Chapter 6 - THE GIRL IN THE YELLOW COAT
“My sister's name is Emily Whitcomb.”
Clara spoke from the hospital corridor, gripping the edge of the nurses' station.
Luca looked at her.
“Are you certain?”
“No. But I remember her.”
Clara closed her eyes.
She could almost see the little girl standing in Margaret Bennett's kitchen.
Emily had worn a yellow winter coat with mismatched buttons.
She hated tomatoes.
She loved drawing roses.
And every Christmas, Anna Whitcomb brought her to visit.
The girls spent hours together.
Sometimes Margaret watched them with tears in her eyes.
Clara had assumed she was simply happy to have visitors.
Now she wondered whether Margaret had been watching two sisters who had no idea they belonged to each other.
“Emily and I were born in the same month,” Clara whispered. “Anna always said we looked like cousins.”
“What happened to them?”
“They moved when we were fourteen. Anna told Mom she'd found work in Vermont.”
“Did you stay in touch?”
“For a while. Then the letters stopped.”
Luca studied her.
“Do you still have any of them?”
Clara nodded.
“A few. And the silver watch Anna gave me.”
He looked toward Daniel's room.
“We'll help you retrieve them.”
But Clara shook her head.
“I need to talk to Daniel first.”
Her brother was waiting when she returned.
He looked up from the old photograph.
“Clara, there's something strange about this.”
“What?”
He pointed toward the two babies.
“They're wearing matching little bracelets.”
Clara leaned closer.
The image was grainy, but the ribbons around the infants' wrists were visible.
Tiny white roses had been embroidered along each band.
“Like your necklace,” Daniel said.
Clara nodded.
Then Daniel turned the photograph over.
“There's something else.”
Beneath Margaret's handwriting, a faint impression had been left by another sheet of paper.
Daniel held the picture sideways against the light.
Clara could make out several words.
One stays with Margaret.
One stays with Anna.
Together every Christmas.
Clara felt tears rise again.
Margaret and Anna had kept the twins close enough to know each other.
But not close enough to understand why.
“Why wouldn't they tell us?” Daniel asked.
Clara stared at the handwriting.
“Maybe they were afraid.”
“Of whom?”
She thought of Antonio Moretti.
Enzo Bellini.
Martin Hale.
Three men who had controlled money, records, and the lives of two newborn girls.
“I don't know yet.”
Daniel touched her arm.
“Then find out.”
She smiled sadly.
“You sound like Mom.”
“Someone has to.”
Before leaving, Clara made sure Daniel understood one thing.
No matter what the investigation revealed, he was still her brother.
He rolled his eyes.
“Clara, you helped raise me. I'm stuck with you.”
She hugged him carefully.
This time, neither of them made a joke.
At the mansion, the wedding decorations were being removed.
The grand ballroom looked strangely empty.
White satin ribbons lay in boxes.
The elaborate floral arrangements had been sealed as evidence.
The canceled ceremony already felt like something that had happened to another family.
Clara went upstairs to the small staff apartment where she had lived for six months.
Her belongings fit into two suitcases.
She opened the dresser and retrieved a battered wooden box.
Inside were letters, old birthday cards, the silver watch, and a photograph of Margaret standing beside Anna Whitcomb.
Clara lifted the picture.
Margaret was smiling.
Anna held two little girls by their hands.
Clara wore a blue dress.
Emily wore a yellow coat.
They looked alike.
Not identical in every detail.
But unmistakably related.
Luca stood quietly near the doorway.
“May I?”
Clara handed him the photograph.
He stared at Emily.
“That's Sofia's face.”
Clara's eyes filled.
“You remember her?”
“Every day.”
His voice softened.
“Sofia used to hate having her picture taken. She said her smile looked crooked.”
Clara studied the photograph.
Emily had a slightly crooked smile.
So did she.
For the first time, the connection felt real.
Then Luca noticed something near Anna's wrist.
A thin gold chain.
Attached was a tiny charm shaped like a key.
He frowned.
“I've seen that before.”
“Where?”
“In my father's study.”
Clara waited.
“Antonio kept a photograph on his desk after Sofia died. It showed him at a charity dinner with Enzo Bellini and a woman wearing that bracelet.”
“Anna?”
“I never knew her name.”
Clara stared at him.
“Anna knew your father personally.”
“It appears so.”
She sat on the bed.
The truth had become more complicated with every discovery.
Margaret and Anna had protected the twins.
But they had also maintained some connection to the men who took them away.
Why?
Luca turned the photograph over.
A date was written on the back.
December 24.
Twenty-one years earlier.
Below it was a brief message.
The last Christmas before the agreement changed.
Clara frowned.
“What agreement?”
Luca studied the writing.
“Maybe Margaret and Anna stopped following the arrangement after something happened.”
Clara remembered.
When she was four, Margaret had moved them from their first apartment to a smaller house outside Philadelphia.
Anna and Emily had moved nearby.
For years, they visited regularly.
Then, when Clara turned fourteen, Anna disappeared.
Clara looked toward Luca.
“The agreement might have changed twice.”
He nodded.
“And someone has been trying to keep the original arrangement hidden.”
Clara reached for the silver watch.
Its face was scratched.
The strap had been replaced long ago.
Anna had given it to her the night before moving away.
Clara remembered the woman kneeling to fasten it around her wrist.
If you ever feel lost, remember that time has a way of bringing people home.
Clara opened the watch's small back cover.
She had never examined it carefully.
Inside was an engraved date.
The day she and Emily were born.
Beneath it were two initials.
S.M.
Sofia Moretti.
Clara felt her throat tighten.
Then she noticed a tiny folded paper tucked beneath the mechanism.
She used the edge of her fingernail to lift it free.
The paper contained an address in Vermont.
And one sentence.
If Anna cannot come back, ask Emily about the yellow coat.
Luca read it.
“Do you remember that coat?”
Clara nodded.
“Emily wore it constantly. Even after it became too small.”
“Why?”
“Anna said it was special.”
Clara paused.
“She told Emily it belonged to her real mother.”
Luca looked up sharply.
“Then Anna knew Emily wasn't her biological daughter.”
“Yes.”
Clara held the photograph again.
The girls had spent childhood afternoons playing dress-up, imagining they were princesses or sisters.
And all along, Emily had worn a coat Sofia left behind.
A coat that might contain another clue.
Luca suggested they contact authorities in Vermont to help locate Anna and Emily.
Clara agreed.
But before they could begin, Eleanor appeared in the doorway with Walter.
The old woman was holding a small framed drawing.
Walter explained that she'd insisted on retrieving it from her bedroom.
Clara approached.
The drawing showed two little girls standing beneath a rosebush.
One wore blue.
The other wore yellow.
Behind them stood a tall woman.
Above the girls, in a child's handwriting, were the words:
CLARA AND EMILY — SISTERS FOREVER.
Clara began crying.
“I drew this.”
She remembered making it at Margaret's kitchen table.
She had given it to Anna before they moved away.
“How did you get this?” she asked Eleanor.
Eleanor touched the paper.
Then pointed toward Luca.
“Father,” she whispered.
Luca stared at the drawing.
“My father had this?”
Eleanor nodded.
Then she made a motion as though tearing something apart.
Walter frowned.
“Mrs. Moretti, did Antonio try to destroy it?”
Another nod.
Clara felt her stomach tighten.
Antonio had known.
Not merely that Sofia's children existed.
He had known where they were.
He had seen drawings from their childhood.
And he had tried to erase them.
Eleanor reached behind the frame.
There was a photograph attached to its backing.
Luca carefully removed it.
The picture showed Antonio Moretti standing beside a teenage girl in a yellow coat.
The girl was Emily.
On the back, Antonio had written:
SHE HAS AGREED TO RETURN WHEN SHE TURNS TWENTY-FIVE.
Clara looked at the date.
It was written eleven years earlier.
Two days before Antonio died.
She stared at Luca.
“Return where?”
Eleanor began crying.
Then she whispered a word Clara had never heard from her before.
“Marriage.”
Luca froze.
“What marriage?”
Eleanor pointed at the photograph.
Then toward Vanessa's abandoned wedding gown hanging near the wardrobe.
Clara's blood went cold.
Her sister had been promised to someone.
May you like
And Luca suddenly understood why the inheritance agreement had been changed before his wedding.
“CLARA,” HE SAID, “I DON'T THINK VANESSA WAS THE ORIGINAL BRIDE MY FATHER CHOSE.”
