Chapter 5 - Lucia's Missing Bag)
Police had searched the mountain ravine for two days after Lucia's crash.
They found one shoe.
A broken watch.
Fragments of the car.
They found Lucia.
They never found her handbag.
Domenico remembered shouting at an exhausted officer about it.
He remembered asking how a leather bag simply disappeared from a sealed accident scene.
The answer had been reasonable.
The impact threw debris hundreds of feet.
Rain washed objects downhill.
Wildlife moved things.
The ravine was enormous.
Three years later, Lucia's handbag was sitting inside Marcus Russo's trunk.
Domenico stood beneath the security lights outside the south garage while Daniel carefully placed the bag on a clean table.
The leather was scratched.
One strap was torn.
But Domenico recognized the gold initials.
LM.
His fingers hovered above them.
"Don't touch the inside yet," Daniel said. "Police are coming."
Domenico barely heard him.
Valentina stood twenty feet away under guard.
She had stopped demanding to leave.
Rosa held Ruby inside the mansion.
Marcus remained missing.
Daniel examined the outside.
"There's dried mud in the seams."
"Could be from the crash."
"Could be."
Domenico looked at Valentina.
"How did your brother get it?"
"I don't know."
"You've used that answer."
"It's the truth."
"You lied about Ruby's transfer."
"I made a mistake."
"A forged signature isn't a mistake."
Valentina's expression turned cold.
"You want me to confess to something because my idiot brother found a dead woman's purse?"
"Found?"
Valentina realized too late.
Domenico walked closer.
"I never said he found it."
She did not respond.
"You know how he got it."
"No."
"Then tell me why you assumed he found it."
Valentina looked away.
The police arrived twenty minutes later.
Detective Evelyn Shaw was forty six, patient, and immediately suspicious of every person in the house.
She had reviewed Lucia Moretti's death years earlier as a young detective after the original investigator retired.
She remembered the case.
She remembered Domenico.
And she remembered something that had bothered her.
Lucia's brake lines had been too badly damaged to determine whether the failure happened before or during the crash.
At the time there had been no evidence of sabotage.
Now there was a missing handbag.
Shaw photographed it before opening it.
Inside were ordinary items.
A lipstick.
A receipt.
A silver compact mirror.
A child's hair ribbon.
A broken pair of sunglasses.
Then Shaw found a folded slip in the inner pocket.
A bank receipt.
Dated the morning Lucia died.
Private vault access.
Bellweather National Bank.
Domenico looked at the paper.
"She went to a vault?"
Shaw nodded.
"Do you know why?"
"No."
"Do you have an account there?"
"Not that I know of."
Valentina said nothing.
Shaw noticed.
"Ms. Russo?"
Valentina looked at her.
"Yes?"
"You recognize the bank?"
"No."
Shaw folded the receipt into an evidence sleeve.
"Interesting."
"Why?"
"Because you looked at the receipt before Mr. Moretti read the bank name."
Valentina smiled thinly.
"I can read upside down."
Shaw returned the smile.
"So can I."
The handbag was taken as evidence.
Domenico did not sleep.
At dawn he sat in Lucia's dressing room with the blue bird music box in his hands.
Ruby slept across the hall under Rosa's protection.
Domenico turned the box over repeatedly.
The lock was too small to force without damaging whatever might be inside.
At 6:20 a.m., Ruby walked into the room carrying her stuffed rabbit.
"Daddy?"
He looked up.
"Hey."
She climbed into his lap.
"Are you mad?"
"At you?"
She nodded.
"Never."
"I lost Mommy's key."
"You didn't lose it."
Ruby looked at him.
"Someone took it."
"Valentina?"
Ruby hesitated.
"I don't know."
That answer surprised him.
"You said she took it."
"I thought she did."
"When did you last have it?"
"With Rosa."
"In this room?"
Ruby nodded.
"Then Uncle Marcus came."
Domenico remembered.
Marcus could have taken it during the confrontation.
"Did he touch you?"
"No."
"Your blanket?"
Ruby frowned.
"He picked it up."
Domenico stood.
"Where is the blanket?"
"In my room."
They searched it.
No key.
Domenico checked the cedar chest.
Nothing.
Then Ruby pointed toward the music box.
"Mommy hid things twice."
Domenico looked at her.
"What does that mean?"
Ruby shrugged.
"She said if bad people find one place, good people should have another."
Domenico felt another chill.
"You remember her saying that?"
Ruby nodded.
"She said it when we played bird."
"What was bird?"
Ruby walked to the window.
She pointed toward the garden.
"Find the bird."
Domenico followed her gaze.
There were stone statues across the Moretti gardens.
Lions.
Angels.
Horses.
And near Lucia's rose garden, a small bronze bird mounted on a fountain.
Domenico carried Ruby downstairs.
The fountain had not worked since winter.
He examined the bird.
Under one wing was a tiny indentation.
Key shaped.
But they did not have the key.
Domenico pushed gently against the base.
Nothing.
Ruby touched the bird's beak.
It moved.
A small panel opened in the stone column beneath.
Inside was an envelope wrapped in plastic.
Domenico stared.
Ruby whispered, "Mommy's second place."
He removed the envelope.
His name was written on it.
DOMENICO.
He opened it.
Inside was one page.
If you are reading this, then I was right to be afraid.
Do not trust the first evidence.
Do not trust anyone who tells you my death was simply an accident.
The blue bird key opens the box.
The box contains the number.
The number opens the vault.
But the vault is not the truth.
The truth is the person who knew I was going there.
Domenico read the final line twice.
Ruby watched him.
"What does it say?"
He folded the letter.
"Mommy wanted me to find something."
"Did she hide treasure?"
Domenico looked toward the house.
"No."
His eyes hardened.
"She hid the truth."
Behind them, a branch snapped.
Domenico turned.
A figure was running through the trees.
Daniel shouted from the terrace.
"Stop."
The man disappeared beyond the garden wall.
Daniel's team chased him.
Domenico looked back at the fountain.
The plastic envelope was safe in his hand.
Then his phone rang.
Detective Shaw.
"We found Marcus."
"Where?"
"Hospital."
"What happened?"
"Someone hit him with a car."
Domenico went silent.
Shaw continued.
"He survived."
"Can he talk?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
May you like
Shaw paused.
"He says you tried to kill him."
