Chapter 5 - Midnight at the Cottage
The gravel driveway crunching under my boots sounded unnaturally loud in the chill Pennsylvania midnight air. The main house loomed behind me, its crystal chandeliers now dark, looking less like a palace and more like a tomb. I had finished locking up the side pantries and wiping down the back service hall, but my mind was still trapped in the study with Luca and that yellowed polaroid.
Instead of walking toward the staff quarters in the east wing, I found my feet taking me down the winding stone path toward the old chauffeur's cottage near the property gates.
A single yellow light burned in the small front window of the cottage. The wooden porch steps groaned under my weight as I walked up to the screen door. Before I could raise my hand to knock, the inner wooden door swung open.
Sal stood there wearing a plaid flannel shirt over a gray undershirt, holding a mug of steaming tea. He didn't look surprised to see me. He looked smaller out of his dark coat, his gray hair uncombed, but his eyes were steady and sharp.
"You're off the clock, girl," Sal said, though there was a warmth in his raspy voice. "And it's freezing out here. Come on inside before you catch a chest cold."
I stepped into the tiny, cluttered living room. It smelled of old books, woodsmoke, and peppermint tea. On the small kitchen table sat the cardboard box, its contents spilled out: the leather gloves, the brass badge, and the framed photograph propped up against a stack of newspapers.
"I couldn't sleep," I admitted, wrapping my arms around myself to ward off the chill. "Luca's still up in the study. He was looking at the picture."
Sal took a slow sip of his tea, his thumb tracing the chipped ceramic rim of the mug. "The boy always had a good head on his shoulders. Too trusting, sometimes, but he sees through the glass when he really looks." He walked over to the table and looked down at the polaroid of himself and young Luca from 1998. "Vanessa didn't want that picture in the house. She called it 'estate clutter' last month. Said we needed a modern aesthetic for the wedding spreads in the Philadelphia magazines."
"Is that why she pushed you out?" I asked, stepping closer to the table. "Just because of a photograph?"
"It ain't about the picture, Emma," Sal said, his voice dropping into a gravelly rumble. He lifted the polaroid, and with a flick of his thumbnail, pried open the cardboard backing of the frame. A folded piece of heavy cream-colored paper slid out onto the table.
I leaned down to look. It wasn't a photograph at all; it was a certified bank transfer ledger from a subsidiary company I didn't recognize, bearing Vanessa Bellini's signature authorizing a massive liquidation of Moretti estate assets into an offshore account.
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"She's not just remodeling the house," Sal said softly, looking up at me with grave, tired eyes. "She's emptying it. And I was the only one left who knew whose signature was supposed to be on those accounts."
The kitchen window rattled as a sudden gust of wind swept down from the hills, bringing the scent of pine and coming snow. Out on the main drive, the twin headlights of Luca's black sedan swept across the trees as he turned the car around, heading back toward the gate.
