Chapter 10 - The Empty Coffin
Salvatore stared at Francesca.
For several seconds, he believed he had misunderstood.
“What did you say?”
Francesca looked toward the detectives.
“Not here.”
Salvatore’s face hardened.
“You don’t get to choose where anymore.”
She lowered her voice.
“Vittorio did not die in the house.”
Marcello moved closer.
“I saw his body.”
Francesca looked at him.
“You saw a body.”
Marcello went pale.
Salvatore felt the room tilt.
“Explain.”
Francesca closed her eyes.
The night Vittorio supposedly died, Francesca found him unconscious in his study.
Dante arrived before the ambulance.
He told Francesca Vittorio had discovered enough evidence to send both of them to prison.
Francesca panicked.
Dante said there was only one way to stop him.
Make the world believe Vittorio was dead.
Salvatore stared.
“You staged Dad’s death?”
Francesca whispered.
“I helped.”
Marcello looked sick.
“The funeral.”
“Closed preparation.”
“But I saw him.”
“You saw Roberto.”
Silence.
Salvatore felt the hair rise on his arms.
“Roberto died in 2004.”
Francesca shook her head.
“That body was never confirmed.”
“Vittorio thought it was him.”
“Vittorio was wrong.”
Carlo spoke.
“Roberto was alive in January?”
Francesca nodded.
“Dante had kept him hidden for years.”
Salvatore stared at her.
Nothing in this family stayed dead.
Not Isabella.
Not Roberto.
And perhaps not Vittorio.
Francesca continued.
Dante brought Roberto to the estate after Vittorio collapsed.
The two men were similar in age and build.
After death preparation, closed-casket viewing conditions, and limited identification, Dante believed the substitution would hold.
Dr. Crane falsified documents.
Francesca lied.
Marcello saw the prepared body briefly.
Salvatore refused to look because he wanted his final memory of his father to remain alive.
That emotional choice now haunted him.
“What happened to Dad?”
Francesca began trembling.
“Dante took him.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Salvatore stepped closer.
“You expect me to believe you helped fake my father’s death and never asked where he went?”
“I asked.”
“What did Dante say?”
“That Vittorio would be kept somewhere until he signed control documents.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Eleven months.”
Salvatore’s voice broke for the first time.
“My father has been missing for eleven months.”
Francesca covered her face.
“I thought he died later.”
“You thought?”
“Dante told me he did.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
Salvatore turned away before rage overwhelmed him.
Carlo took over.
“Where was Vittorio taken the first night?”
“A private medical facility.”
“Name.”
“I never knew.”
“Location.”
“Somewhere north.”
“Who drove?”
“Leonard Crane.”
The vanished doctor.
Carlo began making calls.
Marcello sat down.
“I signed probate documents.”
Francesca looked toward him.
“You did not know.”
“I declared my closest friend dead.”
“You believed he was.”
Marcello stared at her with disgust.
“You made sure I believed it.”
Francesca looked away.
Salvatore’s mind raced.
If Vittorio survived the night, he may have been forced to sign documents.
But no major control transfer had appeared.
That suggested he refused.
Dante may have held him.
For how long?
Was it possible he was still alive?
Eleven months was a long time.
But hope did not ask permission before entering.
Salvatore hated hope immediately because it could destroy him.
“Where is Dr. Crane?”
Carlo looked at his screen.
“We may finally know.”
Financial investigators found monthly payments from a shell company to a rural health-services provider in upstate New York.
The company operated one small rehabilitation center.
It had only twelve beds.
No public website.
No normal patient registry.
Salvatore looked toward Francesca.
“Name?”
Carlo answered.
“Saint Raven Medical Residence.”
Marcello stared.
“Raven.”
Ravenna.
Another variation of Vittorio’s code.
Was it coincidence?
No one believed in coincidence anymore.
Police contacted New York authorities.
The facility’s registered owner was a corporation linked to Dante.
That was enough.
A joint warrant was requested.
Salvatore drove north with Carlo before it was even approved.
Marcello joined them.
Isabella remained with investigators and Francesca.
The drive took almost three hours.
Nobody spoke much.
Salvatore kept imagining impossible scenes.
Vittorio alive.
Vittorio dead.
Vittorio waiting.
Vittorio not remembering him.
He forced himself to stop.
At dawn, police surrounded Saint Raven.
The building looked like an ordinary private recovery center.
Staff members appeared confused when officers entered.
Then confusion became fear.
Several rooms were empty.
One patient had been removed less than six hours earlier.
The room contained restraints.
Medical equipment.
And a photograph.
Emery.
Salvatore picked it up.
It showed her riding the wooden horse Vittorio made.
On the back was Vittorio’s handwriting.
MY LITTLE SPARROW.
Salvatore’s knees nearly failed.
His father had been here.
“How recently?”
A nurse was brought into the room.
She looked terrified.
Carlo questioned her.
The patient had been registered as Victor Delaney.
He arrived eleven months earlier.
Elderly male.
Cardiac history.
Sometimes confused because he had been heavily sedated.
But mentally sharp whenever medication was reduced.
“Was he alive yesterday?”
The nurse hesitated.
“Yes.”
Salvatore gripped the bed rail.
His father had been alive yesterday.
“Who took him?”
“Mr. Vale.”
Carlo showed Dante’s photograph.
The nurse nodded.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Salvatore looked around.
Vittorio had spent nearly a year in this room.
A small Bible sat near the bed.
Several pages were folded.
Salvatore opened it.
Words had been underlined.
House.
Horse.
Blood.
Son.
Home.
His father had been leaving clues even while imprisoned.
Inside the back cover, a sentence had been scratched with something sharp.
DANTE STILL NEEDS THE HEIR.
Salvatore felt cold.
Not the ring.
The heir.
Why?
Carlo found the answer in the medical files.
Blood draws had been taken from Vittorio repeatedly.
Genetic tests.
Dante was comparing DNA.
He must have been trying to establish himself as Vittorio’s nephew through Roberto.
But that gave him no senior-line claim.
Unless he intended to fabricate one.
If he could combine Vittorio’s samples with Emery’s—
Salvatore’s face changed.
Carlo understood.
“He wants the girl’s DNA.”
“To manufacture proof.”
“Or destroy the authentic comparison.”
Salvatore looked toward the empty bed.
Dante had taken Vittorio after learning Ravenna was opened.
He was moving toward an endgame.
Salvatore’s phone rang.
Anna.
His heart stopped.
He answered.
“Emery?”
Anna was crying.
“She’s gone.”
Salvatore could not breathe.
“What?”
“The security system was breached.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anna.”
“I went upstairs.”
Her voice broke.
“The window was open.”
Salvatore gripped the phone.
“Where are the guards?”
“Two were unconscious.”
“What about Emery?”
“She’s gone.”
Salvatore heard himself asking the question even though he already knew the answer.
“What about the ring?”
Anna sobbed.
“Gone too.”
Salvatore stood in the room where his father had been held for eleven months.
Dante now had Vittorio.
Dante had Emery.
And Dante had the ring.
Only one thing stood between him and complete access to the original archive.
Francesca’s pendant.
Which remained inside a court evidence vault.
Salvatore’s phone received a new message.
A photograph loaded.
Emery sat beside Vittorio.
Both were alive.
Vittorio looked weak.
Emery was crying.
Underneath was a sentence.
BRING ME THE PENDANT AND I RETURN BOTH HEIRS.
Salvatore stared at his father and daughter on the screen.
Then another message appeared.
COME ALONE.
May you like
OR THE DELUCA BLOODLINE ENDS WITH THEM.
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