Chapter 2 - My Father's Last WarningI waited until 2:13 in the morning.
The house had finally gone silent.
Luca and Vanessa had disappeared into the master bedroom—my mother's master bedroom—shortly after midnight.
Mom had been taken downstairs to a converted laundry room beside the kitchen.
Luca called it her "private suite."
It contained a narrow twin bed, one wooden chair, and a small dresser.
No television.
No family photographs.
No telephone.
The room I had designed for Mom upstairs had become Vanessa's dressing room.
That fact alone nearly sent me into my brother's bedroom.
But anger would not help me.
Evidence would.
I sat on the edge of the guest bed with Dad's key in my hand.
It was too small for a door.
Too old-fashioned for anything electronic.
One side was stamped with three tiny characters.
S-117.
I searched the house first.
Dad's old desk had disappeared from the study.
His filing cabinet was gone.
Even the walnut box where he kept insurance policies had vanished.
Then I remembered something.
When Dad was alive, he hated keeping valuables at home.
"Burglars know where people hide things," he'd say. "A bank vault is cheaper than rebuilding trust."
Safe-deposit box.
S-117.
I almost laughed from relief.
Then I remembered the time.
The bank wouldn't open until nine.
I had seven hours.
So I started investigating the house instead.
The Wi-Fi password hadn't changed.
Luca apparently wasn't as cautious as he'd become dishonest.
I opened my laptop and logged into the joint household account I had established years earlier.
Access denied.
I tried again.
Same result.
Password changed.
Then I checked my transfer history from Singapore.
Every month, exactly $10,000 had left my international account.
For six years.
Seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
I had assumed most of it accumulated.
Mom's annual expenses shouldn't have exceeded forty thousand.
Where was the rest?
I opened my email and searched Luca's name.
Hundreds of messages appeared.
Most were ordinary.
Mom's doing great.
Don't worry about us.
House needs a new roof.
Mom had dental work.
Property taxes jumped again.
The amounts I'd sent had increased several times after his requests.
I began cross-checking.
The roof supposedly replaced three years ago?
From my bedroom window I could see shingles that looked older than that.
The $18,600 plumbing emergency?
No contractor invoice had ever been attached.
Mom's $31,000 "special neurological treatment"?
I remembered asking to speak with her doctor.
Luca had told me privacy regulations made it complicated.
At the time, I'd accepted it.
I wanted to punch myself.
At 3:40, footsteps sounded in the hallway.
I closed the laptop.
The door opened.
Mom stood there.
Barefoot.
Still wearing the gray uniform.
"Mom?"
She lifted one finger to her lips.
Then walked inside.
I locked the door.
She looked toward it nervously.
"Is Luca asleep?"
"I think so."
Her face changed again.
The fog lifted.
"You really came."
I took both her hands.
"Of course I came."
Tears filled her eyes.
"I thought maybe I imagined you."
I swallowed hard.
"What's happening to you?"
She looked ashamed.
"I forget things."
"That's okay."
"No. Not like normal forgetting."
She touched her temple.
"Sometimes I wake up and I don't know what month it is. Sometimes I remember your father standing in the kitchen, and then I remember he's dead."
"Have you seen a doctor?"
"Luca takes me."
"Which doctor?"
She shook her head.
"He gives me medicine."
"What medicine?"
"The white ones make me sleepy."
My pulse quickened.
"What are they called?"
"I don't know."
She reached into her apron.
Nothing.
"Luca keeps them."
"Mom, did Luca hurt your wrists?"
Immediately, fear returned.
"No."
"You can tell me."
"I fell."
"Both wrists?"
Her eyes filled.
Then she whispered, "Sometimes he locks my door."
I went completely still.
"Why?"
"He says I wander."
"Do you?"
"I don't know anymore."
She began crying.
That was almost worse than anything else.
My mother had been a high-school principal for twenty-seven years.
She managed faculty disputes, parent complaints, budget hearings, and teenagers who believed rules were personal insults.
She had never been helpless.
Now my brother had convinced her she couldn't trust her own memory.
I wrapped my arms around her.
"I'm taking you out of here tomorrow."
She pulled back sharply.
"No."
"Mom—"
"He'll know."
"He already knows I'm suspicious."
She shook her head.
"You need what your father left."
"The key?"
She nodded.
"What is it?"
"Safe-deposit box."
I had been right.
"What did Dad put inside?"
"I don't know everything."
"Everything you remember."
She sat beside me.
Her voice trembled.
"Your father loved Luca."
"I know."
"But he didn't trust him with money."
That wasn't news.
Luca had accumulated gambling debts in college.
Dad paid them.
Then came failed businesses.
Dad paid those too.
But Mom continued.
"Before your father died, Luca started asking about the company shares."
My father had owned a regional commercial construction firm. After his death, it had been sold. Most of the proceeds were divided between Mom, Luca, and me.
"Luca said he deserved more because you were already successful," Mom said.
"He never told me that."
"Your father refused."
"What happened?"
"They fought."
She closed her eyes.
"Your father came downstairs afterward and said something I never forgot."
"What?"
She looked directly at me.
"He said, 'If Luca ever starts calling himself the owner, give Adriana the key.'"
A chill moved across my skin.
"Owner of what?"
"He didn't say."
"Why didn't you give it to me sooner?"
"I couldn't find it."
She touched her apron.
"Then three months ago I found it sewn inside your father's winter coat."
I stared at her.
Dad had hidden it.
Not in a drawer.
Not in his safe.
Inside clothing.
"Does Luca know?"
"I don't think so."
A floorboard creaked outside.
Mom froze.
I switched off the bedside lamp.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Closer.
Someone stopped outside my door.
The handle moved.
Locked.
Luca knocked once.
"Adriana?"
I didn't answer.
"Adriana, you awake?"
Mom squeezed my hand.
I pointed toward the bathroom.
She slipped inside.
I waited twenty seconds before opening the door.
Luca stood there wearing sweatpants.
"What?"
He looked past me.
"Thought I heard voices."
"I was on the phone."
"At four in the morning?"
"Singapore office."
He smiled without humor.
"Right."
"What do you want?"
"Just making sure you're comfortable."
"I'm extremely comfortable."
His eyes lowered toward my coat hanging over the chair.
For half a second, I wondered whether he knew.
Then he looked at me again.
"You always did like dramatic entrances."
"And you always hated surprises."
He leaned against the doorframe.
"Don't dig through things you don't understand."
I smiled.
"That sounds like advice from someone with something buried."
His jaw tightened.
Then he walked away.
I closed the door and waited.
Mom emerged five minutes later.
At dawn, I helped her back to her room.
By eight thirty, Luca left for what he claimed was a meeting.
Vanessa went to Pilates.
I called a car.
The bank was twelve minutes away.
Mom stayed home because I didn't want Luca realizing where we'd gone.
At 9:07, I stood at the private banking counter.
The manager examined the key.
"S-117," she said.
Then her expression changed.
"Are you Adriana Moretti?"
"Yes."
She glanced at her computer.
"This is unusual."
My heart started pounding.
"What is?"
"The box belongs to your late father."
"I assumed that."
"No." She looked at me carefully. "I mean the access instructions."
"What instructions?"
She turned the screen slightly away, reading.
"Mr. Moretti left a sealed directive."
"And?"
"It says the box may only be opened by you."
My mouth went dry.
"Then let's open it."
She hesitated.
"There's one more condition."
"What?"
The manager looked up.
"He instructed us to notify his attorney the moment you presented the key."
"My father's attorney died four years ago."
She shook her head.
"Not that attorney."
She printed a name.
Eleanor Shaw.
I had never heard of her.
Under the name was a handwritten note from my father.
The manager slid the page toward me.
I recognized Dad's handwriting immediately.
Three sentences.
Adriana, if you're reading this, I was right to be afraid.
Do not confront your brother until you've seen everything.
And whatever Luca told you about my death, don't believe him.
I read the final sentence twice.
My father had died of a heart attack.
May you like
At least that was what Luca had told me.
Suddenly the tiny brass key felt much heavier in my hand.
Related Stories
