Chapter 2 - THE BROTHER WHO REMEMBERED EVERYTHING
“Don't stop that elevator, Dominic. If your men touch my brother, you'll never see either of us again.”
Vanessa's voice came through the phone just as Dominic reached the ballroom security station.
He stopped.
“Your brother?”
Across the security monitor, the tall man in the gray suit stood beside Caroline Whitmore. The elevator doors had closed, but the camera had captured his face clearly.
The scar above his eyebrow.
The familiar shape of his mouth.
The way he tilted his head when he was frightened.
Dominic remembered that expression from a little boy who used to follow him around their father's house in Queens.
“Vanessa,” he said quietly, “you have ten seconds to explain.”
“Michael is my husband.”
The words hit harder than any bullet Dominic had ever survived.
Claire Bennett, standing beside him, looked up sharply.
Dominic gripped the phone.
“Your what?”
“We were married three years ago. Before I met you.”
“You told me you'd never been married.”
“I told you what I had to.”
Dominic stared at the elevator monitor.
“You became engaged to me while you were married to my brother?”
“It's not what you think.”
“Then tell me what to think.”
Vanessa began breathing unevenly.
“Michael doesn't know who he really is. Caroline raised him as her son. He believed his name was Matthew Whitmore until six months ago.”
“And you knew?”
“Yes.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
For thirty years, his family had mourned a child who disappeared from a playground.
His mother had spent every birthday setting an extra place at dinner.
His father had spent millions searching for him.
And the woman Dominic intended to marry had been sharing a home with that missing boy.
“Where is he going?” Dominic demanded.
“I don't know anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“Michael found something. Something Caroline kept from him. He's convinced your father arranged his kidnapping.”
Dominic looked toward the security chief.
“Find out where that elevator stopped. No confrontation. No weapons visible.”
The chief nodded.
Vanessa heard the instruction.
“Please don't threaten him,” she whispered. “He's already been threatened enough.”
Then she disconnected.
Claire had remained silent through the conversation.
Now she looked at the photograph lying on the desk.
“Mr. Moretti, there's something strange about this.”
Dominic turned.
“The handwriting on the back,” she said. “It says your father promised the baby would never be found.”
“I can read.”
“I know. But it doesn't say he made the promise to Caroline.”
Dominic studied the photograph again.
Claire pointed toward the hospital entrance.
“Your father isn't looking at the camera. He's looking at someone standing outside the picture.”
For the first time, Dominic noticed that Caroline's hand was gripping his father's sleeve.
Not affectionately.
Desperately.
“Why would a woman who kidnapped my brother look frightened standing beside my father?” Claire asked.
Dominic had no answer.
A security guard approached.
“Sir, the elevator stopped on the twenty-seventh floor. The man and woman entered the east service corridor.”
“Keep the exits covered,” Dominic said.
He took the photograph and walked toward the private elevators.
Claire followed.
“You should stay here,” he told her.
“Vanessa accused me in front of two hundred people. If that photograph explains why, I have a reason to know what happened.”
Dominic considered her.
“You're not afraid?”
“I'm terrified.”
“Then why are you coming?”
“Because I've spent my whole life watching people with money decide what happens to people without it.”
Dominic said nothing.
Claire stepped into the elevator.
“And tonight, I'm tired of being one of the people who gets blamed.”
On the twenty-seventh floor, the service corridor was empty.
A housekeeper's cart stood beside an open linen closet.
At the end of the hall, Caroline Whitmore waited near a glass emergency exit.
She was no longer wearing the elegant expression she'd carried through the gala.
Her hands were shaking.
“Where's Michael?” Dominic asked.
Caroline examined his face.
“God,” she whispered. “You have your mother's eyes.”
“Where is my brother?”
“He went somewhere I couldn't follow.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere he believes he'll finally learn what happened to him.”
Dominic moved closer.
Caroline stepped back.
“If you want answers, lower your voice. I've spent thirty years keeping that boy alive.”
“You took him from his family.”
“I took him away from someone who wanted him dead.”
Dominic stopped.
“Who?”
Caroline looked toward the elevator.
“Your father.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“My father searched for Michael until the day he died.”
“Yes,” Caroline replied. “He certainly made sure everybody knew that.”
Claire watched the exchange.
Caroline's fear seemed genuine.
But there was something else beneath it.
Guilt.
“Why would Antonio Moretti want his own son dead?” Claire asked.
Caroline looked surprised that the young waitress had spoken.
“Because Michael saw something he wasn't supposed to see.”
“What?” Dominic demanded.
Caroline reached into her handbag.
Dominic instinctively moved forward.
She pulled out a small blue velvet pouch.
Inside was a silver bracelet.
Its delicate chain was broken near the clasp.
Three tiny letters had been engraved on a rectangular plate.
M.A.M.
Dominic recognized it immediately.
His mother had bought the bracelet after Michael was born.
Michael Antonio Moretti.
“He was wearing this the day he disappeared,” Dominic said.
Caroline nodded.
“He never stopped asking why it was broken.”
Dominic took the bracelet.
His fingers trembled.
At four, Michael had been too young to understand why their father was always angry.
But Dominic remembered that afternoon.
Their father shouting.
Their mother crying behind a locked bedroom door.
Michael running down the staircase with his favorite wooden airplane.
Dominic had been twelve.
He'd promised to watch his brother.
Then his father's driver had called him outside.
When Dominic returned, Michael was gone.
For thirty years, Dominic had believed his carelessness destroyed the family.
Caroline looked at the bracelet.
“Michael didn't disappear because you stopped watching him.”
Dominic raised his head.
“What?”
“Someone arranged for you to leave the house.”
“Who?”
“Your father's business partner, Raymond Vale.”
The name chilled Dominic.
Raymond Vale had been Antonio's closest friend.
He'd also become Dominic's adviser after Antonio died.
At seventy-one, Raymond controlled several legitimate Moretti family investments and served as chairman of the gala's charitable foundation.
He was downstairs entertaining donors.
“Why would Raymond take my brother?” Dominic asked.
Caroline swallowed.
“Because Michael saw Raymond do something terrible.”
Before she could explain, footsteps echoed from the staircase.
Michael emerged carrying an old brown leather envelope.
Dominic turned.
For several seconds, neither brother moved.
Michael looked older than Dominic had imagined.
There were lines around his eyes and gray beginning at his temples.
But when he spoke, Dominic heard the little boy he'd lost.
“You still stand in front of doors when you're nervous.”
Dominic's breath caught.
Michael gave a sad smile.
“You used to do that when Dad was angry.”
“Michael.”
“Don't call me that yet.”
Dominic lowered his eyes.
“All right.”
Michael approached, studying his brother's face.
“Do you remember the last thing you said to me?”
Dominic shook his head.
“I do,” Michael replied. “You said you'd come back before my airplane landed.”
Dominic felt something break inside his chest.
“I looked for you.”
Michael's expression hardened.
“Then why did you stop?”
“I never stopped.”
“Raymond told me you did.”
Dominic stared.
“Raymond knows where you've been?”
Michael opened the leather envelope.
Inside was a photograph of two boys standing beside a lake.
Dominic recognized himself immediately.
He'd never seen the photograph before.
Michael turned it over.
An address was written on the back.
Briarwood Children's Home.
Underneath were three words.
DOMINIC VISITED TWICE.
Michael raised his eyes.
“I spent six years waiting at the window for you,” he said.
Then he placed a second object in Dominic's hand.
A small silver watch.
Its face was cracked.
Dominic recognized it as the watch his father had given him on his twelfth birthday.
He'd lost it the morning Michael disappeared.
Michael pointed to the scratched underside.
“Tell me why your watch was found in the car that took me away.”
May you like
And Dominic realized the evidence wasn't merely accusing his father.
Someone had spent thirty years making Michael believe Dominic helped kidnap him.
