Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO GAVE HER AWAY
At one in the morning, the Moretti mansion stopped pretending to be a home and became a place where every corridor held a question.
Most of the guests had left. Two detectives were speaking with Daniel Ortiz in the breakfast room, and a photographer was documenting the damaged crystal dish upstairs. Vanessa remained in the east guest suite with her attorney. Luca had asked her to leave the property, but she refused until he produced a formal notice concerning her belongings. The wedding, which had been scheduled for three weeks later, was no longer being discussed as a possibility.
Sophia slept in her own room with Margaret beside her. I sat in the kitchen because I couldn't bear to be upstairs while that child worried about losing another person she loved.
My bandaged hand rested on a folded towel. Across from me, Mrs. Delaney poured tea.
“You could go home,” she said.
“I know.”
“Your father would rather you were with him.”
“He'd rather I hadn't hidden a quarter-million-dollar necklace in soup.”
She gave me a tired smile. “Perhaps. But he would understand why you did it.”
My father had spent the last year recovering from spinal surgery. I'd helped pay for physical therapy, and I knew exactly how much money remained in my savings account. Losing my position frightened me. It frightened me almost as much as what Vanessa could do to Sophia.
Luca entered as I was lifting the teacup.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
I followed him into the small morning room, where winter sunlight would usually reach the blue wallpaper. Tonight the windows held only the reflection of exhausted people.
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
“You didn't hurt my hand.”
“No. But I brought Vanessa into this house, and I dismissed the way she treated the staff as differences in personality. That's on me.”
I wasn't expecting that from a man with bodyguards outside every entrance.
“I'm not asking you to forgive me tonight,” he continued. “I need you to know you won't lose your wages or housing benefits because you spoke. If you want time away, it's paid. If you want a lawyer of your own, I'll cover reasonable fees without choosing one for you.”
“Why a lawyer?”
“Because the Bellinis have one already, and I won't let you walk into an investigation unprotected.”
I studied him. “Will the lawyers be able to keep Sophia safe?”
“I'm working on that. Her school has been notified that only her established pickup list is valid. A family-services specialist is coming tomorrow to help us talk to her.”
I exhaled slowly. The word safe had been thrown around too easily that evening. Actual arrangements felt different.
“About Daniel's message,” I said. “Was it really from Vanessa?”
“He found it on a tablet synced to our household event account. The number it went to is being traced through the proper channels. The copy will go to investigators. I won't make a public accusation on the strength of one line.”
“And 'the girl'?”
“We don't know whom it means.”
A noise came from the doorway. Margaret stood there in slippers, clutching a thin album.
“I think I do,” she said.
She placed the album on the table. Inside were photographs of Caroline from infancy onward: Caroline missing her front teeth; Caroline in a school play; Caroline wearing her pearls at her wedding. On one page, an empty rectangle remained where a photograph had been taken out.
“Victoria gave me a photograph when Caroline was born,” Margaret said. “It showed Victoria holding her. I used to keep it here.”
“Where is it now?” Luca asked.
“Caroline took it when she started looking into her birth family. She said she was tired of being the person everyone made decisions about.”
I turned a page. In the photograph of Caroline's college graduation, I recognized the necklace, but the clasp was hanging at the front instead of the back. Under the silver letters V.B., Caroline had tied a blue ribbon.
“Why the ribbon?” I asked.
Margaret's eyes warmed for a moment. “She said every mystery deserved a flag.”
Then she pointed to a name handwritten beneath the photograph: Judith Mercer.
“She was Victoria's closest friend when the baby was born. A nurse. She helped arrange the adoption.”
“Is she alive?” Luca asked.
“I don't know.”
Luca picked up the album. “We can find out.”
Margaret hesitated. “There's something else. Caroline didn't simply learn that Victoria was her mother. She learned she had been listed on a trust document under a different name.”
“What name?”
“Charlotte Vale.”
Luca frowned. “Why would the Bellinis need another name?”
“Victoria's father established a trust for his descendants. Children born outside marriage were included. Someone had been collecting distributions for Charlotte Vale, even though no such child had ever lived under that name.”
“So Caroline had a legal claim,” Luca said, “and someone was receiving her money.”
Margaret nodded. “She thought it had been happening since she was a teenager.”
“What did she want to do with it?” I asked.
“Give it back to the scholarship program her grandfather intended to support. She didn't care about joining a family that had rejected her.”
I imagined Caroline discovering that her history had been hidden while strangers profited from it. I understood why she had wanted facts before confronting anyone.
“Who was her grandfather?” Luca asked.
“Edwin Bellini. He died years ago. Richard managed much of the family money after that.”
The room went quiet.
At breakfast, Margaret called the number she still had for Judith Mercer. It had been disconnected. Luca's attorney found her through a retired nurses' association, and by noon Judith agreed to meet us at a public café near her home.
Luca insisted the detectives know where we were going. I insisted on attending. The cut on my hand would heal, but I had seen Vanessa's face when Sophia told the story. That fear wasn't about an old family connection alone.
Judith arrived wearing a raincoat and carrying a canvas grocery bag. She was seventy-three, with a voice made rough by years of speaking over hospital machinery.
“When Margaret called, I knew the past had finally come,” she said.
“Tell us about Caroline,” Luca asked.
Judith folded her hands. “Victoria was nineteen when she gave birth. Her father cared more about his reputation than his grandchild. Margaret and her husband were approved adoptive parents. The papers were legal. What happened afterward wasn't.”
“Explain.”
“Edwin learned about the baby before he died. He insisted the child be recognized in his estate plan, even if her identity remained private until she chose to reveal it. He created an account labeled Charlotte Vale to shield her name. It was supposed to be held for her.”
“Who administered it?”
“Richard Bellini.”
Judith swallowed. “He told Victoria the account was empty. But Caroline showed me bank notices proving someone had been withdrawing from it for years.”
“Did you know Vanessa?” I asked.
“Yes. She was born after Richard married Victoria. She always knew there had been another child. Richard convinced her that the missing daughter was a threat to everything she'd inherit.”
Luca stared through the café window. “Did Victoria ever try to see Caroline?”
“Many times. Richard kept the letters. Eventually Victoria sent the necklace through Margaret. It was hers as a young woman. She had her initials put on it so Caroline would know she hadn't been forgotten.”
“Was Caroline told that?” Margaret asked.
“I tried to tell her. She didn't believe me until much later.”
Judith reached into her bag and produced a photocopy of an old letter. Its edges were worn from repeated folding.
It began, My darling Caroline, I cannot ask you to forgive the choice I made. I can only tell you it was mine, and that I have regretted it every day.
Margaret started crying quietly.
“This is a copy,” Judith said. “The original was supposed to go into Victoria's safe-deposit box. Richard found out about it. After that, Victoria stopped answering my calls.”
“Is she still in Chicago?” Luca asked.
“Her family says she's staying at a private residence outside the city.”
“Where?”
Judith gave him a name: Briarwood House.
When we returned to the mansion, a small padded envelope waited on the table near Luca's office. Daniel said a courier had delivered it without a return address.
Inside was the photograph missing from Margaret's album. Victoria held an infant wrapped in a yellow blanket. On the back someone had recently written a sentence in thick black marker.
YOU FOUND THE FIRST DAUGHTER.
NOW MAKE SURE YOU DON'T LOSE THE SECOND.
I read it twice before I understood what made Luca go so still.
Vanessa was Victoria's second daughter.
But Sophia was Caroline's daughter, and the only child in the house who could be used to hurt all of us at once.
Daniel's phone rang. He listened, then turned toward Luca.
“Briarwood House has no record of a Victoria Bellini living there,” he said.
Luca looked at the photograph.
“Then somebody has been lying about where she is.”
And as I watched him fold his dead wife's mother's letter, I wondered how many people had disappeared from this family without ever leaving Chicago.
May you like
Later, before leaving the café, Judith asked me to walk with her to the door. She touched the bandage on my hand without taking hold of it. "I worked with frightened young mothers for thirty years," she said. "I learned that people don't always make their worst decisions because they don't love somebody. Sometimes they make them because they're terrified, and then they spend a lifetime calling that terror love." I thought of Vanessa using Sophie's grief as an excuse to take the pearls, and I realized there were different kinds of fear. Some made people hide. Others made them try to control everyone else.
END OF CHAPTER 2
