🐾 The Maid Who Saved Bruno and Exposed His Fiancée’s Cruelest Lie

Chapter 04 - The Chapel Room

The chapel room had once belonged to Luca's mother.

Mrs. Moretti, people still called her in the house, although she had been dead for three years. Her name had been Isabella, but nobody said it unless they had known her before the illness, before the wheelchair, before grief made everyone careful around Luca.

The room sat at the end of the east corridor behind a narrow oak door with a brass crucifix above the frame. I had cleaned it only twice, and both times under Mrs. Carter's supervision.

It was not a chapel in the grand sense.

No pews. No stained glass.

Just a kneeler, a row of blue candles beneath a statue of the Virgin Mary, shelves of leather-bound prayer books, and a small writing desk by the window.

Luca reached the door before the rest of us.

It stood open.

He did not enter immediately.

He looked at the floor.

A single smear of red stained the polished wood near the threshold.

Not blood.

Lipstick.

Vanessa's shade.

"Daniel," Luca said.

"West exit is covered. North gate is covered. If she's still inside, we'll find her."

Mrs. Carter crossed herself.

I stood behind Luca with my sore shoulder throbbing beneath the sweater and Bruno leaning heavily against my leg. The old dog had insisted on following us, limping down the corridor despite Luca's attempt to keep him by the fire.

"He shouldn't be walking," I whispered.

Luca looked at Bruno.

Bruno stared into the chapel room and whined.

"Apparently," Luca said, "he disagrees."

Inside, the room smelled of candle wax and lavender sachets. A lamp burned on the desk, though none of us had turned it on. Drawers had been pulled open. Prayer books lay scattered on the rug.

Someone had searched in a hurry.

Luca moved directly to the wall behind the kneeler. He pressed his fingers beneath a carved wooden panel. It opened with a soft click.

There was the safe.

Small.

Steel.

Old.

The keyhole waited like an eye.

Luca took out the brass key from Bruno's blanket.

It fit.

The safe opened.

It was empty.

For several seconds nobody spoke.

Then Mrs. Carter made a sound in her throat.

"Madonna."

Luca did not move.

Empty shelves reflected in the dim light. Dust showed where something had rested for years.

Vanessa had beaten us there.

My stomach sank.

"I'm sorry," I said before I could stop myself.

Luca turned.

"Why?"

"If I had given you the key sooner—"

"You gave it when it was safe. This is not on you."

I wanted to believe that. But women like me were trained to accept blame quickly. It made other people less angry.

Bruno sniffed along the baseboard near the desk.

He sneezed once, then pawed clumsily at a rug.

"Bruno," Luca murmured.

The old dog pawed again.

Marco crouched and lifted the edge of the rug.

Beneath it, one floorboard sat slightly higher than the others.

Luca looked at me.

"Your dog found the key and now the floor."

"He's your dog," I said.

"Tonight, he appears to be running the investigation."

With a small pry tool from Daniel's pocket, Marco lifted the board.

A narrow envelope lay beneath it, wrapped in oilcloth.

Luca picked it up with unusual care.

His mother's handwriting crossed the front.

For my son, when the woman wearing love feels like a locked room.

He sat down slowly on the edge of the kneeler.

Nobody told him to open it.

Nobody told him not to.

He broke the seal.

The paper inside had yellowed at the folds. Luca read in silence.

I watched his face change.

Not all at once. Men like Luca Moretti did not fall apart in visible ways.

First his eyes stopped moving.

Then his fingers tightened at the edge of the page.

Then something in his mouth went hard with old pain.

He handed the letter to Daniel.

"Read the part at the bottom."

Daniel's voice was low.

"If Vanessa Bellini ever enters this house as your bride, ask Rosa Alvarez about the blue candle account, and ask your father why he lied about the girl in the garden. Do not trust the Bellinis with Bruno. He knows the scent of blood."

Mrs. Carter sank into a chair.

"Holy Mother."

Luca took the letter back.

"Rosa Alvarez," he said.

"The gardener?" Mrs. Carter whispered. "She left after your mother died."

"Find her," Luca told Daniel.

"Already trying."

I looked at the empty safe.

"What was in there?"

Luca's gaze moved to the dust marks.

"My mother's journals. She kept one every year."

"Why would Vanessa want them?"

"Because my mother knew something."

"About Vanessa?"

"Or about her family."

Bruno whined again.

This time he faced the window.

A curtain moved.

Not much.

Just enough.

Marco drew his gun so smoothly I barely saw the motion.

"Step back," he said.

Luca moved in front of me before I understood what was happening.

Daniel crossed the room and pulled the curtain aside.

The window was open.

Rain blew in through a narrow gap, dampening the sill. Outside, the roof of the conservatory stretched beneath the chapel window like a dark glass sea.

Someone had left through there.

On the white-painted sill, there was a small tear of red satin caught on a splinter.

Vanessa.

Daniel leaned out.

"She could have reached the conservatory roof and dropped to the garden stairs."

"Find her," Luca said.

Marco was already moving.

But I was staring at the windowsill.

Beside the red satin, nearly hidden beneath the damp, was something else.

A photograph.

Small.

Old.

I picked it up before anyone stopped me.

It showed a much younger Luca, maybe fifteen, standing beside his mother in the garden. Isabella Moretti looked beautiful and tired. Behind them, half out of frame, stood a teenage girl with pale hair and a familiar smile.

Vanessa.

I turned the photo over.

A date had been written on the back.

Twelve years ago.

My mouth went dry.

"Mr. Moretti," I said.

Luca looked over.

I handed him the photograph.

He stared at it.

Then at the date.

"I met Vanessa four years ago," he said.

Nobody answered.