Neither of them spoke for a long time after the tape ended.
Lucia.
The name echoed in the room like a ghost that had finally been called.
Daniel stood by the attic window, staring out at the vineyards. "My grandmother told me she left because she was heartbroken," he said quietly. "She cried when she talked about Seravalle."
Elena swallowed. "Maybe she was heartbroken."
"After helping bury someone?"
His voice wasn't angry.
It was shattered.
Elena forced herself to think clearly. "We don't even know who Lucia was."
Daniel turned toward her. "We're going to find out."
That afternoon, they returned to the archives.
Elena's hands moved faster this time, flipping through old records from 1987. Birth records. Property disputes. Newspaper clippings.
And then—
Lucia Bellini.
Age twenty-six.
Local business owner.
Reported missing weeks after Isabella's disappearance.
Case status: Unresolved.
Elena's heart pounded harder.
Two women vanished in the same year.
But only one had a missing report filed immediately.
Daniel leaned closer to the paper. "No investigation details," he muttered. "No suspects."
Elena noticed something else.
Lucia Bellini had co-owned several small plots of land near the vineyards.
Land that, according to the contracts in the cellar—
Was later transferred to the Moretti family.
Silently.
Quickly.
Daniel stepped back slowly.
"This wasn't just an accident," he said.
Elena looked at him, fear rising again.
"You think they planned something?"
"I think," Daniel replied carefully, "that what happened in that cellar wasn't the whole story."
The archives suddenly felt colder.
Lucia Bellini wasn't just a name on a tape.
She was real.
She had lived here.
Walked these streets.
And no one in Seravalle had spoken about her in forty years.
Which meant someone had made sure of that.
And now—
The silence was cracking.