Chapter 4 - The Inventory of the Missing
The clock struck midnight. The last of the limousines had rolled down the long, gated driveway of the Moretti estate, leaving the great stone house in a state of exhausted silence. The chandeliers upstairs had been turned off, leaving only the soft, low-voltage security lights illuminating the marble corridors.
Vincent sat alone in his office. The green shaded lamp on his desk cast a long, triangular pool of light over three separate documents he had ordered Marcus Vance, his private investigator, to bring from the city archives during the dinner.
The files didn't belong to the Moretti syndicate. They belonged to the history of Grace Parker.
"She’s clean, boss," Marcus said, standing by the dark window, his leather jacket smelling of the midnight rain that had begun to fall outside. "Grew up in south Chicago. Father was an ironworker who died when she was twelve. She married a young mechanic named Thomas Parker in twenty-twenty. He died two years ago in a hit-and-run on the Dan Ryan Expressway. Case was closed in three days. No suspects. No camera footage."
Vincent turned a page. A photograph of Thomas Parker hung from a paperclip. A standard driver’s license photo—a young man with honest eyes and grease under his fingernails.
"The hit-and-run vehicle," Vincent said, his voice flat. "Any description?"
"A black Mercedes sedan," Marcus said, shifting his weight. "Registered to a corporate leasing company in Springfield. The lease was paid in cash through a shell company called Vale Development."
Vincent’s fingers stopped on the edge of the paper.
Vale Development.
The real estate firm owned by Senator Marcus Vale, managed by his daughter, Isabella.
"Go on," Vincent said.
"Grace was pregnant with Lily when Thomas died," Marcus continued, his voice dropping into a serious register. "She lost the house in Cicero three months later due to a sudden foreclosure. The bank that handled the foreclosure was Continental Trust. Senator Vale sits on the board of directors. After she lost the house, she applied for nine different accounting jobs in the city. She has a top-tier degree from DePaul, Vincent. She shouldn't be scrubbing your guest rooms. But every time she got an interview, the company received an anonymous tip that she was under investigation for corporate embezzlement. The tips came from an untraceable digital routing address in Springfield."
Vincent leaned back in his leather chair, the leather creaking softly in the dark room. The puzzle pieces were falling into place, but the picture they formed was larger and more grotesque than a simple missing brooch.
Grace Parker hadn't been hired by accident. Her placement in the Moretti mansion as a low-level maid had been orchestrated. She had been driven into poverty, her husband killed, her career destroyed, and then she had been guided into the one house where her movements could be monitored twenty-four hours a day by Edwin Clark.
"And the girl?" Vincent asked. "Lily."
"That’s where it gets weird, boss," Marcus said, pulling a smaller envelope from his pocket and placing it under the green lamp. "I checked the medical registry at the hospital where Lily was born. The blood type matches Grace, obviously. But the paternal registry is blank. Thomas Parker’s name isn't on the birth certificate. He married her when she was three months pregnant, knowing the child wasn't his."
Vincent opened the small envelope. Inside was a copy of an old medical report from a private fertility clinic in Lake Forest—the same clinic the Moretti family had used for three generations.
The date on the report was five years ago.
The patient name: Anthony Moretti. Vincent’s older brother, who had died in a private plane crash in the mountains of Colorado four years ago.
Vincent’s heart gave a single, violent thud against his ribs.
Anthony had been the golden child, the handsome, charismatic heir to the Moretti empire whom their father had loved above all else. Vincent had been the spare, the quiet accountant who stayed in the shadows to manage the money while Anthony managed the streets. Anthony had a reputation for wild nights, for brief, intense relationships with women outside the circle, women their father would never allow into the family bloodline.
Vincent looked at the DNA profile attached to the clinic report. Then he looked at the medical data from Lily Parker’s hospital file in Gary.
The markers matched.
Fifty percent paternal match. Anthony Moretti.
Lily Parker wasn't the daughter of a common maid. She was a Moretti. She was Anthony’s daughter—the only remaining piece of Vincent’s brother left on this earth.
"They knew," Vincent whispered, his voice dropping into a tone that made Marcus Vance step back toward the door. "Isabella knew. Her father knew. Edwin knew."
"If Anthony had a child with a woman outside the family, and that child was recognized before his death, forty percent of the family’s primary real estate trust would have bypassed you and gone straight to that girl," Marcus said quietly. "Under your father’s will, if Anthony died without a legitimate heir, you got everything. But if an heir exists... the trust splits. And if that heir dies or is legally declared abandoned by a mother convicted of a felony... the trust reverts to the promised bride’s family through the marriage contract."
The blue child welfare form at 7:41 p.m. wasn't just a household cleaning. It was a corporate assassination. Isabella and Edwin were trying to strip Grace of her parental rights, place Lily in a state facility controlled by Senator Vale’s department, and ensure the Moretti fortune remained intact for Isabella to claim on her wedding day.
May you like
Vincent closed the file. He stood up, walking to the dark window. The rain was hitting the glass like gravel. In the reflection, he saw his own face—the cold, angular lines of a man who had been used as a pawn in his own house.
"Marcus," Vincent said, his voice as calm as the ice on Lake Michigan. "Bring Grace and the child to my private quarters on the third floor. Do it now. If Edwin tries to stop you, shoot him."
