Chapter 3 - THE INVITATION THAT WAS NEVER AN ACCIDENT
“You knew who I was before I walked into this ballroom?”
I stared at Bianca Vescari.
She couldn't meet my eyes.
Behind her, Vittorio Moretti set down his whiskey glass.
“Careful, Bianca.”
Lorenzo turned toward his uncle.
“Don't threaten her.”
“I'm trying to prevent a misunderstanding.”
“Then stop creating them.”
Bianca's beautifully manicured hands shook.
Six weeks earlier, she explained, Vittorio had shown her a photograph.
Not of me.
Of my necklace.
He had asked her to find a young woman named Elena Parker who worked for a Manhattan housekeeping agency.
“If she accepts a shift at the gala,” he had said, “make sure she wears the pendant.”
Bianca had personally requested me through the agency.
She even arranged a slightly higher hourly wage.
That explained why I'd been so thrilled to receive the assignment.
An extra forty dollars meant groceries for another week.
I felt sick.
“You paid me extra so I would walk into your trap?”
Bianca's eyes filled.
“I thought you were part of a scheme to claim money from the family.”
“By carrying champagne?”
“I didn't know what to believe.”
Vittorio interrupted.
“Enough.”
But Lorenzo wasn't finished.
“Why did you need Elena here?”
Vittorio spread his hands.
“Because someone has been circulating rumors about the Pier Fourteen tragedy. I wanted to determine whether Isabella's daughter was being used to embarrass us.”
“Then why didn't you ask me directly?” I demanded.
He looked at my worn shoes.
“Would you have answered?”
I felt that insult in my bones.
“My mother raised me to tell the truth,” I said. “Even to people who don't deserve it.”
Aldo gave a faint nod.
Lorenzo turned to Bianca.
“Did my uncle ask you to do anything else?”
She hesitated.
“He wanted me to keep Elena away from the old family gallery.”
Vittorio's expression changed.
It was brief.
But Lorenzo saw it.
“The gallery?” he repeated.
Bianca nodded.
“The one upstairs. Where your mother's belongings are displayed.”
Lorenzo studied his uncle.
Then he took my hand again.
Not tightly.
Almost as if he were asking permission.
“Elena, there's something I need you to see.”
I looked toward the exit.
Every sensible part of me wanted to walk away.
But I remembered my mother's nightmares.
And I remembered how her hands sometimes trembled whenever the name Moretti appeared in the newspaper.
“Show me,” I said.
We climbed the sweeping marble staircase together.
Aldo followed slowly, supported by his cane.
Bianca came behind us.
Vittorio remained downstairs.
For the moment.
The Moretti family gallery occupied a long room overlooking Central Park.
Portraits lined the walls.
There were photographs of weddings, family businesses, charity ceremonies, and men shaking hands with mayors.
Lorenzo stopped before a large portrait of a beautiful dark-haired woman.
“My mother,” he said.
Lucia Moretti.
She had gentle brown eyes and wore a simple pearl necklace.
“She died ten years ago.”
“I'm sorry.”
“She used to say that a person's character was revealed by how they treated someone who couldn't do anything for them.”
His voice grew quieter.
“I haven't always lived up to that.”
There was no pride in the admission.
Only regret.
At the far end of the gallery stood a glass cabinet containing Lucia's personal belongings.
Scarves.
Gloves.
An old leather handbag.
And a dark blue wool coat.
Aldo stopped walking.
“Oh, my God.”
He moved closer.
His cane struck the marble.
“That coat.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“What about it?”
“Your mother wore it the night Isabella disappeared.”
Lorenzo looked astonished.
“She told me she'd destroyed it.”
Aldo shook his head.
“She couldn't. She said there was something she had to remember.”
Lorenzo opened the cabinet with a key from the gallery attendant.
He lifted the coat carefully.
It smelled faintly of cedar.
Along the inside lining ran a crooked row of yellow stitches.
I recognized them immediately.
“My mother sewed like that.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
“Are you certain?”
I nodded.
“She never made a straight stitch in her life. She used to laugh about it.”
My eyes burned.
For a moment, it felt as though Isabella Parker was standing beside me.
I touched the lining.
Something crinkled beneath the fabric.
“There's something inside.”
Aldo leaned forward.
“Lucia told me Isabella repaired that coat before they separated.”
With Lorenzo's permission, I carefully loosened the yellow stitches.
Inside the hidden pocket lay a small hospital bracelet.
The plastic had yellowed with age.
The faded writing read:
Baby Girl Vieri.
October 17, 2002.
7:06 A.M.
I covered my mouth.
My mother always celebrated my birthday on October seventeenth.
The bracelet was mine.
Aldo began crying.
“She survived,” he whispered. “Lucia actually got her out.”
Lorenzo placed a steadying hand against the cabinet.
His own mother had helped save me.
And he had never known.
But there was something else inside the pocket.
A folded piece of thin yellow paper.
Lorenzo opened it.
His expression darkened.
Across the top were the words:
PIER FOURTEEN — NIGHT DISPATCH
Beneath them was a handwritten instruction.
And when Lorenzo reached the bottom, he stopped breathing.
“This isn't a rescue record,” he whispered.
May you like
He turned the paper toward me.
“It's the order that trapped your father inside that warehouse.”
