Chapter 4 – THE PRICE OF A DOOR

The room started spinning.

I stared at the bank slip on the mahogany desk.

The name printed on the receipt was undeniable. Mary Hayes.

Ten thousand dollars.

My mother.

The woman who had wept about being unfairly fired. The woman I had been sending half my paycheck to support.

Luca looked at the receipt, then slowly turned his dark eyes toward me.

“Rebecca.”

“No,” I choked out, backing away. “No, Mr. Moretti, she wouldn’t. She loved your wife. She cared for her every day.”

Vanessa laughed. A cold, sharp sound that echoed in the heavy room.

“Everyone has a price, Rebecca. Your mother’s was ten grand. She needed it to pay off her own medical debts. I offered her the money, and all she had to do was leave the terrace door unlocked while Caroline was sleeping.”

“Shut up!” I shouted.

I didn’t care that I was the maid. I didn’t care about being fired.

“My mother is a good person!”

“Your mother is an accomplice to grand larceny,” Vanessa corrected smoothly, adjusting her ruined red dress. She looked at Luca. “See, darling? The people you trust are the ones who betray you. I only took what Caroline wasn’t going to need much longer.”

Luca stood perfectly still.

The silence radiating from him was more terrifying than a scream.

He looked at Vanessa.

“You admit you paid her to leave the door unlocked?”

“It was years ago, Luca. Before we officially met. I was desperate to be near you.”

“And you walked into my house.”

“Yes.”

“While my wife was dying upstairs.”

Vanessa hesitated, finally sensing the absolute danger in his voice. “Luca…”

“While my six-year-old daughter was playing down the hall.”

“I didn’t hurt them! I just took the necklace.”

Luca slowly picked up the bank deposit slip.

He looked at the date.

Then he looked at me.

“Rebecca. Call your mother.”

I froze. “Sir?”

“Call her. Right now. Put it on speaker.”

My hands were shaking so violently I dropped my phone twice before I managed to dial her number.

It rang three times.

“Becca, honey?” her tired voice filled the quiet study. “Is everything okay? You’re working the engagement dinner.”

Tears streamed down my face. “Mom. I need you to tell me the truth.”

“What truth, baby?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Did you take ten thousand dollars to leave the door unlocked for Vanessa Bellini?”

There was a dead silence on the line.

Then, a sharp, ragged breath.

“Oh, God,” my mother whispered. “She found out.”

Vanessa smirked, crossing her arms.

“Mom, please,” I sobbed. “Tell me you didn’t do it.”

“Becca…” my mother’s voice broke. “I didn’t let her in to steal.”

Luca leaned closer to the phone. “Then why did you let her in, Mary?”

My mother gasped upon hearing his voice. “Mr. Moretti? Sir, I swear to you. I didn’t know she was a thief. She came to the back door dressed in a suit. She told me she was from the St. Jude Medical Foundation.”

Vanessa’s smirk vanished.

My mother continued, sobbing now. “She said Caroline had been approved for an emergency medical grant. Ten thousand dollars to help cover the experimental treatments. But she said it had to be a secret because of the foundation’s rules.”

Luca closed his eyes.

“She deposited the money into my account,” my mother cried, “and told me to buy the medicine in my name so the insurance wouldn’t block it. She just asked to go upstairs to have Caroline sign the foundation paperwork while I went to the pharmacy.”

I stared at Vanessa.

She hadn’t bribed a nurse.

She had exploited a desperate caretaker trying to save her patient’s life.

“When I got back,” my mother whispered, “the necklace was gone. And the hospital told me the St. Jude grant didn’t exist. When I confronted Vanessa… she told me if I said a word, she’d tell the police I stole the necklace and sold it myself. She had the bank deposit to frame me.”

Emma was holding onto Luca’s leg, her eyes wide.

Luca looked at Vanessa.

Vanessa stepped backward toward the door.

“She’s lying! The old woman is lying!”

Luca picked up his cell phone from the desk.

“I’m calling the police, Vanessa.”

Vanessa panicked. She lunged for the desk, grabbing the heavy silver key and the bank slip.

“You can’t prove any of this without this receipt!” she screamed, shoving it into her purse.

She turned and ran for the door.

But as she reached the hallway, she didn’t run toward the stairs.

She ran straight toward Emma’s bedroom.

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