Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
“Your sister didn't come back to reclaim her inheritance, Luca. She came back because your wedding would destroy this family.”
Isabella Moretti's words hung in the grand hallway.
Luca stood beside his mother's stretcher, holding the photograph of Anna outside a small bakery.
Seventeen years.
For seventeen years, he had believed his younger sister had abandoned everyone she loved.
Now he was staring at proof that she had been living close enough to Chicago to visit their mother.
And the woman he planned to marry was standing ten feet away, looking terrified.
“Vanessa,” Luca said quietly. “I want an explanation.”
Vanessa Bellini pressed a trembling hand against her chest.
“Darling, please. Your mother is injured. She's confused. We shouldn't be having this conversation right now.”
“Then explain the letters.”
“I didn't hide them.”
“Explain your father's company receiving Anna's inheritance.”
“My father handles hundreds of accounts. I don't know everything he does.”
Luca looked at her engagement ring.
A five-carat diamond he had placed on her finger six months earlier.
Until tonight, he had never questioned how quickly Vanessa's father had encouraged their marriage.
“Take off the ring,” Luca said.
Vanessa stared at him.
“What?”
“Take it off.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Luca, we've been together for three years.”
“And my sister has been missing from my life for seventeen.”
Before Vanessa could answer, Isabella made a frightened sound.
I turned immediately.
Her right hand was reaching toward the photograph.
“Mrs. Moretti?”
She touched the edge of the picture.
“Back,” she whispered.
I carefully turned it over.
Written in faded blue ink were four words.
Ask about the bakery.
Below them was an address in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood.
Luca read it once.
Then again.
“Daniel,” he said, “send someone to that address. Quietly. No uniforms, no unnecessary attention.”
Daniel nodded.
But Isabella shook her head.
“No... men.”
Luca leaned closer.
“Mom?”
“She... won't... trust... them.”
A painful silence followed.
I could see something changing in Luca's expression.
His mother wasn't merely afraid of Vanessa.
She was afraid of the people Luca employed.
“Then I'll go myself,” he said.
Isabella caught his wrist.
“Emily.”
Everyone looked at me.
I felt my cheeks warm.
“Mrs. Moretti?”
She nodded toward Luca.
“Emily... goes.”
Vanessa gave a bitter laugh.
“Of course. The maid gets invited into another family matter.”
Luca didn't look at her.
“Emily, would you come with me?”
I glanced toward Isabella.
She was watching me with an expression I had seen many times during the past eleven months.
Trust.
“Yes, sir.”
“Luca,” he corrected softly.
Before I could answer, one of the paramedics approached.
“We need to transport your mother. Her ankle may be fractured, and we want to assess her head injury.”
Luca bent and kissed Isabella's forehead.
“I'll meet you at the hospital, Mom. Daniel will stay with you until I get there.”
But Isabella pulled my hand toward her.
“Shoes,” she whispered again.
I looked down.
Her remaining slipper lay beside the stretcher.
The paramedic had removed it during the examination.
Something about the old woman's expression made me pause.
“Mrs. Moretti, is there something else inside?”
She shook her head.
Then whispered a word I barely heard.
“Different.”
I frowned.
“Different shoes?”
She closed her eyes.
The paramedics wheeled her toward the ambulance.
Vanessa stood beneath the chandelier, her engagement ring still on her finger.
Luca turned to Daniel.
“Have the police speak to everyone who was near the staircase. Nobody touches the recordings.”
Then he faced Vanessa.
“You're staying here until the officers finish taking statements.”
“You can't seriously believe I'd hurt your mother.”
“I believe she was frightened enough to sew evidence into her slippers.”
For the first time, Vanessa had no answer.
Twenty-five minutes later, I sat beside Luca in his black SUV.
Chicago's streets glistened beneath a cold November rain.
He hadn't spoken since we left the mansion.
I held Isabella's photograph in both hands.
Finally, I said, “Your mother has been trying to tell someone something for weeks.”
Luca looked toward me.
“What do you mean?”
“She stopped wearing her regular shoes after Miss Bellini moved her belongings into the east guest suite.”
“When?”
“About six weeks ago.”
Luca tightened his hands around the steering wheel.
“She said her feet hurt,” I continued. “But whenever I offered to bring her another pair, she became upset.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
The question hurt more than I expected.
“I tried.”
He glanced at me.
“Twice, sir. Once outside your study. Once during breakfast. Miss Bellini said your mother was adjusting to her stroke medication.”
Luca looked away.
“I remember.”
I swallowed.
“You told me to speak with the household manager.”
He was silent for several moments.
Then he said, “I'm sorry, Emily.”
I stared at him.
I'd worked for wealthy families since I was nineteen.
Apologies from employers were rare.
Especially apologies that sounded sincere.
“My mother trusted you,” Luca continued. “And I made it difficult for you to protect her.”
I looked back at the photograph.
“She trusted me because I listened.”
The words came out before I could soften them.
Luca accepted them without argument.
The bakery stood on a quiet corner between a laundromat and a hardware store.
A faded green awning read:
ROSE & RYE BAKERY.
Warm light glowed behind the front windows.
A handwritten sign announced that the shop was closing early.
Luca parked across the street.
I studied the photograph again.
The same green awning.
The same brick entrance.
But something was wrong.
“The woman in the photograph isn't standing in front of the bakery,” I said.
Luca frowned.
“She's standing beside it.”
I pointed.
“Look at the reflection in the window. She's photographing something across the street.”
Luca leaned closer.
In the glass was the reflection of an old brick building with a blue door.
Above that door hung a small brass bell.
“That's not visible from the bakery entrance,” Luca said.
We crossed the street.
Inside, the bakery smelled of cinnamon and fresh bread.
Behind the counter stood a woman in her late forties, wearing a flour-dusted apron.
She looked at Luca.
Then at me.
Her welcoming smile disappeared.
“We're closed.”
Luca placed the photograph on the counter.
“I'm looking for Anna Moretti.”
The woman's face drained of color.
“Never heard of her.”
I noticed her eyes move toward the back door.
“Please,” I said gently. “Her mother was injured tonight. She's in the hospital.”
The woman gripped the counter.
“Isabella?”
Luca stepped forward.
“You know my mother?”
The woman looked at him carefully.
“Oh, my goodness.”
She covered her mouth.
“You have your father's eyes.”
Luca went still.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Rose Delgado. Anna rents the apartment above this bakery.”
“Where is she?”
Rose hesitated.
“She left this morning.”
“Where did she go?”
“She said she was going to finally make things right.”
Luca leaned against the counter.
“Did she say when she'd return?”
Rose shook her head.
Then reached beneath the register.
“She left something. Told me that if a woman named Emily ever came here, I should give it to her.”
My breath caught.
“To me?”
Rose placed a small brown parcel on the counter.
My full name was written across the wrapping.
EMILY CARTER.
I stared at it.
“How does Anna know my name?”
Rose looked toward Luca.
“Your mother told her about Emily months ago.”
Luca's jaw tightened.
Rose lowered her voice.
“Anna didn't come here because she was running from her family. She came because someone had been watching Isabella's house.”
“The mansion?” Luca asked.
Rose nodded.
Then she looked at me.
“Anna said the safest person in that house was a young woman nobody important bothered listening to.”
I slowly opened the parcel.
Inside was a delicate silver bracelet.
A small heart-shaped charm hung from its clasp.
Beside it lay a yellowed hospital photograph.
A young woman sat in a hospital bed, holding a newborn baby.
Standing beside her was Isabella Moretti.
I turned the photograph over.
A date from twenty-five years ago.
And beneath it, three handwritten words.
Anna's baby girl.
My knees weakened.
Because the young mother in that photograph was wearing the same silver bracelet.
And the baby had been wrapped in a pale yellow blanket.
The exact blanket my mother had kept in a cedar chest my entire childhood.
Luca looked from the photograph to my face.
“Emily?”
I couldn't answer.
Rose covered her mouth.
Then whispered the sentence that changed everything.
“Anna Moretti isn't just Luca's missing sister, sweetheart.”
May you like
She looked directly into my eyes.
“She's your mother.”
