Chapter 7 - THE BLACK STONE
I knew my mother's handwriting.
The long tail on the A.
The crooked capital T.
The way she pressed too hard whenever she wrote the word don't.
But the ink was fresh.
“That isn't possible,” I said.
Leah examined the ticket.
“The writing could have been copied.”
“From where?”
My father's shop contained decades of family notes, birthday cards, repair records.
Someone could imitate her handwriting.
But why?
To make me distrust Camila.
Alessandro took the ticket.
“Someone knows exactly which memories will move you.”
That frightened me more than a threat.
“This isn't about hiding evidence anymore,” I said. “Someone is directing us.”
Marco touched his rosary.
“Elena used to say the black stone was insurance.”
“What does that mean?”
“I never knew.”
We drove to Bellhaven.
The convent had become a retirement residence, but the old chapel remained.
Marco remembered Elena's sister, Sister Agnes, storing emergency belongings inside the chapel's wooden votive cabinet.
We found nothing inside.
Then I noticed scratches around one brass candleholder.
Jeweler's marks.
My father's.
Beneath the base was a narrow compartment.
Inside lay a necklace box.
Empty.
And a letter.
Not mysterious instructions.
Not another coded warning.
A real letter.
From my mother to me.
Adriana,
If you are reading this, Antonio was right that someday the children would have to finish what the parents were too frightened to face.
I had to stop.
Children.
Plural.
I kept reading.
Elena's necklace contains no secret. That was the lie we created so the wrong people would chase jewelry instead of a person.
The evidence was always Camila.
She remembered more than anyone realized.
And there is one thing she remembers that Vittorio does not know.
Your father did not die because of the watch.
He died protecting the child.
My knees weakened.
Alessandro caught me.
“What child?”
I looked at Marco.
He was crying.
“Camila.”
My father had died protecting Camila.
The shop robbery.
The story I'd lived with for years.
All of it connected.
The letter continued.
Antonio hid Camila for three nights after someone found Elena. Your father believed the safest solution was to erase the trail leading to her.
But someone discovered she was there.
Antonio got her out.
He did not get himself out.
My vision blurred.
I remembered my father's funeral.
My mother's silence afterward.
Her refusal to sell the shop.
She had known.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
Leah read over my shoulder.
“There's more.”
The final lines were shaky.
Do not hate Alessandro for his father's sins.
And do not trust Vittorio's guilt too easily.
Guilty men can still be useful shields for guiltier people.
Ask why Elena never came back for her daughter.
A sound came from the chapel entrance.
Camila stood there.
Alive.
Her hair was damp from rain.
There was dried blood along one sleeve.
Marco made a sound like his heart had torn open.
“Camila.”
She stared at him.
For several seconds she didn't move.
Then she whispered, “Papa?”
Marco crossed the chapel slowly, giving her time to refuse him.
She didn't.
When he reached her, she touched his face.
“You got old.”
Marco laughed through tears.
“So did you.”
That was all it took.
He pulled her against him.
Camila cried like a child.
I turned away.
Alessandro did too.
Some reunions deserved privacy even in a room full of people.
When Camila finally released her father, she came toward me.
“I'm sorry about your birthday.”
I almost laughed.
“That may be the strangest apology I've ever received.”
Her eyes dropped.
“Alessandro said you had to believe I was with him.”
“He was very convincing.”
Alessandro looked appropriately ashamed.
Camila reached into her coat.
My real wedding ring lay in her palm.
Clean.
No blood.
“I switched them before you gave me yours,” she said.
“You switched them?”
“When you closed my hand.”
I remembered her trembling fingers.
She'd been terrified, but she'd still managed it.
“Why?”
“The duplicate had been my mother's. Your father made it.”
Of course.
Two identical rings.
One carrying hidden evidence.
“Whose blood was on it?”
“Mine.”
She pushed up her sleeve.
A shallow cut crossed her forearm.
“When I escaped Vittorio's driver, I broke a window.”
“You thought Vittorio wanted you dead?”
“I thought so.”
“Now?”
Camila looked at my mother's letter.
“Now I'm not sure.”
She removed the black stone necklace.
“My mother gave me this when I was five. She told me if I ever remembered the man in your father's shop, I should find Adriana.”
“What man?”
Her face tightened.
“The man who killed your father.”
The chapel seemed to lose all sound.
“You saw him?”
She nodded.
“I forgot for years. Or made myself forget.”
“Who was it?”
Camila looked toward the doorway.
Maso stood there.
She pointed.
At him.
Maso's face collapsed.
“I was fourteen.”
“No,” Camila said. “Not you.”
She walked closer.
“The man looked like you.”
Maso whispered one word.
“Gianni.”
His father.
But Marco shook his head.
“Gianni was already dead.”
Camila looked at him.
“No, Papa.”
She reached into the necklace box and lifted the velvet lining.
Beneath it was a photograph.
A man stood outside my father's shop the day after Gianni Greco had supposedly died.
Same face as Maso.
Same eyes.
On the back, my mother had written:
GIANNI GRECO — ALIVE.
Maso stared at the picture.
Then at Alessandro.
“My father didn't die when I was fourteen.”
Camila shook her head.
“No.”
May you like
Her voice became a whisper.
“He killed Adriana's father.”
