Chapter 5 - THE TRAIN TICKET
The train whistle echoed through the phone’s speaker, sharp and lonely.
Luca snatched the phone from my hand. “Vanessa. If you harm one hair on that boy’s head, there is no hole on this earth deep enough to hide you.”
“Ten million, Luca,” Vanessa replied coldly. “You have two hours.”
The line went dead.
Luca tossed the phone onto the dashboard and floored the accelerator. The heavy SUV roared down the empty street.
“A train whistle,” I said, my mind racing. “She’s near a train station or a rail yard.”
“Chicago has dozens of rail yards,” Luca muttered, his eyes glued to the road. “Union Station, Ogilvie, the industrial tracks south of the city.”
From the backseat, Margaret spoke up. Her voice was trembling, but there was a new resolve in it. “Not just any tracks, Mr. Moretti. Thomas was a carpenter, yes. But he worked for the city. He maintained the old service sheds at the abandoned Pullman rail yard.”
Luca glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “The Pullman yard has been closed for a decade.”
“Exactly,” Margaret said. “Vanessa knows it. She used to meet him there when they were secretly dating. It’s isolated. No security.”
Luca didn’t say another word. He whipped the steering wheel, taking a hard left toward the expressway heading south.
I turned around to check on Leo. The little boy was awake now, clutching his drawing and staring at the passing streetlights.
“Are we going to get Lucas?” Leo asked softly.
“Yes, sweetheart,” I promised, though my heart was hammering against my ribs. “We’re going to bring him home.”
Forty minutes later, the glittering skyline of Chicago was far behind us, replaced by the rusted skeletons of abandoned factories and overgrown chain-link fences. Luca killed the headlights as we approached the massive, rusted gates of the Pullman rail yard.
The yard was a graveyard of old boxcars and decaying brick sheds. It was pitch black, save for a single, flickering light bulb illuminating a small dispatcher’s office near the center of the tracks.
Luca parked the SUV behind a dilapidated brick wall, out of sight.
“Stay in the car,” Luca ordered, pulling his weapon from his holster. “Lock the doors. Do not open them for anyone but me.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt.
“Emma, this isn’t a game. Vanessa is desperate. Desperate people make lethal mistakes.”
“She knows you,” I argued. “If she sees you, she might panic and hurt the boy. She thinks I’m just a maid. She won’t see me as a threat. Let me go first and talk to her. Distract her.”
Luca stared at me. For a moment, the cold, hardened mafia boss softened, looking at me with a genuine sense of respect.
“Two minutes,” he said finally. “If you aren’t out in two minutes with the boy, I’m coming through the door.”
I nodded. I slipped out of the car, feeling the freezing night wind bite through my thin sweater. I kept low, moving silently across the gravel toward the dispatcher’s shed.
As I got closer, I could hear Vanessa’s voice inside.
“Stop crying! I told you to stop crying!”
I crept to the dirty, cracked window and peered inside.
Vanessa was pacing the small room, wearing a designer trench coat over her evening gown, clutching a cell phone. Sitting on a wooden crate in the corner was a little boy.
He was identical to Leo. Same dark hair, same big brown eyes. But while Leo had been quiet and shut down, Lucas was terrified. Tears streamed down his dirty cheeks. He was clutching something tightly in his hands—a small, silver pocket watch.
“Mommy, please,” Lucas sobbed. “I want my dad.”
“I’m not your mother!” Vanessa shrieked, spinning around. “Your mother was weak! I just took her place because she was foolish enough to look like me!”
I gasped, stumbling backward against the wooden siding of the shed.
Took her place? Look like me?
My foot knocked against a loose pipe on the ground. It clattered loudly.
Inside the shed, Vanessa froze. She pulled a small silver handgun from her coat pocket and aimed it at the door.
“Who’s out there?” she yelled.
I took a deep breath, raising my hands, and stepped into the doorway.
“It’s just me, Vanessa,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
She let out a harsh laugh, keeping the gun leveled at my chest. “The maid. Of course Luca sent the help. Where is he? Hiding in the shadows like a coward?”
“He’s getting the money,” I lied. “He sent me to make sure the boy is safe before he transfers the funds.”
Vanessa smirked, walking over to Lucas and grabbing him roughly by the shoulder. The boy whimpered.
“He’s perfectly safe. For now.”
I looked at her face, really looked at her. Beneath the heavy makeup and the cruel sneer, I remembered what she had just screamed at the boy.
Your mother was weak. I took her place.
“You’re not Vanessa, are you?” I whispered.
The woman holding the gun stiffened. A slow, chilling smile spread across her face.
“My sister always was the sweet one,” she said softly. “But she lacked ambition. When she married that pathetic carpenter and died giving birth to these twins, it was a tragedy.”
She tilted her head, her eyes flashing with madness.
“But when I found out she had been having an affair with a billionaire’s brother… well. I couldn’t let that golden ticket go to waste, could I, Emma?”
Before I could respond, the sound of a train horn blasted through the night, impossibly close. And in the corner, little Lucas dropped the silver pocket watch.
It popped open on the floor, playing a tinny, haunting lullaby.
And from the shadows behind the woman who called herself Vanessa, a voice spoke.
May you like
“You never could keep a secret, Victoria.”
It was Thomas Cole.
