Chapter 6 – THE FRAME JOB

I stared at the heavy, glittering green stones in my hand.

The emerald necklace.

It was real. It was heavy. And it was in my pocket.

“When did you—” I gasped, dropping it onto the floor like it burned me.

Vanessa laughed from the balcony, the police sirens growing louder.

“When you bumped into the serving cart in the dining room, darling. You were so distracted by the letter, you didn’t even feel me slip it in.”

Luca looked from the necklace on the floor to Vanessa.

“You brought it with you tonight,” he said.

“Of course I did,” Vanessa said. “I was going to wear it for the engagement photos tomorrow. Tell everyone it was a family piece. But once Thomas found that box… I needed a backup plan.”

She pointed a manicured finger at me.

“The police are pulling up, Luca. And they’re going to find Caroline’s missing necklace in the maid’s pocket. Just like her mother, a filthy little thief.”

My chest tightened so hard I couldn’t breathe.

She was doing it again. She was framing another Hayes woman to save herself.

“No one is going to believe you,” Luca said coldly.

“They will when I show them this.”

Vanessa pulled a folded piece of paper from her purse. “A pawnbroker’s appraisal, dated yesterday. Requested under the name Rebecca Hayes.”

I sobbed, shaking my head. “I never did that! Sir, I swear!”

“She forged my wife’s medical records and framed a man for embezzlement,” Luca said, stepping closer to me. “I don’t believe a word she says.”

Vanessa’s smile faltered.

The flashing red and blue lights of the police cruisers illuminated the bedroom walls through the window.

“I’m leaving,” Vanessa snapped.

She threw her leg over the balcony railing. The drop was only one story, landing softly in the manicured bushes below.

“You won’t get far,” Luca warned.

“Watch me.”

Vanessa turned to drop.

But suddenly, a heavy hand grabbed her shoulder from the balcony.

We all froze.

A man climbed up the trellis from the outside, hauling himself over the railing.

He was wearing a soaking wet landscaper’s jacket over a faded prison-issue t-shirt.

His hair was graying, his face weathered and scarred, but his eyes were exactly the same shape as Emma’s.

Emma gasped. “Uncle David?”

Vanessa shrieked and tried to pull away, but David’s grip was like iron. He yanked her back over the railing and threw her onto the bedroom floor.

Vanessa scrambled backward, terrified.

Luca stood in shock. “David? You’re in federal prison in Marion.”

“I got paroled yesterday, Luca,” David said, his voice raspy and exhausted. “Good behavior.”

He looked at Emma, a sad, broken smile crossing his face. “Hi, kiddo.”

“Uncle David!” Emma cried, but I held her back.

David looked down at Vanessa, who was cowering against the bedframe.

“I came straight here,” David said. “I’ve been standing in the rain for three hours, waiting for the party to end so I could talk to you, Luca. But then I saw this one trying to run out the back with a flash drive.”

He held out his hand.

In his palm was the silver flash drive Vanessa had just ripped from the coat.

Vanessa lunged for it. “Give it to me!”

David casually stepped on the hem of her red silk dress, pinning her to the floor.

He looked at Luca.

“You didn’t believe me four years ago, Luca. You thought I stole your money.”

Luca’s face crumpled with regret. “David… I’m so sorry. I just saw the bank records.”

“I know.” David pointed at Vanessa. “She was thorough. But she wasn’t thorough enough. That drive has the original IP logs from the hacker she hired. It proves everything.”

Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs.

Three Chicago police officers burst into the bedroom, their hands on their holsters.

“Nobody move!” the lead officer shouted.

Vanessa immediately started crying, pointing a shaking finger at David and then at me.

“Officer, thank God you’re here! This man broke in! And that maid—she stole my fiancé’s antique necklace! It’s right there on the floor!”

The officer looked at the emeralds.

Then he looked at Luca. “Mr. Moretti, what is going on here?”

Luca walked over and picked up the emerald necklace.

He didn’t look at Vanessa. He looked directly at the officer.

“Officer,” Luca said with absolute authority. “That woman in red is a trespasser. She is in possession of forged documents, she has confessed to grand larceny, and she framed my brother-in-law for a federal crime.”

Vanessa screamed. “He’s lying! He’s covering for his maid!”

Luca handed the flash drive to the officer. “Everything you need to arrest her is on here.”

The officer signaled his partner. “Ma’am, stand up. Hands behind your back.”

As the cuffs clicked around Vanessa’s wrists, she looked at Luca, her eyes wild with pure malice.

“You think this is over?” she hissed. “I know things about Caroline, Luca. Things you don’t even know. Things she hid from you before she died.”

Luca turned his back on her.

“Get her out of my house.”

The police dragged a screaming Vanessa down the stairs.

The room finally went quiet.

David stood there, dripping wet, looking at the ruined trench coat on the floor.

Emma broke away from me and ran to him.

David dropped to his knees and caught her, burying his face in her shoulder as he wept.

I wiped my own tears, feeling a massive weight lift off my chest. My mother was innocent. Emma was safe.

But then Luca turned to me.

He was holding the rusted metal box Thomas had dug up.

He reached inside and pulled out the faded envelope.

“Rebecca,” Luca said quietly.

“Yes, sir?”

“When you read this letter… did you finish it?”

I frowned. “Yes. I read the whole thing.”

Luca turned the paper over.

There was writing on the back.

“There’s a postscript,” Luca whispered.

He handed it to me.

I looked down and read the final sentence Caroline had written before she died.

“The necklace wasn’t the only thing Vanessa stole. Look inside the grandfather clock in the hallway. I hid the truth there.”

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