Chapter 4 - THE FALSE ALARM IN THE PANTRY
The third-floor utility room felt suffocating.
“We have to get to the pantry safe before Arthur’s driver delivers the ledger to the prosecutor,” I said, my voice shaking but my mind racing. “If Vanessa thinks the burner phone text went through, she’ll assume we’re still looking up here in the linens.”
Luca looked at me, a flicker of raw respect crossing his dark eyes. “You’re not running for the door.”
“Why would I?” I wiped a tear from my cheek with the back of my hand. “If your empire goes down, my mother and I are tied to the same sinking ship. Arthur Bellini paid for our house—which means the moment you fall, his lawyers will come after us first to bury any loose ends.”
Luca gave a single, sharp nod. “Smart girl. Let’s move.”
We didn't take the main stairs where the guests or housekeepers might see us. We took the narrow, unlit spiral service staircase that dropped straight down behind the grand hearth in the main kitchen.
The kitchen was dark, lit only by the green glow of the industrial refrigerator displays and the amber pilot light of the massive six-burner stove.
Across the room, the heavy oak door leading to the walk-in pantry stood slightly ajar.
A narrow wedge of yellow light spilled out onto the terracotta floor tiles.
Someone was inside the pantry.
Luca drew his nine-millimeter pistol, pressing his back flat against the tiled wall as he crept toward the pantry door with the silent, fluid grace of a trained panther. I stayed right behind him, my hand instinctively grasping a heavy stainless steel meat tenderizer resting on the prep island.
He reached the door, pushed it open with the barrel of his gun, and stepped inside.
“Don’t move,” Luca commanded.
I crowded in past his shoulder.
The pantry was empty.
Wait—the flour bins were undisturbed. The rows of imported olive oil bottles sat in neat, dusty lines.
Then I heard a faint, rhythmic click-whir-click coming from behind the heavy wine racks in the corner.
The floor safe.
Its steel door was swung open, revealing the dark, velvet-lined interior.
And sitting right on the bottom of the safe, connected to a small digital timer with a flashing red LED light, wasn't a leather ledger.
It was a brick of gray plastic explosives wrapped in duct tape, with two wires leading directly into the digital timer.
The countdown clock on the front of the device was blinking fiercely in the dark:
0 3 : 4 2
Three minutes and forty-two seconds.
My breath caught in my throat.
“Luca—” I choked out, grabbing his sleeve.
“Get out!” Luca roared, shoving me backward out of the pantry door with such force that I tumbled across the terracotta tiles of the kitchen. “Get out of the house, Sophie! Now!”
He didn't run. He lunged into the pantry, dropping to his knees in front of the open safe to examine the wiring.
“Luca, you can't disarm that!” I screamed from the kitchen floor, scrambling back to my feet. “It’s a trap! The burner phone text wasn't about a ledger—it was bait to get you down here!”
“If I run, the blast brings down the entire west wing,” Luca shouted back over his shoulder, his fingers deftly working at the tape housing the timer’s battery pack. “And every guest on the second floor dies in their sleep.”
The timer flashed:
0 2 : 1 5
Two minutes and fifteen seconds.
My mind raced. If Vanessa wanted the estate destroyed so the federal audit couldn't trace the forged ledgers, she wouldn't leave the detonator inside the house where she could be caught in the blast.
She had to have a remote trigger.
Where would someone watch a pantry safe from a safe distance?
The conservatory. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls looked directly across the courtyard into the kitchen windows.
Without thinking, I turned my back on the pantry, bolted out the side kitchen door into the chilly night air, and sprinted across the cobblestone courtyard toward the dark, vine-covered archway of the conservatory.
The glass doors of the conservatory were locked from the inside.
I slammed my shoulder against the antique wood frame once, twice, until the latch gave way with a sharp crack, and I tumbled onto the damp stone floor among the potted ferns and orchids.
In the center of the dark glass room, illuminated only by the moonlight filtering through the domed roof, a woman stood holding a small black handheld radio transmitter with a single red button.
Vanessa Bellini.
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She turned around slowly, her silk robe rustling in the quiet room, her face pale and utterly devoid of the sweet socialite smile she had worn at dinner.
“You should have stayed in the kitchen, Sophie,” Vanessa said, her voice eerily calm as she pressed her thumb against the red button. “You’re entirely too curious for a maid.”
