Chapter 5 - THE BRACELET WITH THE WRONG NAME
“No.”
Jonathan shook his head.
“Meline's twenty-six. Isabella disappeared more than thirty years ago.”
Vivien looked down at the bracelet.
“Then she can't be Isabella's daughter.”
Jonathan studied her.
“You didn't know her age?”
“I knew what my father told me. That Isabella had a little girl, and that the child was eventually placed with another family.”
Jonathan felt anger rising.
“You were willing to tell me Meline was Isabella's daughter without knowing something as basic as her age?”
Vivien swallowed.
“I was desperate to give you something useful.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he spoke quietly.
“That's what started this. People deciding what they wanted to believe and calling it the truth.”
Vivien lowered her eyes.
“You're right.”
The admission surprised him.
She sat back down.
“My grandmother said Isabella had been pregnant before the marriage. The Biankes discovered it and threatened to expose her.”
Jonathan frowned.
“Pregnant with whose child?”
“I don't know.”
“Did she have the baby?”
“Grandmother believed she did.”
Jonathan looked again at the engraving.
For my little Mel.
The bracelet might have belonged to a child called Melanie, Melissa, or another name entirely.
It wasn't proof of anything.
But it was something Luca had never discovered.
Or perhaps something he'd discovered and died trying to explain.
“I'm taking this to my mother,” Jonathan said.
Vivien nodded.
Then she caught his sleeve.
“Jonathan, please don't tell Meline what I said.”
“Why?”
“Because she's already suffered enough without being given another family that might turn out not to exist.”
Jonathan considered her words.
For once, Vivien wasn't trying to control the situation.
She was asking him to be careful.
“I won't make promises I can't keep,” he said.
Elena recognized the bracelet immediately.
She pressed it against her chest and began to cry.
“Isabella.”
Jonathan sat beside her.
“Mother, whose bracelet was this?”
Elena turned it over.
Her fingers traced the engraving.
“She made it herself.”
“For a daughter?”
Elena shook her head.
“For someone we called Mel.”
Jonathan leaned forward.
“Who?”
“My younger sister's friend.”
He stared at her.
“What friend?”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Her name was Melanie. She worked at the family's summer house.”
Jonathan felt disappointment.
“So it has nothing to do with Meline?”
“I don't know.”
Elena looked at the bracelet again.
“Melanie disappeared around the same time Isabella did.”
“Were they close?”
“Very.”
“How close?”
Elena hesitated.
“Closer than Father thought proper.”
Jonathan waited.
His mother sighed.
“Melanie was poor. She worked in the kitchen, but Isabella treated her like a sister. When the marriage was arranged, Melanie tried to help her leave.”
“What happened to her?”
Elena looked away.
“My father dismissed her.”
“And Isabella?”
“She went through with the wedding.”
Jonathan stared at the bracelet.
“Then why would Isabella make this for Melanie?”
“Because they loved each other.”
The answer was simple.
And somehow more painful than the elaborate explanations he'd expected.
Elena touched the broken clasp.
“Your aunt was the only person in that house who understood what it meant to be powerless.”
Jonathan thought of Meline standing in the cold, offering strangers five-dollar bouquets.
He thought of his father sending Isabella into a marriage she didn't want.
And he understood that the family's history had been built on people with money deciding what happened to people without it.
That evening, Jonathan went to the address where Marco had maintained a private office.
The building was dark.
The receptionist claimed Marco hadn't been there in two days.
Jonathan didn't believe her.
But he had no intention of frightening another employee into giving him information.
He left his number and asked her to contact him if Marco returned.
Outside, Rocco waited beside the car.
“We found the money,” Rocco said.
Jonathan turned.
“What money?”
“The forty thousand you ordered Marco to give Meline.”
“Where?”
“In a company account used for funeral expenses.”
Jonathan stared.
“Funeral expenses?”
Rocco nodded.
“Marco moved the money there the same week he told your mother Meline had died.”
Jonathan's stomach tightened.
“Did he spend it?”
“Not all of it.”
“How much remains?”
“Thirty-six thousand.”
Jonathan frowned.
“What happened to the other four?”
Rocco handed him a copy of an ordinary bank transaction statement.
“Payments to a private investigator.”
Jonathan examined the dates.
The payments had continued for six months after Meline supposedly died.
Marco had been paying someone to locate her.
“Why would he need an investigator if he already knew where she was?” Jonathan asked.
Rocco shook his head.
“Maybe he lost track of her.”
Jonathan remembered Meline saying she'd moved between motels before finding her apartment.
Perhaps Marco had been searching for the woman he'd threatened.
Or perhaps he was searching for something she possessed.
Something Luca had left behind.
When Jonathan arrived at Meline's apartment, he found her sitting on the floor beside the crib.
A small white baby blanket lay across her knees.
She was stitching a pink flower into one corner.
“You should be resting,” he said.
She looked up.
“I am resting.”
“On the floor?”
“It's where the crib is.”
He sat beside her.
For a moment, they said nothing.
Then Meline asked, “Did you find Marco?”
“No.”
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
She kept sewing.
Jonathan watched her careful movements.
“Meline, can I ask you something?”
“You usually do.”
He smiled faintly.
“Did Luca ever leave a package with you?”
She stopped stitching.
“A package?”
“Something he wanted you to keep.”
Meline looked toward the small dresser.
“He gave me a coat.”
Jonathan frowned.
“What coat?”
“A brown wool coat. It belonged to someone in his family.”
“Why did he give it to you?”
“He said it was too small for anyone at the house, and I needed something warm.”
Jonathan remembered the coat.
It had belonged to Luca.
He'd worn it every winter for years.
“Do you still have it?”
Meline nodded.
“In the closet.”
She started to stand.
Jonathan offered his hand.
She looked at it for a second before accepting.
He helped her up carefully.
Meline opened the closet and removed the coat.
The fabric was worn.
One button had been replaced with a darker one.
Jonathan recognized the repair.
Luca had done it himself after catching the coat on a gate.
He ran his fingers along the lining.
Something felt wrong.
One interior seam was thicker than the other.
“Meline, did you repair this?”
“No.”
Jonathan examined the stitching.
It was done with blue thread.
The same shade as the fabric he'd found inside Luca's watch.
His heart began beating faster.
He carefully opened the loose seam with Meline's small sewing scissors.
Inside was a folded piece of paper wrapped in waxed cloth.
Meline gasped.
“What is that?”
Jonathan unfolded it.
An old shipping receipt.
A date.
October 17.
A destination.
And three signatures.
One belonged to Marco Bellini.
Another belonged to Charles Bianke, Vivien's father.
The third was Luca's.
Jonathan's blood ran cold.
“Luca signed this?”
Meline leaned closer.
“What does it say?”
Jonathan read the description.
PRIVATE TRANSPORT — ONE PASSENGER — NO PUBLIC RECORD.
Beneath it was a handwritten note.
Passenger refuses transfer. Hold until instructed.
Meline stepped backward.
“Jonathan?”
He didn't answer.
His eyes were fixed on the passenger's name.
Not Isabella.
Not Melanie.
Not anyone from the distant past.
Someone very much alive.
Someone Jonathan loved.
He looked at Meline.
Then down at the name again.
ELENA MORETTI.
And beneath it, in Luca's handwriting:
IF THEY TAKE MY MOTHER, JONATHAN WILL SIGN ANYTHING.
Jonathan stared at the receipt.
May you like
His brother hadn't been trying to protect a stranger that night.
He'd been trying to stop someone from kidnapping their mother.
