The Message Between the Lines

The paper felt heavy in Jessica’s hands. She read the last line again, slowly, deliberately.

“If I die, you know where to look.”

The words sat in her chest like a weight. Pasolini had known. Known he was going to die. And instead of running, instead of hiding, he had left a message for someone to find.

Jessica exhaled, turning the transcript over in her hands. There was no location. No follow-up. Just a warning. A breadcrumb. She tapped her fingers against the edge of the paper, thinking.

Then she turned to Olivia. “Pasolini’s last days. What do we have?”

Olivia was already typing. She muttered under her breath. “He was finishing Salò. He had a meeting with his publisher the morning before he died. Then, that night—”

She stopped.

Jessica frowned. “What?”

Olivia looked up. “He had dinner with a man named Furio Colombo.”

Jessica straightened.

That name was familiar. Colombo was a journalist, one of the last people to interview Pasolini. Jessica had read that interview years ago, buried in an old article. The headline had stayed with her.

“We are all in danger.”

Jessica smirked faintly. “That’s subtle.”

Olivia tapped her screen. “Colombo never named names. But Pasolini told him that night, ‘I know who they are. I have proof.’”

Jessica leaned in. “And then he died.”

Olivia nodded. “And the proof? Gone.”

Jessica exhaled. It was never a robbery. Pasolini had been murdered to silence him. And he had known it was coming. Jessica stared at the transcript.

“If I die, you know where to look.”

She exhaled. Where would Pasolini have left something?

Then it hit her. “His house.”

Olivia looked up.

Jessica nodded. “We need to go to Casa Pasolini.”

* * *

The drive was quiet, the roads slick from the rain. Jessica watched the city shift around them, old streets giving way to newer buildings, the scars of Rome’s past woven into its present.

They pulled up in front of a modest villa with white stone, iron gate, and the past clinging to its walls. Jessica stepped out of the car, the night air cool against her skin. The house had been preserved, turned into a foundation for his work. But Jessica wasn’t interested in what was on display. She was looking for what had been left behind.

They moved to the front entrance. Locked. Jessica glanced at Olivia. “I assume you didn’t book a tour.”

Olivia smirked. “I figured you’d have other plans.”

Jessica pulled out her lockpicks. It took less than thirty seconds. She pushed the door open, stepping inside.

The house was silent. Jessica moved carefully, Olivia behind her. The air smelled of old books and dust.

Pasolini’s study was on the second floor. Jessica pushed open the door. A large wooden desk. Shelves lined with books, manuscripts, old photographs. A single chair, tucked neatly beneath the desk. It was all too perfect.

Jessica surveyed the room. Everything was too orderly, too curated. Museums made ghosts polite, but something here was still breathing. Waiting. She walked to the bookshelves, running her fingers along the spines. Olivia moved to the desk, opening drawers carefully.

Jessica scanned the titles. Most were literature, philosophy, or history. Then, her fingers stopped. A book had been moved recently, its spine sticking out further than the rest. Jessica pulled it free. Dante’s Inferno.

She flipped through the pages and found a single piece of folded paper, tucked between the cantos. Jessica carefully unfolded it. It was a handwritten note. Pasolini’s last message.

Jessica scanned the words, her pulse picking up.

“It isn’t a theory. It isn’t a metaphor. The cycle repeats, over and over. The faces change, but the hands remain the same.”

Jessica exhaled sharply. She turned the paper over. A single address was written there. Jessica stared at the address, a shiver moving beneath her skin. It wasn’t just the address that made her skin crawl, but the words written beneath it, There was one final line.

“They do not sleep. They do not stop. They will not let it end.”

This wasn’t just a location. It was a decision point. A door, and once it opened, nothing would go back to the way it was.

Jessica’s grip on the page tightened. She looked at Olivia, “I think we just found where we’re going next.”