Chapter 12 - ELENA'S FINAL WITNESS WAS STILL ALIVE
The doctor was eighty-three.
Dr. Helen Pierce.
Retired.
Living in Evanston.
They found her before leaving for Italy.
Sebastian entered her home without security.
Norah insisted.
He listened.
Dr. Pierce remembered Elena immediately.
“You have her eyes.”
Sebastian sat.
“What happened?”
Helen had worked overnight at St. Anne’s seventeen years earlier.
Private clinic.
Discreet clientele.
Elena arrived unconscious.
Toxic cardiac rhythm.
Adrian Moretti brought her.
Claire Moretti followed.
Adrian claimed accidental overdose.
Helen stabilized Elena briefly.
She woke.
Spoke.
“What did she say?”
Helen looked toward Norah.
Then back to Sebastian.
“She asked if her son was safe.”
Sebastian’s face broke.
Just slightly.
“I said yes.”
“Did she name who poisoned her?”
“No.”
“But she said something else.”
Helen remembered exactly.
“Tell Isabella the red stone is not for the police.”
Norah frowned.
Not for police?
Then who?
Sebastian asked:
“What happened after?”
Elena deteriorated.
Adrian insisted on transfer to a larger hospital.
Then changed his mind.
Claire argued with him.
Salvatore arrived.
Helen was ordered out.
When she returned, Elena was dead.
Death certificate already prepared.
Helen said nothing for years because Salvatore threatened her children.
Then something else.
Claire Moretti secretly gave Helen an envelope.
“Where is it?”
Helen stood carefully.
Went to a cabinet.
Returned with a sealed letter.
Addressed:
ISABELLA.
Never delivered.
Helen could not find her.
Norah opened it with Isabella’s permission later.
Claire confessed.
She knew Adrian had been ordered to poison Elena.
She tried to stop him too late.
She brought Elena to the clinic.
Then Salvatore arrived.
Claire believed Elena might survive.
Salvatore disagreed.
One line chilled everyone:
SALVATORE REMOVED THE OXYGEN HIMSELF.
Sebastian closed his eyes.
His father had finished what Adrian started.
Then the letter explained the red stone.
The microfilm inside the ruby was not meant for police.
It was insurance.
The real evidence had already been copied elsewhere.
Where?
Claire wrote:
Elena sent it to the one place Salvatore would never search.
Julian’s family chapel.
Sebastian looked at Julian.
He went pale.
“My grandfather built a chapel outside Florence.”
Everyone stared.
Julian had not visited in years.
The chapel had a sealed family crypt.
If Elena hid records there, they could be untouched.
Sebastian changed plans.
Italy.
But not directly to Adrian.
First Florence.
The chapel crypt contained a narrow metal case behind a memorial plaque.
Inside:
Original ledgers.
Photographs.
Medical reports.
Audio tapes.
Everything.
Enough to destroy every remaining criminal tie.
Sebastian held the case.
Then Luca ran in.
“Adrian moved Maria.”
“Where?”
“Villa outside Como.”
“Still?”
“No.”
“He took her south.”
“Why?”
Luca showed satellite traffic records.
Adrian was heading toward Florence.
Toward them.
He knew they had found the chapel.
Then Norah noticed one missing audio tape.
Inventory listed:
ELENA — FINAL.
But the slot was empty.
Someone had already been inside the crypt before them.
Julian checked the chapel visitor records.
One person had entered two days earlier.
Matteo Romano.
Sebastian turned toward his brother.
Matteo stared back.
May you like
“I can explain.”
No one believed that sentence anymore.
