Chapter 4 - UNDER THE CHAPEL FLOOR
They drove to the unused chapel with headlights cutting through fog. Alessandro rode beside Mara, not touching her, while two guards followed at a distance. She had refused to leave the investigation in somebody else's hands.
"If my mother is there," she said, "I need to know."
The chapel stood on an outlying section of the Romano property, its windows boarded up after a fire eighteen years before.
A broken lock hung from the chapel door. Inside, muddy tracks crossed the stone aisle. A brass plaque near the altar carried the initials I.R., carved so shallowly a stranger might miss them.
"Don't dig," Mara said when a guard approached with a tool. "Call investigators. Do this properly."
Alessandro gave the order. By morning, Detective Sofia Rios and a forensic team had arrived with a warrant and independent witnesses. Alessandro told Rios everything he knew about the 2008 family war, including the crimes he had once helped conceal.
"You realize that may put you in trouble," she said.
"I realize it should."
Beneath the flagstone they found a narrow chamber containing human remains wrapped in the remnants of a blue wool coat. Rios would make no identification before testing. Mara waited on the chapel steps.
Celia sat beside her. "Isabella made me promise I would keep you alive. I did that much. Not enough else."
"Who put her there?"
"I saw Matteo carry a bundle. Your grandfather ordered the chapel closed the next day."
Alessandro returned carrying a plastic evidence sleeve Rios had allowed him to see but not handle. Inside lay a small silver key on a broken chain.
Mara knew that key. Her mother had once called it the way out if the house became dangerous.
"It opens a blue box," she whispered. "Under the kitchen in our old apartment."
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Alessandro's phone rang. It was Enzo.
"Stop digging," his uncle said calmly, "or I'll tell the police where your fingerprints are buried."
