Chapter 2 - THE NAME ON THE BRACELET
Dominic did not open the library door immediately.
The woman outside knocked no more.
That unsettled him more than pounding would have.
Walter sat rigidly beside Emily, his skin pale beneath the soft library light.
“Who is she?” Dominic asked.
Walter’s mouth moved, but nothing came out.
The voice came again.
“I’m not here to hurt him, Walter.”
Dominic looked at the old butler.
“You know her.”
Walter nodded once.
“Rose Bell.”
“Who is Rose Bell?”
“The night nurse from Room 314.”
Dominic opened the door.
The woman waiting in the hallway looked to be in her early eighties. She wore a dark blue wool coat despite the warmth of the house. Silver hair was pinned neatly behind her ears.
In both hands she held a battered leather handbag.
Behind her, Vincent stood at a respectful distance.
“I checked her identification,” he said. “Rose Bell. Retired registered nurse. Worked at St. Catherine’s Hospital from 1963 to 1994.”
Dominic stepped aside.
Rose entered.
The moment she saw Walter, her expression changed.
“You got old.”
Walter gave a weak laugh.
“So did you.”
Then Rose looked at Dominic.
She studied his eyes.
Not his expensive suit.
Not his tattoos.
His eyes.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Dominic disliked the emotion in her voice.
Recognition.
“Show me the bracelet.”
Rose sat across from him.
“You sound like Anthony.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.” Her gaze remained steady. “But it explains why he worried about you.”
Walter stood.
“Rose, we agreed—”
“We agreed thirty-nine years ago.”
“We made a promise.”
“And tonight somebody threw your belongings down a staircase trying to find what that promise was protecting.”
Walter stopped.
Rose opened her handbag.
Cassandra suddenly appeared in the doorway.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
Her ivory engagement gown made her look almost ghostly beneath the hallway lights.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“How did you know where we were?”
“I saw Rose arrive.”
Rose looked at her.
“So you’re Cassandra.”
Cassandra’s face tightened.
“You need to leave.”
Dominic stood.
“That decision isn’t yours.”
“Dominic, you have eighty people downstairs.”
“And?”
“You cannot imprison guests while some stranger walks in here making claims about your family.”
Dominic moved closer.
“She knew Walter.”
“That proves nothing.”
“She knew Room 314.”
Cassandra’s breathing changed.
Barely.
But Dominic noticed.
Rose noticed too.
“You’ve heard that number before,” the old nurse said.
Cassandra looked at Dominic.
“Of course I have. You’ve been talking about it for twenty minutes.”
Rose shook her head.
“I meant before tonight.”
Silence.
Emily watched Cassandra’s right hand close around the fabric of her dress.
Dominic remembered the security footage.
Cassandra entering Anthony’s study first.
Cassandra packing Walter’s suitcase.
Cassandra asking Emily for the brass key.
He turned to Rose.
“Continue.”
Rose reached into her handbag and removed a small cardboard jewelry box tied with faded blue ribbon.
Inside lay a hospital bracelet.
The plastic had yellowed.
The lettering was still readable.
Dominic picked it up.
CARUSO, MALE INFANT
His expression did not change.
But his thumb stopped moving.
“There were two babies?” Emily asked quietly.
Rose looked at her.
“There were two bracelets.”
Walter closed his eyes.
Dominic stared at the name again.
Caruso.
Not Moretti.
“What does this have to do with me?”
Rose looked toward Walter.
He refused to meet her eyes.
So she answered.
“Sofia Moretti was admitted to Room 314 shortly after midnight on October seventeenth.”
Dominic knew his mother’s name.
He knew her birthday.
He knew the perfume she wore and the song she played while cooking on Sundays.
He remembered sitting beside her hospital bed at twelve years old while cancer made her smaller.
He remembered her telling him he had Anthony’s stubbornness.
Rose continued.
“She had gone into labor early.”
Walter whispered, “Rose.”
“She deserves better than our silence.”
“He,” Walter corrected.
Rose looked at Dominic.
“Yes.”
“He deserves better.”
Dominic’s voice was flat.
“What happened to my mother?”
“She delivered a boy.”
A pause.
“The baby did not survive.”
Emily lowered her eyes.
Dominic did not move.
For several seconds, the words appeared to mean nothing.
Then they meant everything.
“My mother had one child.”
“No,” Rose said softly. “Sofia Moretti gave birth to one child.”
Dominic looked at the bracelet again.
Cassandra stepped backward.
Dominic noticed.
“Where are you going?”
“I need air.”
“No.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You don’t get to order me—”
“You spent yesterday searching my father’s study and today accusing Walter of theft.”
“I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
Cassandra said nothing.
Rose slowly reached into the jewelry box again.
There was a second item beneath the bracelet.
A thin silver medal of Saint Christopher.
Dominic recognized it immediately.
He had seen the same medal in an old photograph of Anthony.
Except Anthony had never worn it.
Another man had.
Dominic had asked about him once as a teenager.
His father had answered only:
An old friend who made a bad choice.
Rose placed the medal beside the bracelet.
“His name was Daniel Caruso.”
Dominic’s pulse beat once, hard.
“Who was he?”
Walter stood abruptly.
“That’s enough.”
Dominic turned.
“No. It isn’t.”
Walter’s eyes filled.
“I watched your father spend thirty-nine years trying to make sure you never had to carry this.”
“My father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“And apparently he left everyone else carrying it for him.”
Walter flinched.
Dominic immediately regretted the cruelty.
But he did not take the words back.
Rose leaned forward.
“Daniel Caruso brought his pregnant wife to St. Catherine’s that same night.”
“Why?”
“She was in labor.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
Rose looked toward Cassandra.
Then back to Dominic.
“Daniel believed someone was following them.”
The room went still.
“He left his wife in my care and went downstairs to move their car.”
“He came back?”
“No.”
Emily whispered, “What happened?”
Rose’s gaze settled on Dominic.
“He was found three hours later near the lake.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Killed?”
“Yes.”
Cassandra shut her eyes.
That was the first time Dominic saw genuine fear on her face.
Not fear of losing him.
Fear of what he might learn.
“And his wife?” Dominic asked.
“Her name was Elena.”
Rose swallowed.
“She gave birth twenty-eight minutes after Sofia.”
“To me.”
Nobody answered.
Dominic stared at Walter.
“Say it.”
Walter’s shoulders collapsed.
“Dominic—”
“Say it.”
The old man looked at the boy he had once driven to school.
The teenager whose tie he had fixed before his first funeral.
The man whose father he had promised never to betray.
“You were born Dominic Caruso.”
Emily covered her mouth.
Dominic remained absolutely still.
Cassandra whispered, “I tried to stop this.”
He turned toward her.
“Why?”
“Because Anthony wanted it buried.”
“That isn’t your reason.”
“No.”
“Then give me yours.”
Cassandra looked at the Saint Christopher medal.
“My father knew Daniel Caruso.”
Rose’s eyes hardened.
Walter stared at her.
Cassandra continued.
“I found my father’s name in Anthony’s papers six months ago.”
Dominic remembered something.
Cassandra had first suggested renovating Anthony’s study six months ago.
At the time, he had thought she was trying to help him move forward.
Now that memory changed shape.
“What papers?”
“A list of four names.”
“Where is it?”
“I destroyed it.”
Dominic’s eyes chilled.
Emily looked at Cassandra in disbelief.
“You burned evidence?”
“I burned a piece of paper tied to two dead men and a hospital lie from 1987.”
“Why was your father’s name on it?”
Cassandra’s voice broke for the first time.
“Because he was at the lake the night Daniel Caruso died.”
Dominic said nothing.
Rose reached across the desk and turned the old Saint Christopher medal over.
An engraving covered the back.
Four tiny letters.
D.C. — V.V.
Daniel Caruso.
Victor Vale.
Cassandra’s father.
Dominic looked at his fiancée.
“What did your father do?”
“I don’t know.”
Walter suddenly moved.
He crossed to the old globe near Anthony’s desk and lifted it from its stand.
From beneath the wooden base, he pulled a folded train ticket.
Emily stared.
Dominic recognized the date.
October 18, 1987.
The morning after his birth.
Chicago to Milwaukee.
Two names were handwritten across the back.
Anthony Moretti. Victor Vale.
Walter’s voice shook.
“Your father didn’t leave Chicago alone after Room 314.”
Dominic looked at Cassandra.
Then at the ticket.
“Why Milwaukee?”
Walter stared at the old paper.
“Because that’s where Elena Caruso was waiting.”
Dominic’s breath caught.
Rose whispered, “Walter, no.”
But the old man continued.
“And when Anthony returned to Chicago forty-eight hours later…”
May you like
He looked directly at Dominic.
“…he came back with you.”
