Chapter 1 - THE DEAD WOMAN’S VOICE
“DON’T SIGN IT!”
Eight-year-old Emily Carter’s voice cut through the ballroom.
Vincent Moretti stopped with the silver pen less than an inch above the paper.
“You need to hear what the dead lady said first.”
Nobody moved.
Not Isabella Romano, standing beside Vincent in an ivory dress.
Not Charles Bellamy, the Moretti family attorney.
Not Dominic Moretti, Vincent’s younger cousin and most trusted lieutenant.
And definitely not Emily’s mother, Grace.
Grace stood near the service doors with a tray in her hands and terror all over her face.
“Emily,” she whispered. “Come here.”
Emily didn’t move.
She held an old blue phone with a cracked screen against her chest.
Bellamy recovered first.
“Mr. Moretti, this is obviously a misunderstanding. The child probably found an old device in the staff quarters.”
Emily pressed Play.
Static filled the ballroom.
Then breathing.
A woman.
Scared.
Weak.
Alive.
Vincent’s face changed.
“Vince,” the recording whispered. “If Bellamy is in the room, don’t say another word.”
The pen fell from Vincent’s hand.
Isabella grabbed the silver pendant around her neck.
Dominic went pale.
Vincent stared at the phone.
“Sofia?”
His wife had disappeared three years ago.
Everyone had told him she left voluntarily.
She had supposedly taken her purse, jewelry, phone, and passport and driven away from the Moretti estate at 10:40 on a December night.
There had been no ransom.
No body.
No confirmed sighting.
Only a handwritten note claiming she couldn’t live as Vincent Moretti’s wife anymore.
Vincent had hated that note for three years.
Now his dead wife’s voice was coming through an old phone hidden in his house.
“Give me that,” Bellamy said.
Emily stepped backward.
Vincent looked at him.
Bellamy stopped.
Slowly, Vincent extended his hand.
“Emily.”
She hesitated, then walked toward him.
Grace suddenly moved between them.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
Vincent narrowed his eyes.
“Grace?”
Her hands were shaking.
“I need to tell you something.”
Bellamy’s expression hardened.
Grace looked at the attorney.
Then at Vincent.
“That phone belonged to Sofia.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“I figured that out.”
“No.”
Grace swallowed.
“I mean Sofia gave it to me.”
Silence.
“When?”
“The night she disappeared.”
Vincent stared at her.
Grace had worked in his home for nearly ten years.
She had watched him search hospitals, airports, shelters, private clinics, even morgues.
She had watched him spend millions trying to find Sofia.
And now she was telling him she had kept something from him.
“For three years?” Vincent said.
Grace’s eyes filled.
“She told me if I ever gave it to you before the right moment, Emily would die.”
Dominic cursed under his breath.
Vincent stepped closer.
“Who threatened your daughter?”
Grace looked across the room.
Not at Bellamy.
At Isabella.
Isabella’s face went completely still.
Emily suddenly pointed at her necklace.
“Mom.”
Grace turned.
“I remember where I saw it.”
Isabella covered the pendant with her hand.
Emily looked at Vincent.
“Mrs. Sofia was wearing that necklace the last night I saw her.”
Vincent’s eyes moved to Isabella.
“That’s impossible,” Isabella said.
Emily shook her head.
“No, it isn’t.”
Vincent reached toward the pendant.
Isabella backed away.
“Don’t touch me.”
That was when the cracked phone spoke again.
The voicemail had not finished.
Sofia’s voice returned through the speakers.
“If Isabella Romano is wearing my necklace…”
May you like
Everyone froze.
“…then I was right about her.”
