The Journalist Who Died Twice

The café sat at the edge of the harbor, where the salt air tangled with the scent of espresso and cigarette smoke. The morning light slanted across the worn stone streets, painting them in gold, but Jessica wasn’t looking at the view.

She was looking at the newspaper clipping in front of her. A brittle, yellowing page, tucked inside the cover of an old novel she’d found in a secondhand bookshop two nights ago. It was the last thing a journalist ever wrote. It had never been published.

Jessica ran her thumb over the rough paper, scanning the words again, even though she already knew them by heart.

“The truth is buried in the spaces between the headlines. Look past the official story, and you will find what they don’t want you to see.”

The byline: Marco Bellanti.

She tapped the name with her nail, her jaw tightening. She had spent the last days reading everything he’d ever written. Bellanti had been the kind of journalist people either admired or wanted dead. Investigative, relentless, the kind who pushed too far.

Five years ago, he had been found floating facedown in the Ligurian Sea. Drowned. No signs of struggle. The official cause: suicide. Case closed. Except Jessica didn’t believe in coincidences.

And this article—this unfinished story, never printed, never spoken of again—was proof that he had died for a reason. The only question was: What had he been about to expose?

Jessica glanced up, scanning the café. It was quiet this early, just a handful of locals drinking their coffee, flipping through the morning papers, exchanging quiet conversation in Italian.

She was alone here. No backup. No Leanna. No Olivia. No Sam. And for the first time in a long time, that didn’t bother her. Because this wasn’t their fight. This was hers.

She folded the newspaper carefully, tucking it inside her leather jacket. It was time to start digging.

* * *

Bellanti’s last known whereabouts were just a few blocks from here. A small apartment above a bookshop. It was the kind of place where people disappeared into research and forgot to come up for air.

Jessica took the back streets, walking slowly, her hands in her pockets. The cobblestones were damp from last night’s rain, the scent of sea spray thick in the air. She passed an old woman sweeping her doorstep, a young man carrying fresh bread from the bakery, and a priest unlocking the doors to a small chapel. They went on with their ‘Normal life’ unaware that a journalist had died on these same streets for asking the wrong questions.

Jessica reached the bookshop, its wooden sign faded, but still legible. The shutters were open, the scent of old paper drifting out onto the street. Inside, a man in his late sixties was stacking books behind the counter. He had a face carved from years of patience. He was the kind of man who had seen too much and spoke too little.

Jessica approached, sliding a photo onto the counter. It was an old, grainy image of Bellanti sitting at this very counter, a cigarette in hand, lost in thought.

The bookseller barely glanced at it, “I don’t remember him,” he said in Italian.

Jessica smirked. The lie was too quick. She tilted her head, tapping the photo. “That’s funny,” she said in Italian, smooth and conversational. “Because this picture was taken here.”

The bookseller stilled. Jessica didn’t press. Not yet. She just waited. And after a long moment, he sighed, “…He was here,” he admitted, voice quiet. “For weeks. Reading, writing. Asking questions.”

Jessica nodded. “What kind of questions?”

The bookseller hesitated. Then, finally, “Questions that got him killed.”

Jessica pulled the folded newspaper from her jacket, sliding it across the counter. “I found this,” she said. “Hidden inside a book. He wrote it before he died.”

The bookseller stared at the paper, his expression unreadable. Jessica leaned in slightly. “What was he working on?”

For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then, quietly, like a man who knew he was saying something dangerous, he murmured: “He was chasing a ghost.”

Jessica frowned. “A ghost?”

The bookseller swallowed. “A man who shouldn’t have existed. Someone powerful. Someone whose name had been erased.”

Jessica’s pulse quickened. “And he found him?”

The bookseller held her gaze, “No,” he said. “He found a body.”