The Funeral Home Lights
Chapter 14 - The Funeral Home Lights
The old Moretti funeral home sat on a county road outside Gray Hollow, a white building with green shutters and a sign so faded it looked embarrassed to still exist.
Luca had not been there since the day he buried his mother.
Or thought he had.
He arrived with one state police car behind him and Sheriff Bell in the passenger seat, because Bell had listened to Nora’s warning and changed the plan faster than fear could catch up. Sarah stayed at the chapel this time because every cell in her body wanted to go, and that was how she knew she must not.
Later, Luca would tell her the building smelled like lilies and damp wood.
He would tell her Vincent stood in the viewing room beside a closed casket, wearing a charcoal suit and the patient smile of a man who believed time itself was on his payroll.
He would tell her Marco stood near the back door, unable to meet his eyes.
But Sarah did not know those details then.
She knew only the waiting.
Waiting was its own violence, though no one called it that. It bruised from the inside. It made every minute a possible last thing.
Rosa sat beside her in the chapel, not speaking. Miriam paced. June fed the twins toast with butter and too much jam because children needed ordinary things when adults had broken the world.
At the funeral home, Luca faced Vincent under yellow lights.
“You always did love theater,” Luca said.
Vincent smiled. “A family reunion deserves atmosphere.”
Sheriff Bell stood two steps behind Luca, hand visible, eyes hard. “I prefer mine without extortion.”
Vincent ignored her. “Where is Sarah?”
“Safe.”
“No one is safe. That’s the first truth a Moretti learns.”
“I’m done learning from you.”
Marco shifted by the door.
Luca looked at him. “Was it worth it?”
Marco’s mouth opened, then closed.
Vincent answered for him. “Loyalty is expensive. You never liked paying the right people.”
Luca placed the envelope of ledger copies on a side table. “The originals are already with the state.”
Vincent laughed softly. “Of course they are. You were always your mother’s son. Dramatic conscience at the worst possible time.”
Bell’s radio crackled once.
Vincent’s smile thinned.
He reached into his pocket and took out a small velvet box.
Luca’s breath caught despite himself.
The ring.
Even from several feet away, he knew it. The simple band. The stone Sarah would not have called showy. The promise Vincent had stolen and turned into a weapon.
“I kept it,” Vincent said. “Sentimental of me.”
“Give it to me.”
“Why? So you can play family above a bakery with a woman who ran from you and children who do not know your name?”
Luca stepped closer. “Careful.”
“There he is,” Vincent said, delighted. “The Moretti blood.”
Luca stopped.
That was the trap. Not the building. Not the ring. The rage.
He breathed once, thinking of Sarah in the doorway. Flour on her hands. Eyes full of pain and steel.
“No,” Luca said. “That blood ends with me.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
Behind him, Marco moved.
Not toward Luca.
Toward Vincent.
For one stunned second, no one understood.
Then Marco grabbed Vincent’s wrist and twisted the velvet box free.
State police rushed through the side entrance.
Vincent shouted once before Sheriff Bell pinned his arm against the casket and read him his rights in a voice calm enough to sound bored.
Marco held the ring out to Luca with shaking hands.
“I owed you this,” he said.
Luca looked at the man who had betrayed him. “You owe Sarah more.”
Marco nodded, tears standing in his eyes. “I’ll testify.”
Luca took the ring.
The hollow channel inside the band opened with pressure from a jeweler’s pin Marco had kept taped beneath the velvet box.
Inside was a strip of microfilm so small Luca almost missed it.
On it, later enlarged, were account numbers, dates, and one image of Vincent signing the false death certificate for Rosa Moretti.
But that was not the part that made Luca sit down.
May you like
The last frame showed Nora Vale beside Vincent.
And beside Nora stood Judge Evelyn Hart’s late husband.
