Chapter 5 - THE CUFFLINK IN THE CAKE
Luca stared at the heavy gold cufflink sitting in the stained satin of the velvet box.
“My father wore a pair of these the night he died,” Luca said softly. “Only one was recovered with his body.”
“Who put it in the cake?” I asked, my heart racing.
Mr. Petrov’s brow creased deeply. “My niece’s bakery is on Lawrence Avenue. While Miss Bellini was arguing with me in my upstairs parlor at three o’clock this afternoon, who was downstairs in the shop?”
Vanessa wrapped her arms around herself, shivering violently. “No one! Just the girl behind the counter—and an old man in a gray wheelchair sitting by the radiator drinking coffee.”
I gasped so loudly every head turned toward me.
“A gray wheelchair?” I said, stepping toward her. “Did he have a navy-blue woolen coat with brass buttons?”
Vanessa blinked, startled. “Yes. And a dark green oxygen bag hanging off the back handles. An older Hispanic nurse was pushing him out the door when I came down the stairs.”
“Marta,” I whispered.
Marta was the home-health aide who stayed with my father on Friday evenings whenever I worked late shifts at the mansion.
“Your father was at my niece’s bakery today?” Mr. Petrov asked in disbelief.
“He never leaves our house except for physical therapy,” I said, my mind spinning. “And he kept that exact red velvet box in the bottom drawer of his nightstand. It was locked. He told me it held my mother’s wedding band.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed. “How would your father know Mr. Petrov was making a prune cake for my engagement dinner tonight?”
Mr. Petrov slowly raised a hand to his forehead.
“Because I called him,” the old gardener breathed.
“You called my father?” I asked.
“Not today. Every October nineteenth for the past twenty-six years,” Mr. Petrov said, his voice trembling. “On the anniversary of the day Sarah and your parents vanished. Sarah gave me a payphone number, and later a landline in Bridgeport. Every year on this date, I called at nine in the morning and said only the weather in Lincoln Square. If the voice on the other end said ‘The frost came early,’ I knew the child was still safe. Two years ago, a woman started answering the phone for him, saying he’d had a stroke. This morning, when I called, I told him you were getting married tonight, Luca—and that I was finally taking Clara’s cake and the key to the mansion.”
“And my father couldn’t talk well enough on the phone to warn you,” I realized out loud. “So he had Marta bring him all the way across town to the bakery while you were upstairs with Vanessa. He hid the cufflink and that warning inside the cake where Vanessa wouldn’t see it.”
“Warn us to run from what?” Vanessa demanded, her voice cracking. “I came to Petrov’s house alone! My father doesn’t even know I went to Lincoln Square today! He thinks I’m at the dinner table right now!”
Luca looked down at the cufflink in his hand, then at the three shaky letters written inside the lid: RUN.
Suddenly, Luca pulled his phone from inside his tuxedo jacket and dialed a number.
He waited three seconds.
“Dante,” Luca barked into the receiver. “Take four men from the front gate and sweep the perimeter of the east gardens right now. Who has left the dining room since we walked out?”
A pause.
Luca’s expression darkened.
“What do you mean Arthur Bellini’s car left the driveway ten minutes ago?” Luca’s eyes snapped up to meet Vanessa’s. “Did he leave with his driver?”
Another pause.
Slowly, Luca lowered the phone from his ear.
“Your father told the valet at the front door that he had chest pains and needed to go home,” Luca said to Vanessa, each word cold as iron. “Except his town car didn’t turn north toward Lake Forest. According to my gate cameras, he turned south toward the expressway.”
South.
Toward Bridgeport.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered, the blood draining from my face. “When you called Mr. Petrov into the dining room, Arthur was sitting at the head table. He saw the brass key. He heard Mr. Petrov say my name when you told me to put the cake on the table.”
“He didn’t know who I was until tonight,” I said, grabbing Luca’s sleeve with both hands. “Wait—if Arthur had my father’s twin cufflink, or if my father kept the other cufflink from the night of the crash, Arthur just connected Emma Reed to Sarah and Tom Reed!”
Vanessa’s hands flew to her mouth. “No. My father is seventy-one years old! He’s a businessman—he wouldn’t go to someone’s house—”
“He let two people die in the Chicago River to cover up four hundred thousand dollars!” Luca roared, the sound echoing off the glass roof of the greenhouse. “What do you think he’ll do to protect a fifty-million-dollar merger and stay out of federal prison for the rest of his life?”
I didn’t wait for another word.
I tore my apron off over my head, dropped it on the stone floor, and bolted out the greenhouse door into the cold October night.
“Emma, wait!” Luca shouted behind me.
I couldn’t wait.
My father was seventy-four years old, paralyzed on his left side, sitting in a rented hospital bed on the first floor of a narrow wooden house on 33rd Street.
And Marta usually went home at nine o’clock sharp on Friday nights.
I checked my watch as I sprinted across the wet lawn toward the driveway.
It was 9:12 p.m.
Before I reached the terrace steps, a black Mercedes Maybach roared around the circular drive, tires screeching against the cobblestones.
The back door flew open before the car even came to a full stop.
Luca was right behind me, grabbing my waist and lifting me into the back seat before jumping in beside Mr. Petrov.
Just as the heavy door slammed shut, someone threw themselves against the passenger window.
It was Vanessa, her red dress torn at the hem, tears streaking her mascara down her cheeks.
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“Let me in!” she screamed through the glass. “If you take your men to that house with guns, you’ll kill my father! Let me in, Luca—I’m the only one who can make him stop!”
Luca looked at her through the glass for one heartbeat—then unlocked her door.
