Chapter 1 – THE YELLOW COAT HID A TERRIFYING SECRET
Dominic’s chair crashed backward onto the hardwood floor.
Twenty-eight guests gasped as he stood up, his towering frame casting a shadow over the birthday table. He didn’t look at the crowd. He didn’t look at me. He walked slowly around the table until he was standing inches from his sister.
Bianca pressed her back against the dining room wall.
“Dominic,” she stammered, raising her hands. “Listen to me. The woman who brought the girl was a scammer. A grifter looking for a payout.”
Dominic’s voice was completely hollow.
“Where is my daughter, Bianca?”
“She’s not your daughter! Caroline Bennett has been out of your life for nine years!”
“Where. Is. She.”
Bianca swallowed hard, her eyes darting toward the estate’s heavy oak doors. “I sent them away. I gave the woman ten thousand dollars in cash and told her to put the girl on a train back to Seattle.”
Mrs. Moretti let out a soft cry. “In the dark? With a stranger?”
“Mother, be quiet,” Bianca snapped, her polished mask finally slipping.
Dominic didn’t yell. He didn’t raise his voice. He simply reached into his tailored jacket, pulled out his phone, and made one call.
“Lock the gates,” he said into the receiver. “No one leaves the property. Bring the cars around.”
He hung up and turned to the stunned dinner guests.
“My mother’s birthday dinner is over. Everyone stay in this room until my men clear you.”
He looked at me. His dark eyes were burning with a desperate, terrifying kind of fear.
“Elena. You said Mom was in the sunroom when you found her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Show me exactly where.”
I didn’t hesitate. I helped Mrs. Moretti to a comfortable armchair, ignoring Bianca’s venomous glare, and led Dominic down the long, dimly lit hallway toward the sunroom.
The glass-walled room was freezing. Someone had opened the side door leading out to the gardens.
“The woman was standing right there,” I said, pointing to the gravel path just outside the door. “At least, that’s where Mrs. Moretti said she saw them.”
Dominic stepped out into the night air. He knelt on the gravel, examining the ground.
I stayed inside, shivering. I walked over to the small table where Mrs. Moretti’s cold tea still sat. I reached down to pick up a decorative pillow that had been knocked off the wicker sofa.
That was when I felt it.
Something soft. Something damp.
I pulled the pillow away and gasped.
Tucked beneath the cushions, crumpled in a desperate ball, was a tiny, bright yellow coat.
“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered.
Dominic was beside me in a second. He took the little coat from my hands. His large, tattooed fingers brushed against the small plastic buttons. The coat smelled like rain and cheap vanilla soap.
Inside the collar, written in faded black marker, was a single name.
Dominic closed his eyes. His chest heaved. “Caroline named her Mia.”
He squeezed the coat tightly, but as he did, something crinkled inside the left pocket.
Dominic froze. He reached into the tiny pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
He opened it.
I saw his jaw lock. The color completely drained from his face.
“Sir?” I asked, my voice trembling. “What is it?”
He handed the paper to me.
It wasn’t a train ticket to Seattle. It was a receipt.
A receipt from a local pawn shop, dated three hours ago, for a pure gold crucifix.
“I bought Caroline that crucifix the night I met her,” Dominic whispered. “She never took it off.”
But that wasn’t the terrifying part.
At the bottom of the receipt, printed in bold red ink, was the address of the buyer.
It wasn’t a pawn shop in the city.
It was an address located on the very edge of the Moretti estate. The abandoned groundskeeper’s cabin.
Bianca hadn’t sent them away. She had hidden them on the property.
Before Dominic could move, the heavy wooden doors of the sunroom clicked shut. A heavy deadbolt slid into place from the outside.
We were locked in.
And through the glass panels, I saw Bianca walking away into the dark, dialing her cell phone.
“Do it now,” I heard her muffled voice say through the glass. “Before he gets out.”
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