Chapter 7 - The Box in the Workbench
I hadn't entered Dad's workshop since we cleared out his tools. Mom kept the building behind our house locked, even after the roof began leaking. She called it sentimental. Now I wondered if she'd also been afraid.
Luca didn't insist on coming inside. He waited on the steps while I unlocked the door, granting me the one thing I'd been denied for days: a choice.
The workshop smelled exactly as I remembered. Dust. Cedar. Machine oil. A faint trace of peppermint from the tins Dad kept near his tools.
I touched the workbench and thought about all the mornings he'd lifted me onto it to show me how a joint fit together.
“Check the underside,” he'd said. “People put their stories where no one looks.”
I crouched and ran my fingers along the beams.
One plank had no visible nails. Instead, two wooden pegs held it in place. I pressed them inward. A concealed drawer slid out.
Inside lay a tin box, a folded letter, and a cassette recorder.
My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped the box.
I carried everything to the doorway. Luca was waiting with Marco, who photographed the items where I placed them, preserving what we had found for the investigators.
The letter was addressed to me.
Claire, if you're reading this, I failed to keep a promise to a brave woman. I pray I succeeded in keeping you safe. Isabella trusted me because I wouldn't sell what was right for a little peace. Don't let anyone buy your silence either.
I sat down hard on the steps.
I missed my father with a force that made my ribs hurt.
The box contained handwritten numbers, a set of old receipts, and a photograph of my father beside Isabella in front of the community center. On the back she had written: Thank you for keeping the doors open.
The cassette recorder held a tape. We agreed not to play it until an attorney and investigator could document its condition and advise how to preserve it. Luca looked relieved when I made that decision. He was learning that rushing to control the situation could damage the very truth we were trying to find.
That afternoon, an investigator working with the police listened to a copy of the recording in our presence.
It was Isabella's voice.
She sounded tired, but unmistakably alive.
“If anything happens to me, Adrian Bellini is the man who must answer for the foundation accounts. He arranged the transfers. I confronted him this morning. He said I was risking the peace between our families. Then he told me he knew which street Emily walked home from school.”
Emily was listening over a secure video call with Michael beside her. She went white.
The voice continued.
“I don't know whether Luca will believe me. Adrian has been his friend longer than I've been his wife. But the bank records are real. Nora has copies. Thomas has the ledger numbers. If I can bring everything to Luca, we can stop it.”
There was a pause. Then a sound like a door closing.
A second voice spoke faintly in the background.
“Isabella, you can't leave with that.”
Adrian.
His voice was unmistakable to Luca. I saw his jaw tighten.
The recording ended before anyone could hear what came next.
It did not prove that someone had killed Isabella. It did prove she'd feared Adrian, and that financial evidence had survived despite the burned archives.
The investigator made formal copies and took custody of the tape with a receipt. I kept my father's letter.
By evening, the bank had agreed to preserve records in response to legal requests. Nora's former staff members began coming forward with old emails. A reporter contacted Luca asking why the Bellini family was being investigated. The story was no longer inside the mansion's walls.
Vanessa responded by posting a statement online. She called Emily a jealous daughter and me a disgruntled employee, claiming we had manufactured a scandal to steal her father's inheritance.
I read it three times.
Then I put down my phone.
“Don't answer,” Mom advised.
“I wasn't going to.”
But I was wrong about one thing. I thought Vanessa wanted the public to believe her.
What she wanted was for us to spend our energy defending ourselves while she made her next move.
An hour later, a locksmith arrived at Maple Street with a forged authorization to change the front door.
May you like
And the person who had signed the forged document was not Vanessa.
It was Emily Moretti.
