THE DRIVE INTO THE DARK

Life in the Moretti mansion changed overnight.

The heavy, oppressive silence that had plagued the house for twenty years vanished, replaced by the sounds of cartoons playing loudly in the living room and Leo’s laughter echoing down the marble hallways.

Julian was recovering quickly. The color had returned to his face, and though he walked with a slight limp, his spirit was unbroken.

Chloe visited often, continuing to be a safe harbor for Leo, and gradually, a quiet, sweet romance began to blossom between her and Julian.

I had moved out of the maid’s quarters and into a bright, airy office overlooking the gardens, officially running the Lucia Moretti Foundation.

Luca and I spent hours working together. The cold barrier between boss and employee had shattered. In its place grew a deep, undeniable connection. We lingered over late dinners, his hand brushing mine over architectural blueprints for the new children's center.

It was perfect.

Almost.

Two weeks after Vanessa’s arrest, I was going through the final boxes of Vanessa’s confiscated items in the estate’s storage room to hand over to the lawyers.

At the bottom of a designer handbag, wrapped in a silk scarf, I found something.

A plane ticket.

Issued for October 17th of the previous year.

The exact date Luca disappeared every year.

The ticket was under Vanessa’s name, flying to a small town in upstate New York.

I stared at it. Why would Vanessa follow Luca on his darkest day?

I took the ticket straight to Luca’s office.

He was sitting at his desk, Leo asleep on the leather sofa nearby.

I placed the ticket on his desk.

Luca looked at it. His jaw tightened.

“Where did you find this?” he asked quietly.

“In Vanessa’s things. Luca, where do you go every year on October 17th?”

He leaned back, rubbing his eyes. The weight of the world seemed to settle on his shoulders again.

“When they told me my mother died in 2004,” he began softly, “they said she drowned. They gave me a closed casket. But a week later, I received an anonymous letter.”

He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a faded piece of paper.

He handed it to me.

She is not in the ground. She is in the water.

“I spent years trying to track down who sent it,” Luca said. “I eventually found a small convent in upstate New York by a lake. They take in women who need to disappear. Every year, on the anniversary, I go there to see if anyone knows anything.”

“And Vanessa followed you.”

“To make sure I never found out the truth,” he said bitterly.

“Wait.” I looked at the date on the letter. Then at the wooden sewing box on his shelf.

I walked over, picked up the box, and turned it over.

Carved microscopically into the bottom wood were coordinates.

I typed them into my phone.

“Luca,” I breathed. “It’s not upstate New York.”