Chapter 4 - THE NAME GRACE NEVER USED
Grace woke with the taste of metal in her mouth.
Not blood.
A coin.
She opened her eyes.
She was lying across the back seat of a parked sedan.
Her wrists were tied in front of her with plastic restraints.
A man sat behind the steering wheel.
Daniel Cross.
Except she knew that was not his name.
She had seen him once before.
Seven years ago.
Outside Elena Bellandi’s hospital room.
“Where are we?”
He glanced into the mirror.
“Somewhere people mind their business.”
Grace sat up slowly.
“You work for Patricia.”
“No.”
“Celeste?”
“No.”
“Then let me go.”
“I can’t.”
That frightened her more than cruelty would have.
He sounded apologetic.
Grace looked through the windshield.
An empty industrial lot.
Freight tracks.
Warehouses.
Chicago somewhere beyond them.
“What do you want?”
“To keep you alive long enough for Roman to learn the truth.”
Grace stared at him.
“By kidnapping me?”
“I wasn’t the only person trying to get you out of that house.”
“Who else?”
He didn’t answer.
Grace leaned back.
“You’re the man from the hospital.”
His eyes lifted to the mirror.
She had guessed correctly.
“You were standing near Elena’s room.”
“My name is Thomas Vale.”
“Who are you?”
“A retired investigator.”
“For whom?”
“Your mother.”
Grace stopped breathing.
“My mother died when I was twelve.”
“No.”
Grace’s expression changed.
Thomas looked away.
“She disappeared when you were twelve.”
“My father buried her.”
“He buried an empty urn.”
Grace stared at him.
The entire car seemed to tilt.
“That’s impossible.”
“You’ve heard that a lot lately.”
Grace fought against the restraints.
“Take these off.”
“I will when I know you won’t run back to Bellandi.”
“I work there.”
“You went there to finish what Claire started.”
Grace froze.
Thomas turned around.
“You know who I’m talking about.”
Grace looked at the floor.
“My mother was Claire Miller.”
“Yes.”
“She died.”
“No.”
Grace’s voice sharpened.
“Stop saying that.”
Thomas reached into the passenger seat and lifted a faded brown envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Grace at twelve.
Her mother behind her.
And in the corner of the picture, almost hidden by sunlight, stood Patricia Bellandi.
Grace stared at it.
“She knew my mother?”
“She knew exactly who Claire was.”
Thomas placed the photograph on the seat.
“Claire Bellandi.”
Grace looked up.
Thomas continued.
“Born twenty-nine minutes after Roman.”
The name landed like a physical blow.
Grace whispered, “No.”
“Patricia arranged for Claire to be removed from St. Catherine’s before Roman’s mother woke. She was placed privately with Robert and Mary Miller.”
“My grandparents.”
“They raised your mother.”
Grace remembered her mother’s stories.
Always incomplete.
No baby photographs before six months.
No birth certificate in the family safe.
A strange refusal to discuss Chicago.
“Why?”
“Money at first.”
Thomas looked through the windshield.
“The Bellandi trust had been created by Roman’s grandfather. If twin heirs were born, control eventually divided equally. Patricia believed the family would be weaker split in two.”
“So she stole a baby?”
“She convinced herself she was preserving the family.”
Grace’s eyes filled.
“And my mother?”
“Claire learned the truth when she was thirty-one.”
Grace did the math.
“That was after I was born.”
“Yes.”
“She went to Patricia.”
“Yes.”
“And then she disappeared.”
Thomas said nothing.
Grace closed her eyes.
For fourteen years she had believed her mother had died in a highway accident while traveling alone.
There had been no body because the car burned.
She had cried beside an urn.
Her father had barely spoken for months.
“He knew?”
“Robert knew Claire was adopted. He did not know she was a Bellandi.”
Grace swallowed hard.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Grace looked at him.
“You said she’s alive.”
“I said she didn’t die in that accident.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Answer one.
Open two.
Grace hated him for it.
Thomas finally cut the restraints.
“Your mother contacted me seven years ago.”
“When Lucy was born.”
“Yes.”
“She asked you to watch Elena.”
“And you.”
Grace rubbed her wrists.
“Why me?”
“Because Claire believed Patricia had finally understood who you were.”
Grace thought of the necklace.
The one her mother had worn on rare occasions.
The one Grace had kept after her supposed death.
The one she had lost tonight.
“Patricia knew I was her niece.”
“Yes.”
“Then why let me work inside Roman’s house?”
Thomas turned.
“Maybe she didn’t.”
Grace went still.
Celeste had hired the household service company that placed temporary workers.
Grace had been promoted to permanent staff only after Mrs. Donnelly requested her.
Patricia rarely spoke to servants directly.
Maybe she had never known Grace’s surname.
Until recently.
Grace thought of Lucy saying the strange phone had been inside Celeste’s room.
“Celeste knew.”
Thomas nodded.
“She learned three weeks ago.”
“That’s why she wanted me fired.”
“That’s why she wanted you frightened.”
Grace touched her cheek.
“And tonight?”
Thomas hesitated.
“What?”
“Celeste locked me outside. But someone else took me from the service corridor.”
Thomas looked away.
Grace understood.
“You did.”
“To get you out before Patricia’s man arrived.”
“You could have spoken to me.”
“You wouldn’t have come.”
“No.”
Thomas nodded.
“Exactly.”
Grace hated that he was right.
“Where is Roman?”
“Finding what Elena left.”
“And Lucy?”
“Safe.”
“You don’t know that.”
Thomas had no answer.
Grace reached for the door.
He locked it.
“Grace.”
“Open it.”
“Not yet.”
She turned toward him.
“Lucy is seven. She thinks Celeste wants to send her away. She thinks adults keep lying because of something she did. I will not sit in a car while people turn her childhood into a battlefield.”
Thomas studied her.
“You sound like Claire.”
“You barely knew me.”
“I knew your mother.”
The past tense hit her.
“Knew?”
Thomas looked at his hands.
Grace’s voice became quieter.
“You said you don’t know where she is.”
“I don’t.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He closed his eyes.
“Seven years ago, Claire arranged to meet me after giving Elena the necklace. She never arrived.”
Grace stared.
“We found blood in her apartment.”
“No body?”
“No.”
“So you decided she survived?”
“I decided not to assume Patricia won.”
Grace pushed the door handle again.
This time Thomas unlocked it.
Before she stepped out, he said, “There’s one more thing.”
Grace turned.
Thomas reached beneath the seat and handed her an old leather wallet.
Inside was a train ticket.
Chicago to Milwaukee.
Dated fourteen years earlier.
The day Grace’s mother supposedly died.
On the back Claire had written:
Grace, when you are old enough, find the woman wearing my bracelet. She knows why Roman Bellandi’s son was taken.
Grace read it again.
“Roman doesn’t have a son.”
Thomas looked at her.
“He did.”
May you like
Grace’s head lifted.
“Lucy wasn’t Elena’s first child.”
