Chapter 5 – THE COAT IN THE WARDROBE

“Stop her!” Luca roared.

He sprinted out of the study, and I was right behind him, dropping my phone on the desk.

Vanessa’s high heels clicked frantically against the hardwood floor.

She threw open the door to Emma’s bedroom and slammed it shut, twisting the lock.

Luca hit the door shoulder-first.

The wood groaned, but it didn’t give.

“Vanessa! Open the door!” he shouted, his voice shaking the walls.

“Get away from me!” she screamed from inside.

“Daddy!” Emma cried, running up behind us.

Luca spun around and pushed Emma behind my legs. “Keep her back, Rebecca.”

I held Emma tightly, my heart racing.

Inside the room, we could hear hangers crashing to the floor. Drawers being ripped open.

She was searching for something.

“I’m not leaving empty-handed!” Vanessa shrieked through the wood. “I spent four years setting this up! Four years pretending to care about your pathetic little garden and your miserable brat!”

Luca stepped back and kicked the door right next to the handle.

The lock splintered. The door flew open, slamming against the wall.

Vanessa was standing in the middle of Emma’s room.

But she wasn’t holding jewelry.

She was holding a dusty, oversized men’s trench coat.

It was an old olive-green coat that Emma used as a blanket when she was scared. I had washed it a dozen times, but I never knew who it belonged to.

Luca froze in the doorway.

The anger in his face instantly vanished, replaced by a shock so deep he looked like he had been struck.

“Where did you get that?” Luca whispered.

Vanessa sneered, clutching the coat against her red dress.

“She keeps it at the back of her closet. It’s pathetic.”

“Put it down,” Luca commanded, his voice trembling for the first time.

“Why?” Vanessa mocked. “Because it belonged to Caroline’s brother? The one you sent to prison?”

My jaw dropped.

Caroline had a brother? I had worked here for over a year and never heard him mentioned once.

“It belonged to Uncle David,” Emma said softly from behind me.

Vanessa laughed sharply. “Yes, Uncle David. The man who supposedly embezzled half a million dollars from your company, Luca. The man who went to federal prison right after Caroline died.”

Luca’s fists clenched. “David stole from my firm to fuel a gambling habit. He confessed. Put the coat down.”

Vanessa’s smile widened.

It was the most terrifying expression I had ever seen.

“Did he confess?” she asked sweetly. “Or did he just take a plea deal because the police found the missing money in his offshore account?”

Luca didn’t speak.

“I know all about David,” Vanessa purred. “Because I’m the one who opened that offshore account.”

The room spun.

Vanessa held up a small, silver flash drive she had pulled from the coat’s pocket.

“He knew, Luca,” she whispered. “David knew I stole the necklace. He caught me leaving the house that day. He threatened to go to the police.”

Luca’s chest was heaving. “So you framed him.”

“It was so easy,” Vanessa laughed, though tears of frantic panic were streaming down her face. “I had the necklace money. I hired a hacker. I moved your company’s funds, planted the digital trail to David, and tipped off your accountants.”

She shook the flash drive.

“But he was smart. Before the feds took him, he hid this drive inside the lining of his old coat and gave it to Emma. He told her to keep it safe until she was old enough to understand.”

Vanessa ripped the lining of the coat completely open.

“I’ve been looking for this coat for two years.”

She dropped the ruined coat on the floor.

“If I go down for a necklace, Luca,” Vanessa spat, holding up the drive, “you go down for letting an innocent man rot in federal prison for four years while you slept with the woman who put him there.”

Sirens wailed in the distance.

The police were coming.

Vanessa turned toward the open window, stepping onto the balcony that overlooked the driveway.

“Vanessa, stop,” Luca warned, stepping forward.

But she didn’t look at him.

She looked past him, straight at me.

“Rebecca,” she smiled. “Check your pocket.”

I frowned, instinctively reaching into the apron of my uniform.

My fingers brushed against something hard and cold.

I pulled it out.

It was the antique emerald necklace.

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