CHAPTER FOUR The Man With the Blue Suitcase
For three long seconds, no one moved.
The words seemed impossible to understand.
A body.
A blue suitcase.
The same blue suitcase Emma had described only minutes earlier.
Then Alessandro spoke.
"Seal the estate."
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
"Nobody enters."
"Nobody leaves."
The entire ballroom erupted into anxious whispers.
"What is happening?"
"A murder?"
"This is insane..."
The head of the legal department immediately pulled out his phone.
"There is no signal."
Several guests checked theirs.
Nothing.
Alessandro had activated the estate's emergency lockdown.
Every communication tower inside the Moretti compound had just been jammed.
No calls.
No messages.
No one could warn the outside world.
Or anyone outside.
Vanessa's lips parted.
"Alessandro..."
He looked at her.
"If this is all a misunderstanding..."
He buttoned his jacket.
"...then you have nothing to worry about."
Without another word, he walked toward the staircase.
Everyone followed.
Nobody wanted to stay behind.
Rain lashed across the estate like sheets of glass.
The east gate sat nearly four hundred yards from the mansion.
Normally, guests arrived through the grand entrance.
Very few people even knew the eastern service road existed.
Police-style floodlights had already illuminated the area.
The smell hit me before I saw anything.
Wet earth.
Fresh blood.
Gasoline.
Emma buried her face against my shoulder.
I lifted her into my arms.
She was too young to see death.
A circle of security guards stepped aside as Alessandro approached.
The body lay face-down beside the gravel road.
Male.
Approximately fifty years old.
Dressed in dark maintenance clothing.
A gunshot wound stained the back of his jacket.
One shot.
Clean.
Professional.
Execution.
Near his outstretched hand rested a medium-sized blue suitcase.
Exactly as Emma had described.
No one touched it.
Alessandro crouched beside the corpse.
"Wallet."
A guard handed him a leather identification case.
He opened it.
Maintenance Contractor.
Michael Graves.
Temporary electrical subcontractor.
Hired three days earlier.
I frowned.
I'd never seen him.
Which meant he'd probably worked outside the main residence.
Sophia Moretti slowly approached.
"He isn't one of ours."
"No."
Alessandro stood.
"He never belonged here."
His eyes shifted toward the suitcase.
"Open it."
A security technician knelt carefully.
Latex gloves.
Evidence photographs.
Everything documented.
The zipper slid open.
Everyone leaned forward.
Inside...
Was nothing.
Empty.
Completely empty.
Several guests released the breath they'd been holding.
One senator actually laughed.
"So this was all for an empty suitcase?"
Then Alessandro reached inside.
His fingers brushed the lining.
He stopped.
Very slowly...
He turned the suitcase upside down.
A tiny white feather floated onto the wet pavement.
No one spoke.
Then another.
And another.
Dozens of soft goose feathers drifted onto the black asphalt, sticking to the rainwater like tiny snowflakes.
Exactly the same type Alessandro had found inside Vanessa's closet.
His eyes lifted.
"Not empty."
He handed one feather to the family lawyer.
"Same evidence bag."
Vanessa looked ready to faint.
The estate physician knelt beside the dead contractor.
"Time of death..."
He checked his watch.
"...approximately thirty to forty minutes ago."
Thirty minutes.
Emma had accused Vanessa almost exactly twenty-eight minutes earlier.
The timing wasn't coincidence.
Someone had tried to remove evidence.
And someone else had made sure the courier never left the estate.
Alessandro looked toward the security cameras mounted above the eastern gate.
"Footage."
The technician hesitated.
"Sir..."
"What?"
"The cameras stopped recording."
"When?"
He checked his tablet.
"Thirty-seven minutes ago."
Every muscle in Alessandro's face became still.
"For how long?"
"Twenty-two minutes."
Exactly long enough.
The room... no, the entire estate... seemed to inhale at once.
Marco Bellini finally stepped forward.
"I'll investigate the camera failure personally."
"No."
Alessandro didn't even look at him.
"You won't."
Marco blinked.
"Sir?"
"You are relieved of command."
The sentence landed like thunder.
Several guards stared in disbelief.
Marco had protected the Moretti family for fifteen years.
He had survived assassination attempts.
Kidnappings.
Corporate wars.
No one had ever questioned his loyalty.
Until now.
Marco kept his voice steady.
"Based on what evidence?"
Alessandro answered without emotion.
"My instinct."
Silence.
Marco almost smiled.
"Instinct isn't evidence."
"No."
Alessandro agreed.
"But it's why I'm still alive."
Two guards quietly stepped beside Marco.
Not arresting him.
Watching him.
That was somehow worse.
The body was finally turned over.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
The dead man's eyes were still open.
Frozen in terror.
But it wasn't the bullet wound that caught everyone's attention.
Pinned to his chest with a silver letter opener...
Was a folded white envelope.
Alessandro removed it carefully.
No name.
No seal.
Just one sentence typed in black ink.
STOP LOOKING IN THE CLOSET.
A murmur swept through the guests.
Someone whispered,
"This wasn't an accident."
Another answered,
"This is a warning."
Sophia quietly corrected him.
"No."
She looked toward her grandson.
"It's a message."
"To whom?"
She didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
Everyone already knew.
As investigators examined the body, I quietly stepped farther back with Emma.
She had been unusually silent.
Too silent.
Then she whispered into my ear.
"Mama..."
"What is it?"
"That's not the man."
I stared at her.
"What?"
"The suitcase man."
She looked at the corpse.
"He isn't him."
A chill raced down my spine.
"What do you mean?"
"The glove man gave the suitcase..."
She pointed toward the dead contractor.
"...to another man."
My heart nearly stopped.
"There were two?"
Emma nodded.
"The other one smiled."
"Did you see his face?"
She frowned.
"No."
"Why not?"
"He wore a hat."
My breathing became shallow.
A hat.
Black gloves.
A hidden compartment.
A murdered courier.
The fake pregnancy was becoming only one piece of something much larger.
Then Emma said something that turned my blood to ice.
"He talked to Grandma."
I blinked.
"What grandma?"
"The old grandma."
My eyes slowly lifted...
Toward Sophia Moretti.
Impossible.
Sophia had been inside the ballroom the entire evening.
Hadn't she?
I tried to remember.
When Vanessa announced the pregnancy...
Where had Sophia been standing?
I couldn't remember.
Not exactly.
Had she disappeared for a few minutes?
Or was my mind playing tricks on me?
Before I could think further, another guard came running through the rain.
"Mr. Moretti!"
He was pale.
Terrified.
"We've searched the contractor's van."
"And?"
The guard swallowed.
"You need to see this yourself."
"What did you find?"
The guard looked around nervously before speaking.
"There are..."
He hesitated.
"...seven more pregnancy cushions."
The rain seemed to stop.
Seven.
Not one.
Not two.
Seven identical fake baby bumps.
Which meant only one thing.
Vanessa Cole...
May you like
Had never been the first woman to pretend to carry a Moretti heir.
End of Chapter Four
