Chapter 2 - THE ADDRESS VANESSA REFUSED TO GIVE
“Tell her where her mother is, Vanessa. Or the next conversation you have will be with the police.”
Luca Moretti stood beside the dining table, holding the photograph of Maria Bennett so tightly that its edges had begun to bend.
Forty-eight guests had arrived expecting an elegant engagement dinner.
Instead, they were watching a man discover that the woman he intended to marry might have helped destroy an innocent family.
Vanessa Bellini stared at him.
“You really think I'm the villain here?”
Luca didn't move.
“My mother is bleeding. Hannah has just learned that her birth mother may still be alive. And you've spent the last twenty minutes trying to hide evidence.”
“Evidence?” Vanessa laughed bitterly. “You don't even know what you're looking at.”
I stood beside Rose's wheelchair, my fingers wrapped around the little silver heart hanging from my necklace.
For twenty-two years, I'd believed my biological mother had abandoned me.
Now her photograph lay on the table.
She was alive.
Somewhere.
And the woman who had just threatened to fire me apparently knew where.
“Please,” I whispered.
Vanessa looked at me.
“Please what?”
“Whatever happened between your family and mine, I had nothing to do with it. I was three years old.”
Something flickered across her face.
For the first time that evening, she didn't look angry.
She looked ashamed.
Then she glanced toward her handbag.
“My father kept an address,” she said.
Luca stepped closer.
“Where?”
Vanessa opened her handbag with trembling fingers.
She removed a cream-colored card.
On it was the name of a small coastal town in Maine.
Port Clyde.
Beneath the address, someone had written two words.
Blue Harbor.
My heart began pounding.
“Is that where she lives?”
“I don't know.”
“Vanessa.”
“I'm telling you the truth, Luca. That's where my father had someone photograph her eight weeks ago.”
I reached for the card.
Vanessa pulled it away.
“One thing first.”
Luca's expression darkened.
“You're not negotiating.”
“I want my father's name kept out of this until you understand what happened.”
“You lost the right to make demands when you hurt my mother.”
Vanessa looked toward Rose.
“I didn't mean for her to fall.”
The words struck me harder than an admission of guilt.
Because Rose hadn't simply slipped.
Vanessa had been there.
“You said she fell trying to open a cupboard,” I said.
Vanessa's eyes filled.
“She grabbed my bag. I tried to get it back. Her wheelchair moved, and she struck the piano.”
Rose made a strained sound.
I turned.
She was shaking her head.
“No,” she whispered.
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“Rose, please.”
“No.”
Luca crouched beside his mother.
“What happened?”
Rose struggled to lift her injured hand.
Her fingers formed a shape around something invisible.
Then she pointed toward Vanessa's handbag.
“Key.”
Daniel, the security chief, moved forward.
“Miss Bellini, put the bag on the table.”
Vanessa hesitated.
Then obeyed.
Daniel carefully searched its compartments.
He found a lipstick, a wallet, a folded invitation, and a narrow brass key attached to a blue ribbon.
Rose began crying.
“That,” I whispered.
Daniel held it up.
Vanessa looked away.
Luca turned toward the old suitcase.
“Where does it belong?”
Rose pointed toward the music room.
Before anyone could move, the doctor Daniel had contacted arrived.
Dr. Samuel Reed had treated Rose for nearly a decade.
He examined her forehead, cleaned the wound on her arm, and carefully checked her right hand.
When he finished, his expression was serious.
“She's fortunate there doesn't appear to be a fracture. But she has substantial bruising around her wrist.”
He looked at Luca.
“These injuries deserve a proper examination at the hospital.”
Luca nodded immediately.
“Whatever she needs.”
Dr. Reed glanced toward Vanessa.
“Mr. Moretti, the marks on her wrist are consistent with someone gripping her forcefully.”
The room became terribly quiet.
Vanessa lowered her head.
Luca looked at her for several seconds.
Then he removed his engagement ring from the small silver tray where he'd placed it earlier.
Vanessa watched him.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure there's no misunderstanding.”
He set the ring beside her untouched champagne glass.
“You are no longer my fiancée. You will leave this property after the police have taken your statement.”
She stared at the ring.
Then whispered something I barely heard.
“My father warned me you would choose blood over everything.”
Luca answered without hesitation.
“My mother isn't a choice.”
Dr. Reed began preparing Rose for transport.
I helped adjust her blanket.
She caught my fingers.
“Hannah.”
“Yes?”
She touched my necklace again.
Then carefully brought my hand toward her cheek.
For a moment, I saw something beyond the frightened woman in the wheelchair.
I saw a mother who had been carrying someone else's secret for twelve years.
“I'm going to find her,” I whispered.
Rose nodded.
“Promise,” she managed.
“I promise.”
But before she released me, she pressed something into my palm.
A tiny silver button.
Its surface was engraved with a star.
I frowned.
“Where did you get this?”
Rose pointed toward the old photograph.
I studied it.
Maria Bennett wore a pale blue coat while holding the newborn child.
Three small silver buttons decorated its collar.
Each button had a star.
One was missing.
My throat tightened.
“That was my mother's coat?”
Rose nodded.
Luca came closer.
“What is it?”
I showed him.
He studied the photograph, then the button.
“Mom kept that?”
Rose's eyes moved toward the suitcase.
Daniel had already removed its false lining.
But beneath the lining was something neither of us had noticed.
A narrow strip of blue cloth stitched around the interior seam.
I recognized it immediately.
“The fabric in Rose's hand.”
Daniel carefully examined the stitching.
“Someone cut this open recently.”
Vanessa went pale.
Luca looked at her.
“What were you searching for?”
She didn't answer.
Daniel used a small pair of scissors to open the seam.
Inside lay a folded railway ticket.
It was twelve years old.
A ticket from Chicago to Boston.
On the reverse side, written in faded blue ink, were four words.
She took the wrong child.
I read the sentence twice.
Then again.
“What does that mean?”
Rose began making a distressed sound.
Luca reached for her.
“Mom?”
She grabbed the hospital bracelet lying on the table.
The one bearing my name.
Then she pushed it toward me and shook her head.
Over and over.
Dr. Reed moved closer.
“Rose, don't strain yourself.”
But she wouldn't stop.
Finally, she managed three words.
“Not... your... bracelet.”
My blood turned cold.
Luca stared at the bracelet.
“Hannah Bennett,” he read slowly.
Then he looked toward Vanessa.
“Whose bracelet is this?”
Vanessa's face crumpled.
May you like
And the answer she gave changed everything.
“Maria had two daughters.”
