Chapter 3 - CLAIRE MARTIN'S SECOND ADDRESS
I had never heard a living person sound so frightened of being found.
Claire's voicemail ended with a rush of static and the faint sound of a train crossing. I replayed it once for Detective Shaw and then set my phone facedown on the hospital cafeteria table.
Luca sat across from me, staring at a cup of coffee he hadn't touched.
“Someone using Elena's name,” he said. “What does that even mean?”
“We don't know,” Shaw answered. “A name on a message isn't proof of identity. Neither is a photograph from twelve years ago.”
“Then find Claire.”
“We are working on it.”
He leaned forward. “I can put a hundred people on this.”
“You can also frighten a witness who may already believe your family is dangerous.”
Luca looked as if he might argue. Instead, he sat back and covered his face with one hand. I had begun to understand how rarely anyone told him no. I was starting to understand, too, that he wasn't always right when he wanted to help.
“Claire trusted me once,” I said. “Maybe she'll answer if I leave a message.”
Shaw nodded. “Keep it simple. Do not arrange a private meeting without letting us know.”
I recorded a message in my own voice. I told Claire I'd found her note, that I was safe at the hospital, and that she hadn't imagined the danger at the estate. I didn't mention the storage locker or the tape.
An hour later she replied with three words: THE BLUE DINER.
There were a dozen blue diners in the Chicago area. The detective didn't guess. She asked the telephone company to help identify the general region of the call with the appropriate legal process while I sent one more message asking Claire to name a street. She finally replied: OGDEN. 2 PM. BRING POLICE.
At the diner the next afternoon, snow slid slowly down the windows. The waitress carried steaming plates past booths with cracked vinyl seats. I spotted Claire immediately, though she looked so different I almost walked past her.
She'd cut her hair to her chin and dyed it a flat brown. Her once-bright green coat was gone, replaced by a shapeless blue parka. She kept one hand wrapped around a paper cup as though she needed to hold something to keep from running.
“Emily,” she whispered.
I sat beside her. Detective Shaw took the chair across from us. Luca remained outside with Andrea and a uniformed officer because Claire had specifically requested he not enter until she decided whether she wanted to speak with him.
“You're alive,” I said.
Claire gave a tired smile. “So far.”
“Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?”
“I didn't want you to follow.”
The words hurt even though I knew she hadn't meant them cruelly. For months I had wondered whether something terrible had happened. I had treated her sudden absence as another strange rule of the house because I was afraid to ask.
Claire set a photograph on the table. It showed a middle-aged woman standing outside a credit union in Milwaukee. The woman wore a wool hat and dark glasses.
“This person called herself Elena Rossetti,” Claire said. “She told me she'd worked for the Morettis and wanted to correct an old mistake. She offered me money to sign a statement saying Luca knew about the shipment before the fire.”
“Did you sign?” Shaw asked.
“No. I knew nothing about the fire, and I wasn't going to lie. Afterward she left a package at my apartment with a photograph of the vase and a warning to keep quiet.”
I felt the muscles in my back tighten beneath the stitches.
“Did you see her clearly?”
“Only for a minute. But I knew something was wrong. I had a copy of an older staff photograph showing the real Elena. That woman had a noticeable scar near her right eyebrow. The woman in Milwaukee didn't.”
Shaw wrote something down. “Scars can heal or be covered. What else?”
“She got simple facts wrong. She said Elena worked on the third floor. The mansion didn't have a third floor when Elena was employed there. I found old renovation plans.”
“Why was she interested in you?”
“Because I had found payroll files from twelve years ago. Vanessa asked me to digitize them. One folder had been moved into the archive under a different name.”
Claire reached into her handbag and took out a folded photocopy. I recognized the Moretti crest at once.
The document recorded a payment to a freight consultancy on the morning Nico died. The recipient was a business called Bellini Maritime Services. Beside it appeared an authorization number assigned to Antonio Moretti's office, but the signature field was blank.
“It doesn't prove a crime,” Claire said quickly. “I know that. But somebody created another version of the document with Elena's signature. I saw both versions. Then the originals disappeared.”
“Did you copy them?” Shaw asked.
“One page. I was scared. I thought one page would be enough to make someone listen.”
I knew that feeling. I had thought a single note and a broken vase might compel people to do the right thing. I hadn't understood how much work truth required after someone finally heard it.
“Who gave you the vase warning?” I asked.
Claire looked into her coffee. “An elderly caretaker named Mrs. Ferris. She told me the porcelain had a compartment and that Elena had asked Antonio to keep something there. Mrs. Ferris died last winter. I wrote the note for you because you were the only person I thought might look.”
“Why not tell Luca?”
“Vanessa controlled who could get near him. Every message I sent went through her office. Then my bank account was frozen after a complaint from a company I'd never heard of. My landlord was told I was involved in theft. I panicked and left.”
She looked at my bandaged wrist. “And you paid for my panic.”
“No,” I said. “Richard did that. Vanessa helped.”
Claire began crying quietly. The waitress brought extra napkins and pretended not to notice. For a few minutes we let her cry.
When she felt steady enough, she agreed to speak to Luca. I stepped outside to fetch him. He stood near his car, looking past the traffic as though seeing another street and another year.
“She wants to talk,” I told him. “But she'll tell you when she needs a break.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
He looked at me, surprised.
“People are afraid of your name,” I said. “Sometimes even when you're trying to protect them.”
He didn't deny it. “I know. I just didn't know how much.”
Inside, Claire explained the payroll records again. Luca didn't interrupt. When she finished, he asked why she hadn't come straight to him. She stared at him until he looked away.
“Because your fiancée fired me,” she said, “and the man who drove me off the property told me you'd approved it.”
“Who drove you?”
“Victor Sloane.”
Luca's face hardened. “He was my father's financial adviser.”
“He said if I came back I'd be prosecuted for stealing.”
Shaw asked Claire whether she could identify him in a photograph and whether she would give a formal statement. Claire agreed, provided she could speak with a lawyer first.
I saw Luca's phone light up. He read the screen and went still.
“What's wrong?” I asked.
“Victor requested access to my father's estate documents this morning. He says he needs them for the wedding settlement.”
“Your wedding?” Claire asked.
“I haven't canceled it publicly yet.”
Claire looked at him as if he'd confessed to something unbelievable.
“I have,” he said suddenly. “I'm going to.”
Outside the diner, the afternoon was turning dark. A bus hissed to a stop. Someone laughed across the street. The city kept moving while my world tilted toward an older crime.
On the way back, I received a call from my mother. She said a polite man had visited the apartment building, asking whether I was staying there and whether her insurance was current. He'd claimed he was from a medical benefits office but refused to leave a card.
I reported it immediately. The detective asked my mother to write down his description and not admit strangers.
Luca offered to move us both into one of his properties.
“No,” I told him. “My mother has neighbors who know her and people she trusts. I won't uproot her because your fiancée's father wants me frightened.”
He nodded. “Then tell me what would help.”
“Pay what you owe me. Give me my employment records. And let the police do their work.”
“I can do that.”
That night, Claire sent a final photograph. This one showed a man leaving the Moretti estate with a briefcase and a box of files, dated the morning after Nico's death.
It was Victor Sloane.
On the box, written in thick black marker, were two words:
ELENA ORIGINALS.
May you like
The real question wasn't whether Elena had betrayed Luca.
It was who had profited from making him believe she had.
