up.
“Eleanor Voss.”
Thomas shook his head.
“She won’t be on it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if she is the custodian, she has spent decades surviving by putting her name where her body isn’t.”
Emma looked at the clicking relay box.
“Can it tell us where she is?”
Luca examined it.
“It receives encrypted commands. We might trace the next burst.”
“Then wait for it.”
Damien laughed softly.
“You think she is going to politely ping us again?”
Three clicks sounded.
Pause.
Two.
Everyone looked at the relay.
The green diode flashed.
Luca connected it to his phone.
Coordinates appeared.
Vittorio leaned closer.
“That is my house.”
Alexander stared at him.
“The east wing.”
The fire.
Emma understood.
The blaze was not just Damien destroying evidence.
Damien frowned.
“I set a fire in the office safe. Controlled. Sprinklers should have contained it.”
Luca checked the estate feed.
“The fire is out.”
A new camera came online.
In the east wing, through smoke and water, a woman walked calmly down the corridor.
White hair.
Black coat.
Straight posture.
Alexander grabbed the phone.
His breath stopped.
“Mom.”
The woman looked directly into the security camera.
Then raised a small card with a handwritten message.
BRING REBECCA’S DAUGHTER.
Emma stared at the screen.
“No.”
Alexander was already shaking his head.
“No one brings you anywhere.”
The screen changed.
A second camera showed a chair in the Moretti library.
Someone was tied to it.
Marcus.
Blood darkened one sleeve, but he was conscious.
Isabella stepped into frame behind him.
She held up another card.
THE ORIGINAL LEDGER FOR HIS LIFE.
Damien swore.
Thomas looked at Emma.
“She wants the encryption key.”
“I don’t have it.”
He hesitated.
Emma caught it.
“What?”
“Rebecca gave you her half.”
Emma stared.
“No, she didn’t.”
“She did. You just don’t know what it is.”
Her mind raced through everything her mother had left her.
A box of recipes.
A silver necklace.
A library card.
A cracked music box.
Then she remembered.
The night she fled Chicago, she had taken one thing from her apartment without thinking.
A small brass key on a red thread.
Her mother used to tell her it opened nothing important.
Emma reached beneath her blouse.
The red thread was still around her neck.
Alexander stared at the brass key resting against her skin.
Thomas closed his eyes.
“That’s it.”
Emma looked at the security screen.
Isabella Moretti smiled into the camera.
May you like
Then the feed went black.
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