Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN ON HARBOR STREET
I didn't sleep that night.
The envelope lay on my kitchen table between a mug of untouched tea and the old photograph of my father. Every creak in the house sounded like a footstep. Twice I checked the lock on the back door. Once I stood in front of the hallway mirror and tried to remember what my face had looked like before Alessia struck me.
At eight the next morning, I photographed every item from the music box, placed the originals in separate envelopes, and called Iris Chen.
She answered on the second ring. "Caitlyn Bell? Walter said you might reach out."
Her voice was brisk but not unfriendly.
"I found something about the 2005 warehouse fire. I don't want to hand it to Santino before someone independent sees it."
"Good instinct," she said. "Meet me at the foundation offices. I'll have a colleague record the intake and document where each item came from. You can decide whether to contact the police yourself."
"There's a woman's name. Nora Delaney."
Silence settled at the other end.
"Where did you hear that name?" Iris asked.
"My father wrote it on a photograph."
"Don't go looking for her alone."
"Why?"
"Because two people tried to find her last week, and one of them was working for Roberto Venturi."
I gripped the counter. "Is she alive?"
"I believe so. Come to my office. We'll talk."
Forty minutes later, I sat in a conference room that smelled of new carpet and black coffee. Iris was in her forties, with a navy suit and an expression that changed little when I explained the bruises on my face. That lack of visible pity made it easier to speak. She asked careful questions, kept my answers separate from what I'd merely assumed, and had a paralegal seal the ledger page and photograph in numbered evidence sleeves.
"This doesn't prove the full history," she said. "But it gives us a path to records that may still exist."
"I don't need my father to have been perfect," I told her. "I need people to stop calling him a murderer if he wasn't one."
"Those are different goals, and we should keep them different."
Santino arrived while we were reviewing the signature page of Alessia's transfer folder. He knocked before entering, a small courtesy I noticed more than I wanted to.
"Am I interrupting?" he asked.
"Yes," Iris said. "Sit down and don't touch anything."
To my surprise, he obeyed.
Iris pushed the proposed transfer toward him. "Your signature on the board consent is inconsistent with your verified examples. More importantly, the board never held the meeting cited in these minutes. If someone submitted this to a title company, they'd have serious problems."
"Can the center remain open?" I asked.
"For now, yes. A document labeled agreement isn't the same as a completed transfer. We're notifying the board and seeking to stop any attempted conveyance. The bigger concern is the pressure on staff and patients."
Santino looked at me. "Your mother's appointment tomorrow is confirmed."
I exhaled. "Thank you."
He didn't smile as if he'd bought my gratitude. He simply nodded.
Iris told us what she knew about Nora Delaney. In 2005, Nora had worked as a payroll clerk at the east pier. The fire had left burns on her arms and severe smoke injuries. She had given one official statement, then withdrawn it after a threatening visit to her home. Years later she had contacted a lawyer about reopening the case, only to vanish from public records.
"A nonprofit witness-support organization believes she's living in Providence," Iris said. "They won't disclose her location without permission. But I can ask whether she's willing to meet."
"The address on the photograph might be old," I said.
"It is," Iris replied. "The building has been a food pantry for eleven years."
I felt foolish for hoping an address could solve two decades of lies.
Then my phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.
GO HOME AND CHECK YOUR BACK WINDOW.
Below the words was a photograph of my kitchen, taken from outside the house before sunrise.
Santino saw my face change. "What is it?"
I showed Iris first. She saved the message and asked me not to respond. Santino read it over her shoulder, and the muscles in his jaw shifted.
"Walter can arrange a safe place for you," he said.
"I won't be locked in another rich man's house," I answered before I could stop myself.
He flinched as if I'd struck him.
"You're right," he said. "A hotel you choose, a friend you trust, or a place recommended by Iris. Security only if you ask for it."
I looked away, embarrassed by the anger in my voice. But it had come from somewhere real. All night I'd imagined one powerful family handing my future to another.
Iris called a victim-services coordinator and arranged a temporary apartment with independent staff. Walter offered to inspect my house at my request. I accepted because the photograph proved someone had been watching me, not because I wanted to owe him anything.
At noon, a detective named Evelyn Price joined us. She was tall and plainspoken, with a notebook already covered in small, disciplined handwriting. Her first question was not about Santino or the mafia.
"Caitlyn, do you feel safe giving a statement about the assault?"
"I do now."
I described Alessia grabbing my uniform, striking my face, and threatening Mom's treatment. Price asked where I had been standing, who had heard anything, and whether I'd received medical care. Walter provided a copy of the relevant library-camera footage through Iris, who documented its source. Watching myself stumble against the cabinet was strange. The girl on the screen looked terrified. I wanted to reach through the glass and tell her she would not have to kneel forever.
When the interview ended, Price studied the old photograph.
"Nora Delaney," she murmured. "I remember that name from the cold-case index."
"Can you help me find her?"
"I can make lawful inquiries. But if she's frightened, we shouldn't force an appearance."
The detective left with copies of the records. Santino stood by the window, looking across Newport's gray rooftops.
"My father made me visit Nico's grave every October," he said suddenly. "He would tell me loyalty meant never forgetting what had been taken from us. I believed him."
"Maybe he believed part of it, too."
"Maybe." He turned. "But he knew Gabriel. I watched them play cards together when I was a kid. He told me Gabriel was family. Then one night, Gabriel became a traitor. I never asked who gave him that name."
"You were fourteen," I said.
"Old enough to hate someone. Not old enough to recognize when hate was handed to me."
His honesty unsettled me. It would have been easier if he had shouted or insisted that the official story must be true. I knew how to defend myself against anger. I was less practiced at standing near someone who admitted he might have been wrong.
Late that afternoon, Iris received a call from Nora's advocate. Nora would not meet Santino, and she would not come to Newport. But she had agreed to meet me and Detective Price in the church hall beside the old pantry on Harbor Street.
"Why me?" I asked.
Iris relayed the answer. "She said your father kept a picture of you in his wallet. She wants to know whether you still have his eyes."
The following morning, I rode to Providence with Price. The church hall had peeling green paint, folding tables, and a smell of bread warming in an ancient oven. A woman sat alone beneath a window, both hands wrapped around a paper cup.
Nora Delaney was in her late sixties. Scar tissue crossed one wrist. When she saw me, she stood so abruptly that her chair scraped the floor.
"Gabriel's girl," she whispered.
I had prepared a hundred questions. Every one disappeared.
"Did he come back for you?" I asked.
She nodded. Tears filled her eyes. "Your father dragged me through a side door when the smoke turned black. I was the witness Nico had been protecting. Gabe could've saved himself. He didn't."
"Did he kill Nico?"
"No."
The answer came without hesitation.
I covered my mouth.
"He tried to reach him," Nora continued. "I heard Nico inside, calling that someone had locked the east exit. Then I heard two men arguing near the loading office. One was Roberto Venturi. The other..." She glanced at Detective Price. "The other was Vittorio Ferraro."
The room seemed to tilt.
"Santino's father?"
Nora nodded miserably.
"I kept something," she said. "Nico gave it to me before the fire. I never knew if anyone would believe it."
From a worn canvas bag she removed a small cassette recorder and an envelope of photographs.
"I made a copy for my attorney years ago," she said. "This is the original tape. Nico recorded the meeting because he was afraid neither man would keep his promise."
Price asked permission to document and collect it. Nora agreed. Before she handed it over, she pressed the play button for a few seconds.
Through a hiss of age and damaged magnetic tape, a young man's voice said, "Dad, you can't keep taking from sick people."
Then another man replied, his voice cold and unmistakably older.
"Nicholas, close the door. We are not having this conversation in front of witnesses."
Nora stopped the tape.
I stared at the recorder as if it were alive.
May you like
For twenty-one years, Santino had carried a story about my father.
Now his own father's voice had entered it.
