“My mother died in 2004.” “No, Luca.” Vanessa grabbed her champagne glass; it slipped and shattered against the table. And that was when I noticed something: around Vanessa’s neck, beneath the diamonds of her engagement necklace, a tiny object had slipped free — a black metal key. Luca saw it too. His eyes dropped to her chest, then to the key in his own hand. They were identical — except for the numbers. His said 317. Vanessa’s said 318.
Luca slowly stood. “Take off the necklace.” “No.” “Vanessa.” “You don’t understand.” “Take it off.” Two of Luca’s security men moved quietly toward the dining-room doors. “What is room 318?” Vanessa’s eyes moved toward Teresa, who began shaking her head. “Don’t,” Teresa whispered. “Somebody is going to tell me what happened to my mother.”
Then the old recorder on the floor clicked. Everyone looked down. Still no batteries. The tape began playing again. Static filled the room. Lucia Moretti’s voice returned — but this time she wasn’t speaking to Luca. She was whispering to someone else. “If my son ever finds this… do not let the Bellini family know he has the second key.”
Luca slowly raised his eyes to Vanessa. Nobody breathed. Vanessa backed into the dining table. “You need to understand something.” “What?” She stared at the two keys. Then she said the one thing nobody in that room expected: “Room 318 isn’t empty.”
“Who’s inside?” “I can’t tell you.” “Who is inside that room?” Her eyes filled with tears. Teresa covered her mouth. “Someone who has spent twenty-two years believing you were the one who died.”
THE DRIVE INTO THE DARK
Luca ordered everyone to stay, then drove Emma through the night to Milwaukee himself, the sewing box on the seat between them. Under the box’s lining, Emma found a silver pocket watch with a cracked face — inside, a photograph of two identical little boys: Luca and his twin brother, Julian. Luca told her Julian had died in a car accident at sixteen, the same year their mother died.
“If Julian didn’t die,” Emma asked quietly, “then what?”
They reached St. Catherine’s Rest — a gothic building in the woods. Room 317 stood empty, nothing left but their father’s old wool coat in the closet. An orderly appeared and said room 318 was waiting — but they only wanted the girl with the box.
ROOM 318
Luca forced the orderly to lead them to room 318 and kicked the door in. The room was furnished like an old-fashioned nursery, and on the bed sat a woman in her forties — not Aunt Teresa, but Elena, Teresa’s daughter, Luca’s cousin, supposedly in Europe for twenty years.