Chapter 4 - THE DRAWING OF THE TRAIN
The syringe lay on the linoleum floor.
Luca picked it up with a tissue.
“Potassium chloride,” he said grimly. “It causes a massive heart attack. It would have looked like natural causes.”
I dropped to my knees beside my father’s wheelchair.
My heart was pounding so hard I felt sick.
“Dad, why would Vanessa want you dead? What do you know?”
My father’s trembling hand reached out and touched the child’s drawing of the train.
To Grandpa Thomas. Come find me.
I stared at the messy crayon lines.
“Grandpa?” I whispered. “Dad, I don’t have any children.”
Luca looked at the drawing, then at my father.
“Who drew this, Thomas?”
My father picked up his black marker.
He wrote slowly on the whiteboard.
T - O - B - Y
Toby.
“Who is Toby?” I asked.
My father’s eyes filled with tears. He looked at Luca.
He wrote again.
M - A - T - T - E - O - S - S - O - N
Matteo’s son.
The room went completely still.
Luca dragged his hands over his face, trying to process the magnitude of the revelation.
“My brother Matteo didn’t die in that fire,” Luca said, his voice cracking. “He survived. He grew up. And he had a son.”
My father nodded.
“Where is Matteo now?” Luca asked gently.
My father looked down.
He wrote one word.
G - O - N - E
Dead.
Luca closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, the grief had been replaced by a terrifying, focused rage.
“Vanessa knew,” Luca said. “She knew my brother survived. She knew he had a child. The true heir to the Moretti family.”
He looked at the drawing of the train.
“She’s keeping the boy hidden so she could marry me and take control of the family estate.”
I looked at my father.
“Dad… why did Toby call you Grandpa?”
My father’s hand shook as he erased the board.
He looked at me with an expression of pure agony.
He wrote:
I - H - I - D - H - I - M
“You hid him?” I asked, my voice rising. “From who? From the Morettis?”
He shook his head.
He pointed at the syringe on the floor.
F - R - O - M - V - A - N - E - S - S - A
Suddenly, Luca’s phone buzzed.
He answered it on speaker.
“Boss,” his head of security, Marco, said. “Vanessa is gone. She cleared out her safe and took a private car heading north.”
“She’s going for the boy,” Luca said.
He looked at the drawing of the train again.
There was a small detail I hadn’t noticed.
The train had a number painted on the side.
412.
“That’s not just a train,” I realized. “That’s the 412 Express. It runs past the old St. Jude’s Boarding School in the mountains.”
“That school closed ten years ago,” Luca said.
My father grabbed Luca’s sleeve.
He looked desperate. Pleading.
S - A - V - E - H - I - M
“I will,” Luca promised.
He turned to me.
“Marco is coming to guard your father. No one gets in or out.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said, grabbing my coat.
“Emma, it’s not safe.”
“He called my father Grandpa,” I said fiercely. “My father risked his life to protect this boy. I’m not staying behind.”
Luca studied my face for a second.
He nodded.
We sprinted to the SUV.
The drive to the abandoned boarding school took an hour through winding mountain roads.
When we arrived, the massive brick building was pitch black.
Iron gates were chained shut, but the padlock was broken.
Vanessa had already been here.
We moved silently through the courtyard, the rain soaking through our clothes.
The front doors were unlocked.
We stepped into the grand foyer. Dust covered everything.
“Toby!” I called out softly.
Silence.
Then, a small scraping noise came from the library at the end of the hall.
Luca drew a sleek black handgun from his holster.
He motioned for me to stay behind him.
We pushed the heavy oak doors of the library open.
In the center of the room, sitting on a dusty rug, was a six-year-old boy.
He had messy dark hair and bright green eyes.
He looked exactly like the picture in the pocket watch.
He was clutching a small, worn leather backpack.
“Toby?” I whispered.
The boy looked up.
He didn’t look relieved.
He looked terrified.
He scrambled backward, pointing a shaking finger at Luca.
“Don’t let him take me!” Toby cried. “The red lady said he’s the monster who killed my daddy!”
Before Luca could speak, the heavy library doors slammed shut behind us.
The deadbolt clicked into place.
And from the other side of the wood, Vanessa’s voice echoed.
May you like
“I really wish you hadn’t come here, Luca.”
TITLE: THE FORGED TRANSFER PAPERS
