Chapter 1 - The Christmas Gift That Should Never Have Existed
“I have a Christmas gift for you, mister.”
Vincent Moretti did not look up.
“Please don’t be lonely anymore.”
That made him raise his eyes.
A little girl stood in the doorway of the third-floor study, wearing a crooked red Santa hat and one sock.
She could not have been older than three. Her cheeks were pink from running through hallways she had absolutely been told not to enter. Dark curls escaped beneath the felt hat. In both hands she held a small red paper box tied with a gold ribbon so badly knotted that it looked less like a bow than a tiny accident.
Vincent stared at her.
Men twice his size had walked into that room and forgotten how to breathe.
This child walked across the Persian rug as if she were visiting a tired neighbor.
“For you,” she said.
Vincent’s voice came low.
“Who are you?”
“Maisie.”
“Maisie what?”
She frowned, apparently deciding that was an unnecessarily difficult question.
“Maisie Bennett.”
He knew the name Bennett.
Clara Bennett.
One of the housemaids.
Thirty years old. Quiet. Dependable. Had been working at the Lakeview estate for seven months.
Vincent leaned back.
“Does your mother know you’re here?”
Maisie’s expression changed.
That answered the question.
Vincent almost smiled.
Almost.
She pushed the box onto his desk.
“My mommy says people get mean when their hearts are too sad.”
Vincent’s gaze sharpened.
“Your mother said that about me?”
“No.” Maisie shook her head. “I did.”
For the first time in years, Vincent Moretti had no answer.
Outside the tall windows, Christmas Eve snow fell over Chicago, turning the lawn and iron gates white.
There were no wreaths on those gates.
No lights in the windows.
No tree in the foyer.
Christmas had been forbidden in Vincent’s house for four years.
Four years ago, on December 24, his younger brother Michael had been killed behind Warehouse Twelve near the river.
Michael had been twenty-nine.
Vincent had been the one called to identify his body.
Before sunrise on Christmas morning, Vincent had personally removed every ornament from the mansion.
The decorations had never returned.
Neither had Michael.
Maisie pointed at the box.
“You have to open it.”
Vincent glanced at her.
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“Is that a rule?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
“Christmas.”
Then she turned and ran.
The Santa hat fell off in the doorway.
She doubled back, grabbed it, jammed it crookedly onto her head and disappeared.
Vincent sat alone again.
Silence settled over the study.
On his desk, beside documents men had lied for and killed over, sat a red paper box made by a three-year-old.
He pulled the ribbon.
Inside should have been candy.
Instead, Vincent Moretti found a brass key.
Everything inside him stopped.
He knew that key.
Michael had worn it around his neck for twenty years.
And when Vincent identified his brother’s body four Christmases ago, the chain had still been there.
The key had not.
Vincent rose so suddenly his chair struck the wall.
For four years, he had believed Michael’s killer had taken it.
Now a maid’s toddler had just carried it into his study.
Inside his own house.
Thirty minutes earlier, Clara Bennett had been standing in the service kitchen wondering how fast a person could lose a job at Christmas.
She had brought Maisie to work because the sitter who usually watched her had developed a fever that afternoon.
Missing the shift was not an option.
Clara’s checking account held $186.
Rent was due in eight days.
The rear brakes on her twelve-year-old Ford needed replacing.
So she had dressed Maisie in the Santa costume she had sewn from discount-store felt, packed crackers and crayons, and made her daughter promise to stay in the kitchen.
Maisie had promised.
Clara should have known better.
She discovered the empty chair while carrying a tray from the pantry.
Her stomach dropped.
“Maisie?”
Nothing.
She checked beneath the table.
The pantry.
The staff restroom.
Then Clara saw the red paper scraps.
Her daughter had spent the afternoon making tiny gift boxes filled with two caramel candies each for the estate’s guards and drivers.
Twenty boxes.
The bag was gone.
“Oh, God.”
Clara ran.
The Moretti estate was enormous, full of private corridors and doors staff members were not allowed to touch.
She found two guards holding red boxes.
One of them, a six-foot-five former dockworker named Leo, looked strangely embarrassed.
“Little Santa came through,” he said.
“Where is she?”
Leo pointed upstairs.
Clara stopped breathing.
The third floor.
Vincent Moretti’s floor.
She ran so hard one shoe nearly came off.
When she reached the study, Maisie was already in the hallway.
“Mama!”
Clara grabbed her.
“What did I tell you?”
Maisie blinked.
“I gave Christmas.”
“You gave me a heart attack.”
Clara lifted her and turned.
Vincent stood in his doorway.
He held something in his right hand.
A brass key.
His face looked frighteningly calm.
“Miss Bennett.”
Clara swallowed.
“Mr. Moretti, I am so sorry.”
“Where did she get this?”
Clara looked at the key.
“I don’t know.”
Maisie answered cheerfully.
“On the floor.”
Vincent’s eyes moved to her.
“Where?”
“The quiet hallway.”
Every muscle in his face changed.
“There are many quiet hallways.”
“The one with Michael’s room.”
Clara froze.
No one had told Maisie about Michael.
Vincent stepped forward.
“Show me.”
Ten minutes later, the three of them stood on the second floor before a black door that had not been opened since Michael Moretti died.
Maisie pointed at the carpet.
“Right there.”
Vincent stared at the spot.
“You found it there?”
She nodded.
Clara held her daughter tighter.
“Mr. Moretti, she wanders. I swear she doesn’t understand—”
“I know.”
Vincent crouched beside the carpet.
For four years, the hallway outside Michael’s old room had become a grave without a body.
He reached beneath the edge of the runner.
Nothing.
He moved to the second floor molding.
Nothing.
Maisie tugged his sleeve.
“Not there.”
Vincent looked at her.
“Where, then?”
She pointed to the wall.
“There.”
The panel looked ordinary.
Dark wood. Brass trim. Nothing remarkable.
But Michael had always loved hiding things in plain sight.
Vincent remembered suddenly.
When they were boys, Michael used to slide notes behind loose picture frames whenever he wanted to prank their father.
Vincent pressed his palm against the wood.
A click answered.
The panel opened.
Inside was a narrow cavity.
And in that cavity sat a dust-covered metal box.
Vincent reached for it.
He recognized the engraving immediately.
M.M.
Michael Moretti.
His hands tightened.
He carried the box into Michael’s locked bedroom and placed it on the desk.
Clara remained in the doorway with Maisie.
“I should take her downstairs.”
“No.”
The word came sharper than Vincent intended.
Clara stopped.
Vincent looked at the child.
Maisie was studying the box as though she had found a new toy.
Then she looked at Vincent and whispered, “He said you would forget.”
Vincent’s blood ran cold.
“Who said that?”
Maisie pointed behind him.
“My friend.”
“There’s nobody here.”
She frowned.
“The man in the picture.”
Vincent turned.
On the mantel stood a framed photograph of Michael at twenty-six, smiling with a ridiculous amount of confidence.
Vincent stared at it.
“What man?”
“The one who visits.”
Clara’s face lost its color.
“Maisie, stop.”
The little girl looked confused.
“Mommy said not to tell.”
Vincent slowly turned toward Clara.
“What did she tell you?”
Clara’s lips parted.
“No one visits my daughter.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
She stepped backward.
Vincent’s voice lowered.
“Why does your three-year-old know my brother?”
Clara held Maisie closer.
“I don’t know.”
He stared at her for a long moment.
Then he opened the metal box.
Inside was a folded handkerchief, a cheap silver lighter, an old hotel key card, and a photograph.
The photograph showed Michael standing beside a man.
The man’s face had been scratched away with a knife.
On the back, in Michael’s handwriting, were seven words.
IF I DIE, DO NOT TRUST THE MAN WHO BURIES ME.
Vincent stopped breathing.
Michael had not known where or when he would die.
But he had known someone would try to make his death look final.
And someone had.
Four years ago, investigators had said Michael was killed instantly by a gunshot during an ambush.
The body had been discovered behind Warehouse Twelve.
There had been no doubts.
No suspects.
No answers.
Only grief.
Now Vincent looked again at the photograph.
A man’s left hand rested on Michael’s shoulder.
On the wrist was a distinctive black scar shaped like a crooked crescent.
Vincent knew that scar.
He had seen it every week for fifteen years.
On the wrist of his father’s most trusted lieutenant.
Frank Deluca.
Vincent’s oldest ally.
His brother’s godfather.
The man who had held Vincent upright at Michael’s funeral.
The man who had whispered, “He’s gone, Vincent. Let the dead stay dead.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
Behind him, Clara spoke quietly.
“You know him.”
Vincent did not answer.
“Mr. Moretti?”
He looked at her.
“Get your coat.”
Clara stared.
“What?”
“You and Maisie are not leaving this house tonight.”
Her eyes widened.
“Am I being fired?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because someone hid evidence in my house for four years.”
He looked at the scratched-out photograph.
“And that person expected never to be found.”
A floorboard creaked behind them.
Vincent spun around.
The hallway was empty.
Then the lights went out.
Maisie screamed.
Clara pulled her daughter close.
Vincent reached under his jacket.
A gun clicked into his hand.
From somewhere inside the darkness came the soft scrape of a shoe.
Then another.
Someone was walking toward Michael’s bedroom.
Someone who knew the secret was finally awake.
Vincent raised the gun.
“Show yourself.”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice floated from the corridor.
“Michael should have burned that box.”
Vincent recognized the voice.
Frank Deluca.
But when the emergency lights came on, Frank was standing thirty feet away at the end of the hall.
Smiling.
And holding a phone that was already recording.
“Tell me something, Vincent,” Frank said calmly. “Do you really want to know why your brother died?”
Vincent’s finger tightened around the trigger.
Frank’s smile disappeared.
“Because if you open that box all the way, you won’t be hunting a killer.”
May you like
He looked toward Clara.
“You’ll be hunting a family.”
