Chapter 1
TRE QUARTI: CRANBERRY GLADES
Chapter One
Dreams in the Cranberry Fog
Aries
Dessert: Cranberry Orange Cake
Song: “Dreams” by The Cranberries
Crime: Missing-person cases connected to Cranberry Wilderness and Cranberry Glades
Scripture:
For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.
Luke 12:2
Five-Card Tre Quarti Tarot Spread
Bellucci: The Emperor
Caronna: The High Priestess
Toma: Strength
Fazio: Justice
Ritornello: The Hermit
Bellucci: The Emperor
CrimeCon 2026 in Las Vegas did not smell like New Orleans.
That was the first thing Vinny Bellucci noticed.
New Orleans had river damp, old brick, powdered sugar, black iron balconies, pralines cooling on wax paper, and secrets that knew how to dress for church.
Las Vegas had casino smoke, perfume, carpet, cold air, and lights loud enough to argue with God.
Vinny stood near the back of the conference room with his arms folded, watching the crowd before he watched the stage. Podcasters, retired detectives, true-crime fans, grieving families, YouTubers, authors, courthouse watchers, and people who wanted to stand close to tragedy without getting their hands dirty.
He did not like rooms like this.
Too many people talking about the dead like the dead were content.
Valeri Caronna sat beside him, quiet, composed, her badge resting against her chest. She had already noticed the dessert table near the side wall. Somebody had set out slices of cranberry orange cake with glaze shining across the top.
Cranberry.
Orange.
Aries.
A first spark dressed up as something sweet.
Vinny’s cousin Benny Fazio leaned forward in the row ahead, elbows on his knees, listening before there was anything worth hearing. Giovanni sat near him, polished and watchful, with Angelique beside him.
Angelique had history in the room whether anybody said it or not.
She was the girl Vinny had taken to prom years ago.
Now she was with Giovanni.
That was not scandal in this circle. That was history that had grown legs and walked into a new chapter.
Jonathan Toma stood off to the side instead of sitting. Christian. Boxer. Coach. Jersey iron in a tailored shirt. He looked like a man who could pray before breakfast, train fighters by lunch, and put a threat through a wall by dinner if forced.
Zero Fico had his laptop open already.
Because if missing people left digital shadows, Zero intended to find the footprints.
The speaker stepped onto the platform.
Derrick LeVasseur.
Jonathan Toma lifted his chin once.
“I know him,” Jonathan said low.
Vinny looked over.
“From where?”
“True-crime circles. Law enforcement people. Gym charity event once. Good man. Sharp. Doesn’t waste words.”
Vinny turned back toward the stage.
“Then we listen.”
Derrick adjusted the microphone.
Behind him, a map filled the screen.
Cranberry Wilderness.
Cranberry Glades.
Monongahela National Forest.
West Virginia.
The room quieted.
Derrick began.
“This case is not about one missing person,” he said. “It starts with one, but it does not end there.”
The screen changed.
Michael Hugh Camilletti.
Retired Army. Experienced. Planned hike. Vehicle found. Man gone.
No body.
No clean answer.
No final page.
Vinny did not move.
But Valeri felt the air shift around him.
The Emperor had entered the room.
Caronna: The High Priestess
Valeri opened her notebook.
She wrote one sentence before she understood why.
The woods kept the receipt.
She stared at the words.
That was how it happened sometimes. Not dramatic. Not theatrical. No thunderclap. No curtain lifting. Just a sentence arriving with muddy shoes.
Derrick clicked to the next slide.
Trail maps.
Search areas.
Williams River Road.
North-South Trail.
Dense terrain.
Intersecting routes.
Wilderness large enough to humble a trained man and silent enough to swallow his name.
Derrick spoke carefully.
“Experienced people can disappear in wilderness. Injury, weather, disorientation, exposure. That happens. Search and rescue teams do hard work in difficult conditions. I want to be clear about that.”
He paused.
“What bothers me is the pattern.”
There it was.
The word Vinny had been waiting for.
Pattern.
Valeri looked down at the cranberry orange cake again.
The cranberries sat inside the golden sponge like red warnings in soft bread. Tart buried inside sweet. A wound disguised as dessert.
She wrote again.
Not all lost men are lost.
Derrick continued.
“When records do not align, when maps shift, when witnesses remember things that never enter the final reports, when families keep asking questions for years and receive silence, you do not have closure. You have a door somebody refuses to open.”
Zero Fico’s fingers moved across his keyboard.
He was not supposed to be hacking anything in a CrimeCon ballroom.
He was absolutely preparing to hack something later.
Valeri did not even have to ask.
Angelique leaned closer to Giovanni.
“That family,” she whispered. “The one that kept calling every year. Did he say they still live nearby?”
Giovanni’s hand covered hers briefly.
“We’ll find out.”
That one sentence made Vinny glance over.
Not because he was jealous.
Not because the past had teeth.
Because Giovanni had said we.
That meant he was already in.
And if Giovanni was in, Angelique was already close to the flame.
Toma: Strength
Jonathan Toma did not like the way people talked about wilderness.
He had trained fighters long enough to know the difference between fear and respect. Fear made people stupid. Respect kept them alive.
The Cranberry Wilderness deserved respect.
Not ghost stories.
Not internet theories.
Respect.
He watched Derrick move through his slides with discipline. No cheap theatrics. No carnival voice. No lazy accusation. Just maps, timelines, missing-person reports, terrain, weather, and inconsistencies.
Jonathan respected that.
A man who built his case one fact at a time was harder to knock down.
Derrick pointed to one section of the map.
“This region is not easy. Dense deadfall. Remote areas. Trail confusion. Weather changes. But again, we are not only talking about one person making one mistake. We are talking about multiple cases that create questions.”
Benny Fazio leaned back and muttered, “Questions are expensive.”
Vinny heard him.
“Answers cost more.”
Jonathan’s mouth tightened.
That sounded true.
As a Christian, he believed the truth mattered.
As a boxer, he believed the body told the truth before the mouth did.
As a coach, he knew people gave themselves away under pressure.
Somebody in these records had been under pressure.
Somebody had lied.
Somebody had stayed quiet too long.
Derrick ended the section with a photograph of the Cranberry Glades boardwalk.
A wooden path through wetland.
Fog sitting low.
Red growth.
Spruce.
Water.
Beauty with a locked jaw.
Jonathan crossed his arms.
“I don’t like that place,” he said.
Valeri looked at him.
“You haven’t been there.”
“I know.”
Vinny said, “That’s why you don’t like it.”
Fazio: Justice
When the panel ended, the crowd broke apart into noise.
People stood. Phones came out. Photos were taken. Business cards changed hands. A woman cried quietly near the aisle while another person asked a podcaster for a selfie two feet away from her.
Vinny hated that.
He moved before the room swallowed Derrick.
Jonathan reached him first.
“Derrick.”
Derrick turned.
Recognition warmed his face.
“Jonathan Toma.”
They shook hands hard, the kind of handshake between men who had already measured each other and found no immediate reason for insult.
“What are you doing here?” Derrick asked.
Jonathan nodded toward Vinny.
“With him.”
Derrick looked at Vinny.
The room seemed to pull back an inch.
Jonathan said, “Vinny Bellucci.”
Derrick understood the name without needing a lecture.
Vinny said, “Good presentation.”
Derrick studied him.
“Thank you.”
“You have more.”
Derrick did not answer quickly enough.
Benny Fazio smiled.
That smile was all teeth and no joke.
“He has more.”
Derrick looked from Vinny to Jonathan, then to Valeri, Giovanni, Angelique, Benny, and Zero.
“This is not a hallway conversation.”
Vinny said, “Then pick a room.”
Zero lifted one finger without looking up from his laptop.
“I already found a private conference room empty for the next forty minutes.”
Everyone looked at him.
Zero shrugged.
“What? You said we needed a hacker.”
Giovanni almost smiled.
Angelique did smile, but only for a second.
Benny said, “I like him.”
Vinny gave Zero one look.
“Don’t make me regret liking you.”
Zero closed his laptop halfway.
“Too late. I’m charming.”
They moved.
The private room was smaller, colder, and quieter. No stage. No crowd. No performance.
Derrick placed his folder on the table.
“These are not accusations,” he said. “They’re questions.”
Vinny sat at the head without asking permission.
“Questions are fine.”
Benny sat to his right.
Giovanni and Angelique took the other side.
Jonathan remained standing.
Valeri sat near Vinny, notebook open.
Zero plugged in his charger.
Derrick opened the folder.
“Missing hikers. A retired Army man. Strange witness statements. Search maps that do not match family accounts. Old land transfers. Trail-access confusion. People near the road who were not dressed for hiking. Records that exist in one archive and disappear in another.”
The word records made Giovanni’s eyes sharpen.
The word land made Vinny’s face still.
The word disappear made Ritornello wake up in the room even before anyone named it.
Benny tapped the folder.
“Any New Jersey connection?”
Derrick hesitated.
Jonathan caught it.
“There is.”
Derrick exhaled.
“Possibly. Not direct yet. But some of the shell companies tied to land near access routes have mailing histories that bounce through Pennsylvania, Jersey, and New York.”
Benny looked at Vinny.
“There it is.”
Vinny nodded once.
The Fazio card turned in Valeri’s mind.
Justice.
Bloodline.
Cousin.
Family backup.
Not an outsider.
Benny was not there by accident.
He was Vinny’s cousin, and family heard danger in a room before strangers heard facts.
Ritornello: The Hermit
By nightfall, Las Vegas was still screaming.
The Strip flashed below the hotel window in electric pinks, blues, and golds. Casinos pulsed. Elevators chimed. People laughed too loudly. Money moved through machines. Somewhere below, somebody was winning enough to lose worse later.
Inside the suite, the Tre Quarti war room had begun.
Derrick’s files were spread across the table.
Zero Fico worked three screens.
Giovanni tracked land records.
Benny called someone in New York.
Jonathan called someone in Jersey.
Angelique sat with a printed photo of Cranberry Glades in her lap, touching the edge of the paper like the fog had made her cold.
Valeri placed five cards across the table.
Bellucci: The Emperor.
Caronna: The High Priestess.
Toma: Strength.
Fazio: Justice.
Ritornello: The Hermit.
Vinny stood behind her.
“Tell me.”
Valeri touched the first card.
“The Emperor says you take control.”
She touched the second.
“The High Priestess says the truth is hidden under what people think they know.”
The third.
“Strength says Jonathan is not just muscle. He is discipline. Faith. A controlled fighter. That matters in a wilderness case.”
Jonathan bowed his head slightly.
The fourth.
“Justice says Benny is family and the records matter. False paperwork. Wrong maps. Missing reports. Somebody used systems to bury something.”
Benny’s voice went quiet.
“I hate paperwork crimes.”
Giovanni looked at him.
“Because they’re boring?”
“No,” Benny said. “Because they last.”
Valeri touched the final card.
“The Hermit is Ritornello. Old debt. Cold case. Memory. The past walking back with a lantern.”
Derrick leaned against the wall, arms folded.
“That’s exactly what these families feel like. They’re still waiting.”
Vinny looked at the spread.
Then at the files.
Then at the photo of the Cranberry Glades boardwalk.
“What do the Jersey families say?”
Jonathan answered first.
“Toma watches the field.”
Giovanni said, “Passaggio watches movement.”
Zero added, “Falsetto watches media, false names, public records, and whatever somebody tried to make look prettier than it is.”
Benny said, “Mezzo watches who sits at what table.”
Valeri looked at the last card.
“And Ritornello remembers.”
The room went quiet.
From somewhere below, through glass and steel and all that Las Vegas noise, a song drifted up from a casino lounge.
“Dreams.”
The Cranberries.
Valeri looked at Vinny.
Vinny heard it too.
Of course he did.
He did not smile.
He looked at Derrick.
“West Virginia.”
Derrick nodded.
“Cranberry Glades.”
Vinny picked up the photo of the boardwalk.
“The woods didn’t make these people disappear.”
No one spoke.
Vinny set the photo down.
“People did.”
Prayer
Lord, walk before us into every wilderness we do not understand.
Guide Vinny, Valeri, Benny, Giovanni, Angelique, Jonathan, Zero, and Derrick as they follow the truth into Cranberry Glades.
Protect the families who have waited for answers. Strengthen every honest witness. Expose every false record, every hidden road, every buried crime, and every person who used silence as a weapon.
Let the lost be remembered.
Let the guilty be revealed.
Let justice find its way through fog, forest, money, and fear.
Amen.
