Chapter 4 - The Empty Coffin
Matteo wanted to confront Luca immediately.
Liana refused.
“If he knows we found the message, he could move my son.”
Her voice broke on the final two words.
For twenty-two days, she had forced herself to say that her baby was dead.
Now hope had entered the room, and hope was more terrifying than grief.
Matteo made one call to a judge who owed the Varric family a favor.
Before midnight, they had permission to open Samuel Graves’s grave.
Rain fell over the cemetery as workers raised the small white coffin from the ground.
Liana stood beneath a black umbrella with Nico asleep against her chest.
Matteo remained beside her.
He did not tell her everything would be all right.
Men like Matteo knew that promises could become cruelty when the truth was still unknown.
The cemetery director unlocked the coffin.
Liana turned her face into Nico’s blanket.
The lid opened.
No child lay inside.
There were only folded hospital sheets and three bags of sand.
Liana made no sound.
Her knees buckled, and Matteo caught her before she struck the wet ground.
“My baby.”
“He may be alive,” Matteo said.
The words were quiet but firm.
Liana looked at the empty coffin.
“They let me bury sand.”
Her grief transformed before Matteo’s eyes.
It did not disappear.
It hardened.
At the bottom of the coffin, Dante found a plastic hospital bracelet.
The printed name read SAMUEL GRAVES.
On the reverse side was a blue triangular mark.
Matteo recognized it.
The same symbol had appeared in the corner of Elena’s dental report.
Dante photographed the bracelet.
“Saint Catherine’s Hospital issued this?”
Liana nodded.
“Dr. Simon Vale signed the death certificate.”
Matteo looked at Dante.
“Vale also identified Elena.”
The two deaths had been certified by the same doctor.
Liana placed one hand against the coffin.
“I want to know who took my son.”
“You will,” Matteo said.
“I want him returned to me.”
“We will bring him home.”
“And when we find the people who did this?”
Matteo’s eyes moved toward the dark trees beyond the cemetery.
“They will answer for every mother they forced to stand beside an empty grave.”
As they returned to the car, Dante received a message from the estate.
Luca Bellandi had disappeared.
May you like
He had left behind his phone, his car and one sentence written across Matteo’s desk.
SHE SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD.
