Chapter 5 – THE GREENHOUSE FIRE

“Don’t make a sound,” I whispered to Teresa and Lily.

I backed away from the locked door, grabbing a heavy brass candlestick from the mantelpiece.

“Hannah, I know you’re in there,” the man’s voice drifted through the wood. “I just want the little girl.”

Teresa wrapped her arms around Lily, shielding her.

Suddenly, a bright orange glow illuminated the windows.

I whipped my head around.

Across the lawn, through the pouring rain, flames were licking the glass roof of the old greenhouse.

“Luca!” Teresa screamed, pointing at the window.

Luca and Frank were sprinting toward the blazing structure, the rain doing nothing to stop the fierce inferno.

The man at the door stopped knocking. I heard his heavy footsteps hurry away down the hall. He had seen the fire too. He was escaping.

I dropped the candlestick. “Stay here. Do not unlock this door for anyone but Luca.”

I unlocked the patio door and ran out into the storm.

The heat hit me before I even reached the grass. The greenhouse, abandoned for years and full of dry rot, was going up like a matchbox.

“Elena!” Luca roared, throwing his shoulder against the heavy iron-wrought doors.

They were chained shut. Secured with a heavy padlock.

Vanessa hadn’t just locked her in. She had trapped her.

Frank raised his heavy wooden walking stick and smashed it against the glass panes on the side. The glass shattered, raining down on the mud.

Thick black smoke billowed out of the opening.

“Luca!” a weak voice cried from inside.

Luca grabbed a large piece of broken stone from the pathway and smashed it repeatedly against the padlock.

The metal groaned.

“Stand back!” Luca yelled.

With one final, violent swing, the padlock snapped.

Luca kicked the doors open and disappeared into the smoke.

“Mr. Moretti, no!” I screamed, running toward the entrance.

Frank grabbed my arm, holding me back. “He’ll get her. He’s his father’s son.”

For ten agonizing seconds, there was nothing but the roar of the fire.

Then, a dark shape emerged from the flames.

Luca stumbled out into the rain, coughing violently. In his arms, he carried a woman.

She was unconscious, her face covered in soot, wearing a cheap beige coat that was scorched at the edges.

Luca laid her gently on the wet grass.

“Elena,” he choked out, brushing her dark hair away from her face. “Elena, wake up. Please.”

The woman didn’t move.

Frank dropped to his knees, checking her pulse.

“She’s breathing, son. But barely.”

I took my own coat off and draped it over her shivering body.

As I did, her coat pocket fell open.

A small, folded piece of thick cardstock slipped out.

I picked it up. It wasn’t burned.

It was a one-way train ticket out of Chicago, dated for tonight.

But that wasn’t what made my breath catch.

Taped to the back of the ticket was a small memory card.

And written beneath it, in hurried, shaky handwriting, were the words:

“If I die, give this to the police. It proves who really killed my father.”