Chapter 5 - THE COFFEE CAN
"Turn around!" I screamed, shoving the phone toward Luca's face. "Vanessa is at my mother's house!"
Luca slammed on the brakes, throwing the truck into a violent skid across the wet asphalt. He whipped the steering wheel, turning us entirely around on the empty highway.
"How did she find her?" Catherine asked from the back seat, her voice tight with panic.
"I don't know," I sobbed, my hands shaking so badly I dropped the phone on the floorboard. "My mother is sick. She can barely walk to the kitchen by herself. If Vanessa hurts her..."
Luca pushed the truck to eighty miles an hour. "Vanessa isn't going to hurt her. Vanessa is looking for leverage. She knows Victor went to West Addison to clean house, and she wants an insurance policy in case things go wrong."
We reached my mother's small, single-story house in ten minutes.
A sleek silver Mercedes was parked in the driveway.
Luca didn't bother parking. He drove the truck right up onto the front lawn, tearing through my mother's flowerbeds. He jumped out before the truck had even fully stopped, kicking the front door open with a resounding crash.
I ran in right behind him.
The living room was quiet. Too quiet.
My mother, frail and pale, was sitting in her worn armchair, clutching a knitted blanket to her chest.
Standing beside the fireplace was Vanessa. She was holding a rusted, metal coffee can.
When Luca walked in, Vanessa didn't look surprised. She just smiled.
"I told my father he should have sent more men," Vanessa said smoothly. She looked at Catherine, stepping into the room behind me. "So, this is the bastard sister. You have Teresa's nose. It's a shame."
Luca stepped forward. "Put the can down, Vanessa."
Vanessa laughed, shaking the metal tin. It clinked heavily. "Do you know what's in here, Luca? Grace thinks it's her father's savings. The money that kept the lights on after he supposedly died in that tragic accident."
I stared at the can. "Give it back to her."
Vanessa ignored me. She popped the plastic lid off the can and tipped it over the coffee table.
Stacks of crisp, hundred-dollar bills wrapped in rubber bands tumbled out. But it wasn't just cash.
A small glass vial rolled across the wood.
"Your father didn't leave you an inheritance, Grace," Vanessa sneered. "He left you blood money."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.
Vanessa looked at my mother. "Tell her, Mrs. Miller. Tell your sweet, innocent daughter where her medication money really came from for the last three years."
My mother squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking down her wrinkled cheeks. "Grace... I'm so sorry."
"Mom? What is she talking about?"
My mother took a ragged breath. "After your father disappeared... Michael Moretti came to the house. He said your father had stolen from the family. He said if I wanted to stay alive, and keep you safe, I had to do exactly what he said."
"Do what?" I whispered, my stomach dropping.
Vanessa pointed to the glass vial on the table. "That's a slow-acting neurotoxin. Odorless. Tasteless. Mimics the symptoms of early-onset dementia."
I looked at the vial. Then at my mother. Then the horror of it struck me like a physical blow.
"You..." I gasped, stumbling backward. "You're the one who poisoned Teresa?"
My mother sobbed, burying her face in her hands. "I only did it when you brought her laundry home to wash, Grace! I sprinkled it on the collars of her nightgowns. Michael paid me every month in that coffee can. He said if I didn't do it, he would kill you! I did it to keep you alive!"
The room spun. My own mother. The woman I had scrubbed floors to support. She had been the one slowly destroying Teresa Moretti's mind, slipping poison onto her clothes while I served her tea and held her hand.
Luca looked at my mother with a disgust so pure it radiated off him.
"You betrayed my mother," Luca said, his voice a lethal whisper. "You destroyed her dignity for a coffee can full of cash."
"Luca, please," I begged, stepping between him and my mother. "She was terrified. Michael threatened her."
"That doesn't excuse it," Catherine said coldly from the doorway.
Vanessa laughed. "Oh, the drama. It's almost poetic. But none of it matters now." She pulled a small silver handgun from her designer purse and aimed it at Luca's chest. "My father is on his way here. Michael is securing the mansion. By sunrise, you'll be a tragic casualty of a rival gang, and Michael and I will be the grieving heirs."
"You really think Michael is going to share the throne with you?" Luca asked, his eyes locked on Vanessa's gun.
"He doesn't have a choice," Vanessa said. "I have the blue ledger."
"No," I said, my voice suddenly hard. I reached into my apron. "You don't."
I pulled out the blue leather-bound book Catherine had given me at West Addison.
Vanessa's smile vanished. "Where did you get that?"
"From my father," I said. "Right before your father killed him."
"Give it to me," Vanessa ordered, aiming the gun at my head.
Before I could move, the front window shattered inward.
A heavy, dark object flew through the broken glass and landed directly on the coffee table.
It was a pair of worn, brown leather work boots.
And they were covered in blood.
Vanessa jumped back, startled.
The front door swung open fully, and a man walked into the living room holding a shotgun.
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He was bleeding from a graze wound on his temple, but his eyes were blazing.
"You missed, Vanessa," my father said.
