Chapter 6 - The Second Search
The backup generator came on seventeen seconds later.
It felt like seventeen minutes.
Marco disappeared toward the west corridor with two security men.
Dominic remained near Rosa and me until the all-clear came through his earpiece.
No intruder had entered.
One window had been broken from the outside.
A stone had been thrown through it.
Wrapped around the stone was a piece of paper.
Marco brought it into the drawing room using gloves.
There were four words.
STOP DIGGING UP GHOSTS.
Dominic read them twice.
Then he looked at Rosa.
“Who knew about the room?”
“Your mother.”
“You.”
“Your father.”
“Vittorio.”
Rosa hesitated.
“And Gabriel.”
Dominic walked to the window.
His reflection stared back from the black glass.
“Vittorio is seventy-two.”
“He is still dangerous,” Rosa said.
“Is he still stealing from me?”
Rosa did not answer.
Dominic turned.
That was answer enough.
Marco placed a tablet on the table.
“We’ve been auditing quietly for six months.”
Dominic looked at him sharply.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I had suspicions.”
“About Vittorio?”
“About several people.”
Marco opened financial records.
Companies.
Properties.
Consulting agreements.
Millions moving through businesses with harmless names.
I understood almost none of it.
Dominic understood immediately.
His expression became colder with every page.
Then I noticed something.
A company address repeated.
Not the company name.
The address.
“Go back.”
Marco looked at me.
“What?”
“The address on the landscaping invoice.”
He scrolled back.
I pointed.
“Now show the catering company.”
Same address.
Then a vehicle leasing company.
Same address again.
Dominic looked at me.
“How did you see that?”
“I organize contractor paperwork for a living.”
Marco searched the address.
The property belonged to a holding company.
That holding company was controlled by a trust.
The trust had been established by Vittorio Caruso.
Dominic leaned against the table.
“My mother was right.”
“Maybe,” Rosa said.
“No.”
His voice cut through the room.
“She was right.”
He looked toward the hidden room.
“She knew thirty-one years ago.”
The silver key Rosa had brought fit nothing inside Maria’s desk.
We searched every drawer.
Every cabinet.
Every bookshelf.
Nothing.
Then I remembered the wording on the tape.
Somewhere Vittorio would never look.
“What did Vittorio hate?” I asked.
Rosa frowned.
“What?”
“People hide things according to the person they’re hiding them from.”
I looked around the room.
“What would Maria know Vittorio would refuse to touch?”
Rosa’s face changed.
“The chapel.”
Dominic looked at her.
“He hated church?”
“He hated your grandmother.”
I blinked.
Rosa continued.
“She built the private chapel after your grandfather died.”
“Vittorio despised her.”
“He refused to enter it even for Christmas.”
The Caruso chapel stood at the far end of the estate.
Small.
Stone.
Locked for years.
Dominic had almost removed it during renovations.
At sunrise, we crossed the wet garden.
The rain had stopped.
The world looked silver and exhausted.
Dominic unlocked the chapel.
Dust covered the pews.
A carved wooden Madonna stood near the altar.
I walked slowly.
Then I saw the same initials carved into the base.
M.S.
Dominic inserted Rosa’s silver key into a tiny keyhole beneath the statue.
A compartment opened.
Inside was not a ledger.
There was only another photograph.
Maria stood beside an unfamiliar woman.
On the back were coordinates.
May you like
And one sentence.
THE FIRST LIE IS THE GRAVE.
