Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE ON WILLOW ROAD
The following morning, my mother arrived at the hospital carrying a paper bag of sandwiches and her stubbornness. She moved carefully with her cane, but she had insisted on taking a cab because Mrs. Carter had told her I was hurt. The moment she saw the stitches beneath my hospital gown, she put down the bag and cupped my face.
"You told me it was an accident," she said.
"I told you there was an accident."
"Hannah Collins, I raised you. Don't try to hide behind grammar."
I explained what happened, though I left out some of the blood and every detail I knew would make her afraid to sleep. She listened without interrupting. When I described Teresa hearing Antonio's voice from the hidden speaker, Mom closed her eyes.
"That poor woman," she murmured. "Knowing a voice your whole life, then being told you can't trust your own ears."
My mother had worked as a library assistant for almost thirty years. She believed words could harm people just as thoroughly as fists. As a girl, I'd watched her correct local officials who spoke over elderly patrons as if age made them children. It was one of the reasons I had been unable to walk away from Teresa.
"I don't want you back in that house," she said finally.
"Neither do I. Not yet."
That distinction mattered to me. I did not want Vanessa deciding whether I remained employed, but I also did not want fear to determine every step I took. I had information Teresa needed. Still, I promised my mother I would not go near the estate without a plan, legal advice, and a healed leg.
That afternoon Luca sent an attorney named Miriam Sloane to see me. She was in her forties, with a tired face and a calm manner, and the first thing she said was that she did not represent me. She represented Luca personally. If I wanted independent advice, she would supply the names of attorneys who handled workplace injuries and witness protection concerns.
"I appreciate you saying that," I told her.
"People in your position aren't always told whose interests are being protected," she replied. "I don't want to repeat that mistake."
Miriam asked permission to record my recollection. I described the voice behind the photograph, the green light, Vanessa pushing me toward the serving trolley, and Michael blocking my path to Luca's study. She asked which things I'd witnessed and which things I'd only been told. At first the distinction frustrated me; everything felt part of the same terror. Then I understood why she was careful. If we exaggerated one detail, Michael could use the error to discredit the rest.
"There was a man in a gray coat at the mansion," I said. "And a text from an unknown number afterward. I can't prove they're connected."
"Good," Miriam said. "We won't say they are until we can."
She showed me a photograph of the Wisconsin property. A farmhouse stood at the end of a long gravel drive, surrounded by bare trees. The address was 18 Willow Road, near a town I had never heard of.
"Who owns it?" I asked.
"A limited-liability company formed eighteen months ago. The registration lists a service address in Chicago. We're still tracing the owners."
"Would Teresa have had a phone?"
"The documents list it as a private convalescent retreat. There's no indication anyone asked her whether she wanted to go."
I studied the building. Every window was dark. A separate structure stood beside the barn; its white doors reminded me of an ambulance garage. I imagined Teresa there with her blue blanket, telling strangers she wanted to call her son while they insisted that Luca had agreed to everything.
"Please tell him she didn't know," I said.
"I will."
Back at the Moretti estate, according to Miriam, Luca had asked his mother to choose where she wanted to sleep and which people she wanted near her. Teresa reclaimed her bedroom. Mrs. Carter and another longtime employee moved her books back. A geriatric specialist unaffiliated with Michael's doctor had scheduled an assessment, but only after speaking to Teresa about what she wanted to understand and what care she would accept. The hidden speaker was sealed as evidence, its electronic records preserved by an outside examiner.
It should have felt like the emergency had passed. It didn't.
At four o'clock Luca called me from his study. His voice sounded hoarse, as if he hadn't slept.
"My mother wants to know whether you're safe," he said.
"I'm with Mom. I'm all right."
"Good. Daniel learned something about Willow Road. It's owned through a company that received money from an account Dad opened twenty-six years ago."
"Does that mean Michael owns it?"
"Not necessarily. But Michael had signing authority on that account for the last four years."
"After Antonio died?"
"Yes."
I heard him exhale. "I spent those years assuming Dad's private estate was settled. I let Michael handle records because he liked paperwork and I didn't. Mother asked me questions more than once. I told her Michael knew what he was doing."
"You didn't know about the speaker," I said.
"No. But I made it easy for him to stop answering questions."
He sounded so tired that I almost tried to comfort him. Then I remembered Teresa being moved to a narrow daybed beside the laundry while Luca traveled, and I decided he needed to sit with the discomfort.
"She tried to tell you she was unhappy," I said.
"I know."
"You were the person she trusted most."
"I know that too."
We sat in silence. I was surprised to find that he didn't argue. In the stories staff told about Luca Moretti, everyone said the same thing: he never admitted weakness. But perhaps a son confronting his own failure was different from a boss guarding his reputation.
That evening Teresa called me herself. She asked if my mother liked gardenias. We talked about flowers for a few minutes, and then she said she had something she needed to confess.
"Four months ago Michael asked me about an envelope Antonio kept in a locked drawer. I told him I'd burned it."
"Had you?"
"No."
I waited.
"My husband wrote letters when something troubled him. Not love letters. Explanations. He would put them away until he knew how to say the words out loud. Michael wanted the last letter he wrote. I thought it was because he missed his father. But when I told him I couldn't remember where it was, he grabbed my wrist."
My stomach tightened. "Did you tell Luca?"
"I told him Michael was behaving strangely. Luca said his brother was grieving. I didn't tell him about the wrist."
"Where is the letter now?"
She gave a small, almost mischievous laugh. "Somewhere Antonio would have found very funny. I just can't fetch it by myself."
"Teresa, you don't have to fetch anything tonight," I said. "Please tell Luca and Miriam first."
"I will. But you must understand something. Antonio made me promise that if anybody used the past to frighten me, I should remember the blue thread."
"The blue thread?"
"That's what he called it. I don't know why. He said it would lead us to the truth."
After we hung up, I wrote the phrase in my notebook. BLUE THREAD. I did not know whether it referred to a letter, a bank account, or an old family joke. But the sound of Teresa's voice had changed when she said it. For the first time, she sounded like a woman holding a secret instead of one being used against her.
The next day I was discharged with wound-care instructions and strict limits on walking. Mom stayed with me in our small apartment. By lunchtime Daniel called. His people had found the transport driver's statement, obtained with help from the police. He had been told Teresa was confused, that her family wanted her moved discreetly, and that an accompanying aide named Hannah would prevent resistance. When he asked to see authorization, he received a document with a signature supposedly belonging to Teresa.
"It's not hers," I said before Daniel finished.
"An examiner will have to establish that. But there's another problem. The driver was instructed not to use the main entrance at Willow Road. He was told to go through the barn."
I pictured those white doors again. "Why?"
"He doesn't know. He thought it was a private medical entrance."
Late in the afternoon, I heard someone knock at our apartment door. Mom was asleep on the couch. I looked through the peephole and saw a woman with a knitted cap pulled low over her hair. She held a brown envelope with both hands.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"My name is Lorna Pike. I used to work for Dr. Whitmore. I need to talk about Mrs. Moretti."
My heart jumped. Whitmore was the doctor whose assessment Michael and Vanessa had used to claim Teresa couldn't make her own decisions.
I kept the chain fastened. "How did you get my address?"
"Your name was in the packet they prepared. I am sorry. I know that sounds frightening. But I found an attachment on a discarded printer queue, and it has a photograph of you."
"Please leave it outside and step away," I said. "I have someone who can retrieve it."
The woman looked as though she might protest. Instead she placed the envelope on the floor and backed toward the stairs. I called Daniel, who arranged for a local officer to collect it with me. Inside were copied scheduling records from Whitmore's clinic and a note written in careful block letters: I NEVER EXAMINED TERESA. NEITHER DID HE.
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Beneath the note lay a photograph of Antonio Moretti at Willow Road, taken five years earlier. He stood beside a woman I recognized immediately from Teresa's old family albums.
It was Luca and Michael's estranged sister, Gianna.
