Chapter 3
I did not sleep.
Not really.
Dr. Hayes had given me pain medication and ordered me to stay off my left leg.
Luca had ordered a guest room prepared near the library.
Clara had brought me tea.
Vanessa had vanished upstairs.
Aunt Sofia had gone to the chapel.
And somewhere beyond the estate gates, someone who called herself Elena Bellini was waiting for a key that had been hidden inside a spool of blue thread.
At 2:14 in the morning, I gave up pretending.
I pushed back the blankets.
My thigh immediately protested.
The bandage pulled tight beneath the borrowed pajama pants Clara had found for me.
I stood anyway.
Slowly.
The hallway was dark except for lamps burning low along the walls.
The Moretti estate never really slept.
Old houses made sounds.
Pipes clicked.
Wood settled.
Wind pressed against tall windows.
Tonight every sound felt like a warning.
I limped toward the library.
Light glowed beneath the door.
I knocked once.
No answer.
I opened it.
Luca sat behind the desk.
His suit jacket was gone.
His charcoal vest was unbuttoned.
White shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows.
Tattoos covered his forearms in black-and-gray lines I had never seen clearly before.
Key 318 lay beside his hand.
So did the photograph of Lucia’s grave.
And three old family albums.
He looked up.
“You should be in bed.”
“So should you.”
“I’m not injured.”
“You look injured.”
His eyes narrowed.
“That is not medically specific.”
“You look like your family hit you with a truck.”
For one second, his mouth almost moved.
Then he leaned back.
“What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Pain?”
“Questions.”
“Those are usually worse.”
I looked at the albums.
“Find anything?”
“No.”
He turned one around.
Wedding photographs.
Antonio Moretti and Lucia Bellini.
His father young and broad-shouldered.
His mother beautiful in ivory silk.
Aunt Sofia beside them.
No Elena.
No first wedding.
No older sister.
It looked like a family without a missing chapter.
“Everything was edited,” Luca said.
“What?”
“The albums.”
He opened another.
“Dates removed. Photographs missing. Pages cut out.”
He showed me thin paper fibers near the binding.
Somebody had carefully removed entire sheets.
“Your mother?”
“Maybe.”
“Your father?”
“Maybe.”
“Elena?”
“Maybe.”
I sat in the chair opposite him.
My leg throbbed.
Luca noticed.
He stood.
“Chair.”
“I’m already sitting.”
“Foot.”
“What?”
He pulled an ottoman over.
“Put your leg up.”
“I’m fine.”
“Emma.”
I obeyed.
He returned to the desk.
The silence between us felt less uncomfortable than it should have.
I studied key 318.
“Did you ever go to St. Catherine’s?”
“No.”
“Know where it is?”
“Outside Cold Spring. Closed twenty-four years ago.”
“After the fire?”
“Two years after.”
“What happened to the building?”
“Most of it was demolished.”
“Most?”
“The records annex remained.”
I remembered Sofia’s words.
Two evidence rooms.
“317 and 318.”
Luca nodded.
“Apparently.”
“Can we go?”
He stared.
“You were nearly sliced open by broken glass tonight.”
“Superficial.”
“Two stitches.”
“That barely counts.”
“It counts when they’re in your leg.”
“Can we go?”
“No.”
I folded my arms.
He looked almost amused.
“Was that supposed to intimidate me?”
“No.”
“What was it?”
“Disappointment.”
“That’s worse.”
“Good.”
He rubbed one hand across his face.
“I already sent Marco.”
I sat straighter.
“When?”
“An hour ago.”
“With the key?”
“No.”
“Then what is he doing?”
“Seeing what still exists.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were supposed to be sleeping.”
“That is becoming an excuse.”
“It has been two hours.”
My phone buzzed.
I looked down.
Unknown number.
My stomach tightened.
Luca saw.
“Don’t answer.”
It buzzed again.
A text.
EMMA, ASK LUCA WHY HIS MOTHER PAID YOUR TUITION.
I stopped breathing.
Luca stood.
“What?”
I turned the phone toward him.
His eyes sharpened.
“That’s impossible.”
“What is?”
“My mother died before you went to college.”
“I started college twelve years ago.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“She died eleven years ago.”
“So she could have paid the first year.”
Luca stared at me.
I felt cold.
“No.”
“Where did your tuition come from?”
“A scholarship.”
“What scholarship?”
“The Bellini Foundation.”
Silence.
I had not thought about the name in years.
The Bellini Foundation awarded small scholarships to students from foster care backgrounds.
I had grown up in foster homes from fourteen to eighteen after my grandmother died.
The money had covered most of my community college tuition.
Luca sat slowly.
“The Bellini Foundation belonged to my mother.”
My throat tightened.
“I didn’t know.”
“Neither did I.”
“You didn’t know your own foundation?”
“She had several charities. The Bellini Foundation was managed separately after she died.”
My phone buzzed again.
SHE CHOSE YOU BEFORE YOU EVER WORKED IN HIS HOUSE.
A third message.
ASK WHY.
Luca took my phone.
Typed one sentence.
WHO ARE YOU?
The reply came instantly.
THE WOMAN YOUR MOTHER WAS AFRAID YOU WOULD MEET.
My stomach dropped.
“My mother?”
Luca looked at me.
“What was your mother’s name?”
“I don’t know.”
His expression softened.
“You don’t know?”
“I was left at St. Agnes when I was two days old.”
He became very still.
“What?”
“I was raised by my grandmother.”
“I thought—”
“Everyone assumes she was my mother.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Almost nothing.”
“Why?”
“She said my mother was too young.”
“What was your grandmother’s name?”
I hesitated.
“Maria Conti.”
Luca frowned.
“Not Bellini.”
“No.”
My phone buzzed again.
YOUR GRANDMOTHER LIED TOO.
I stared at the message.
I suddenly felt like the room had lost air.
Luca came around the desk.
“Emma.”
I looked up.
“I don’t know who I am.”
“That isn’t true.”
“You know what I mean.”
He crouched beside my chair.
“Your name is Emma Conti.”
“Because Maria named me.”
“That does not make it less yours.”
“She lied about my mother.”
“Maybe.”
“She lied about the scholarship.”
“We don’t know that.”
“She knew the Bellini Foundation paid.”
“Probably.”
“Why?”
Luca said nothing.
I looked at the photographs.
Lucia Bellini.
Elena Bellini.
Two sisters.
One dead.
One supposedly dead.
Both connected to hidden rooms.
And somehow one of them had known about me before tonight.
“Could Elena be my mother?”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Luca’s face changed.
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Then why say no?”
“Because if she is, I want evidence before you let a stranger with a phone rewrite your life.”
That stopped me.
It was exactly what everyone else had done to him tonight.
Handed him a new family history and expected him to survive it immediately.
I looked down.
“You’re right.”
He stood.
“I hate that sentence.”
I almost smiled.
His phone rang.
Marco.
Luca answered immediately.
“What did you find?”
He listened.
His face hardened.
“Repeat that.”
I watched.
“What?”
He held up one finger.
“Don’t touch anything. I’m coming.”
He ended the call.
I lowered my leg from the ottoman.
“What happened?”
“You’re staying here.”
“What happened?”
“Marco found the annex.”
“And?”
“Room 318 is open.”
My pulse jumped.
“Without the key?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“The door was forced recently.”
“Elena?”
“Maybe.”
“What’s inside?”
He looked at me.
“Your photograph.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Dozens of photographs.”
My skin went cold.
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Starting when you were a baby.”
The room disappeared.
“No.”
“Marco says there are school pictures. Foster home records. Employment records.”
I stood too fast.
Pain shot through my thigh.
I grabbed the desk.
Luca caught my arm.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Emma.”
“If there are pictures of my childhood in that room, I’m going.”
“You can barely walk.”
“I can walk.”
“With pain.”
“I’ve done worse.”
He stared at me.
I stared back.
Then he exhaled.
“Fine.”
I blinked.
“Fine?”
“You stay beside me.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“It worked badly last time.”
“Still using it?”
“Yes.”
He picked up key 318.
Then stopped.
“Wait.”
“What?”
He turned the key over.
Under the number 318, almost invisible beneath years of grime, were initials.
Not A.M.
Not L.B.
Not E.B.
E.C.
My initials.
Emma Conti.
I stared.
“That wasn’t there before.”
“It was.”
“No.”
“It was covered.”
He rubbed the metal with his thumb.
The engraving became clearer.
E.C.
My chest tightened.
This key had been hidden before I was born.
At least that was what Sofia claimed.
Yet my initials were carved into it.
Luca looked at me.
“Either Elena knew your name before Maria gave it to you.”
“Or…”
“Or someone changed the key later.”
My phone buzzed one more time.
One message.
Before we left the library, Luca opened one of the albums again.
“Wait.”
I turned.
He had found a photograph tucked between two pages rather than glued down.
Lucia stood beside a hospital garden fountain.
She was younger.
Maybe thirty.
A woman stood several feet behind her, partially hidden by a tree.
Dark hair.
Thin face.
The photograph was blurred, but I recognized the shape immediately.
Evelyn.
My mother.
I sat back down.
“This was taken after I was born?”
Luca checked the penciled date.
“Yes.”
My throat tightened.
On the back, Lucia had written one sentence.
EVELYN SAW EMMA TODAY. MARIA DOESN’T KNOW.
I stared at it.
“She saw me.”
“Yes.”
“Before the photographs in Room 318.”
“Yes.”
I pressed my thumb against the edge of the picture.
All those years I had believed my life began with an absence.
But my mother had been near me.
Close enough to watch.
Maybe close enough to hear me laugh.
Luca did not try to make it beautiful.
He only said, “Keep that.”
I looked up.
“It’s yours.”
“No.”
He slid the photograph toward me.
“It’s yours.”
For once, I did not argue.
BRING 318 HOME, EMMA.
May you like
And beneath it:
YOUR MOTHER IS WAITING.
