Chapter 4 - THE IDENTITY THEY BORROWED
The photograph on the historical society's screen showed me standing in the staff kitchen, wearing my black-and-white uniform. It had been taken for my Moretti employment badge, which hung on a hook beside the laundry room whenever I was off duty.
“That's my picture,” I said. “But I didn't send that request.”
The archivist, a careful woman named Adele Price, looked troubled. “The email came from a domain similar to the mansion's official address. The signature said you were authorized by the family.”
Iris leaned toward the monitor without touching it. “Please preserve the email with its full headers and the access logs. And don't release the envelope to anyone while we investigate the request.”
Adele nodded. “We have a process for suspected impersonation.”
I was suddenly aware of my bandaged hand, of the story spreading through service staff that I'd put pearls in a bowl of soup. Someone had chosen me for a reason. If the letter disappeared, it would look as though the maid who damaged an heirloom had taken the papers too.
“Can they accuse me of stealing?” I asked when we reached the parking lot.
“Anyone can make an accusation,” Iris said. “It doesn't make it true. We'll document where you were and how the request was made.”
She did not promise that a powerful man's lawyer could erase consequences with a phone call. I liked her better for that.
Back at the mansion, Daniel compared the request with employee badge records. My image had been accessed from Vanessa's event office the morning after the engagement dinner. That access alone did not identify the person who sent the email, but it told us where the picture had come from.
“Can we stop employees' files being copied?” I asked.
Daniel looked embarrassed. “We should have limited that access long ago.”
Iris instructed the staff to preserve the event-office computer without searching it themselves. An independent digital specialist would make a documented copy, and relevant information would be provided through counsel to investigators. Luca nodded as she explained why shortcuts could ruin evidence.
“Then no shortcuts,” he said.
While they worked, I phoned my mother. She had heard rumors about the engagement ending and wanted to know whether I still had a job. I could hear my father in the background insisting she ask about my stitches first.
“I'm safe,” I said. “But somebody used my staff picture to send an email.”
My mother went quiet. “The kind of email that causes trouble?”
“Maybe.”
“You can come home. We'll manage the mortgage somehow.”
I thought of the bills stacked beside their refrigerator, the carefully measured groceries, the way my father's hands trembled when he tried to lace his boots after surgery.
“I know I can,” I said. “But I want to finish what I started. Sophia deserves to know nobody can take her mother's things just because they're older and richer.”
“Then come home for supper,” she answered. “People do better thinking with food in them.”
That evening, I left the mansion for the first time in days. Mrs. Alvarez drove me to my parents' apartment. My father had prepared stew, leaning one hip against the counter while he stirred it. He moved slowly but with great satisfaction.
“I spoke to Pietro,” he announced. “That jeweler has better memory than I do. He says the old commission book might lead to a storage account at Willow Harbor.”
I told him about the false request. He listened without interrupting.
“Your name is on it,” he said at last, “but that doesn't mean your hands made it.”
He looked at my fresh bandage, then added, “You've got proof of what your hands were busy doing that night.”
It was a simple observation, but it steadied me. My injury had been photographed at the hospital before the forged email was sent. I had time-stamped discharge papers. Mrs. Alvarez could confirm where I was. None of this proved the identity of the imposter, but it made a fabricated story harder to sustain.
After dinner, I returned to the mansion for a short meeting with Margaret Bennett, who had been discharged from rehabilitation to her own apartment. Luca had arranged transportation because Sophia had asked to see her grandmother. Margaret arrived holding a battered leather handbag and a folded cardigan.
At first I thought she might be angry about the pearls. Instead she took my uninjured hand.
“Sophia tells me you defended her,” she said. “Thank you.”
“I wish I'd found a better way.”
“You found a way while everyone else was arguing.” Her smile faded. “Now we have to find a better one.”
We sat in the conservatory with Luca and Iris. Sophia was upstairs with her tutor, who had been told only that the adults were sorting out family paperwork. Margaret accepted tea, then placed a thick envelope on the table.
“Caroline asked me to keep this until Sophia was old enough to understand it,” she said. “I didn't think I'd need to open it so soon.”
Inside were photographs of a young Victoria holding a baby, documents from Caroline's adoption and a letter written by Caroline four years earlier. Margaret read the letter aloud.
Mom, it began, if anybody comes for the necklace, don't let them tell Sophia it is a price tag for her place in this family. It's proof that someone once wanted me to have a future. The truth about Victoria is complicated, but your love never was.
Luca bowed his head. I looked away to give him a moment.
Margaret continued. Caroline had known about Rebecca. She believed Rebecca had discovered false expenditures from Willow Harbor's charitable accounts, including invoices for rooms that had never housed families. Caroline had started investigating quietly. Then she became ill.
“Why didn't you tell me?” Luca asked, pain showing plainly in his face.
“She thought she could finish looking into it first,” Margaret said. “She worried you would confront Richard before she could protect the records.”
“Maybe I would have.”
“She loved you, Luca. She also knew your temper.”
He did not deny it.
Margaret reached for another page. It contained a list of dates and a sketch of a blue crane, the kind folded from paper. Beside it Caroline had written: Rebecca used to send them from wherever she was living.
“A paper crane?” I asked.
Margaret nodded. “Small notes folded into birds. When she disappeared, Victoria received them for a while. Then they stopped.”
The last known note had been postmarked from a town in Wisconsin called Pine Glen. Margaret had written the address on the back of an old birthday invitation.
Iris asked whether she could have a copy. Margaret agreed, on the condition that Sophia would not be taken on a chase for someone none of them knew was alive.
“She has enough uncertain adults in her life,” Margaret said.
Iris smiled slightly. “Agreed.”
The meeting ended when Mrs. Alvarez brought a message from the front gate. A courier had delivered a white box for Sophia. No sender was named.
Inside was a velvet jewelry pouch and a printed card.
DEAR SOPHIA, YOUR NECKLACE IS DAMAGED. HERE IS A BETTER ONE. LOVE, VICTORIA.
The pouch contained a modern string of pearls with a newly polished clasp. On its back were the letters V.B., copied exactly from Caroline's heirloom.
Luca told Daniel to document the delivery and keep the box sealed. He didn't show it to Sophia.
I felt sick at how neatly somebody was trying to replace a child's memory with a substitute.
Then Margaret pointed to the card. “Victoria wouldn't write that. She never signs notes 'Love, Victoria.' Not to family.”
“How can you be sure?” Iris asked.
“Because she's spent her life being ashamed of that name. To Caroline, she signed 'V.' Nothing more.”
Luca examined the courier's receipt. The sender field had been left blank, but the label identified the packing company, Bellini Events.
The new clasp was not a gift. It was an attempt to put a false version of the old story into Sophia's hands.
Before anyone could speak, my phone vibrated. It was an unfamiliar text containing a photograph of my parents' front door.
Below it were six words:
STOP ASKING ABOUT REBECCA. GO HOME.
I stared at the screen, then handed it to Iris without saying a word.
I did not sleep much that night. Each time I closed my eyes I saw my parents' door in the photograph, the brass numbers above the lock, the grocery bag my mother had left by the threshold. I remembered that Vanessa had once asked, casually, which side of town my parents lived on. At the time I thought she was being friendly. Now I understood that small questions could become tools in someone else's hands.
May you like
The police advised my parents to preserve the message and report any unusual activity rather than confront strangers. My father insisted he was not afraid. Later, when I called him privately, he admitted he was. We talked for half an hour about what fear could and couldn't decide for us. He asked me to promise I would never mistake recklessness for bravery. I promised, then asked him to make the same promise. It was the most honest conversation we'd had since his surgeries.
The investigation had crossed from stolen records into threats against my family.
