Chapter 4 - THE MAN IN THE GRAY COAT
“Then who separated us?”
My voice sounded strange inside the hospital room.
Carol was crying on the other end of the phone.
“Your biological mother was trying to get both of you somewhere safe.”
“Safe from whom?”
She hesitated.
“From the people who controlled the charity.”
I looked toward Luca.
His face had gone still.
“Mom, I need you to tell me everything.”
“Come home, Hannah. I'll show you what I kept.”
I wanted to demand answers.
But my mother sounded exhausted.
Chemotherapy had weakened her terribly over the last six months, and I recognized the strain in her breathing.
“I'll come,” I promised.
When I ended the call, Luca was watching me.
“Your mother has been protecting something.”
I shook my head.
“Maybe.”
“What did she say about my father?”
“That he wasn't the one who separated us.”
Luca looked toward Rose.
His mother had fallen asleep again.
“My father died six years ago,” he said quietly. “I spent most of my adult life believing I understood him.”
He paused.
“I'm beginning to think I didn't.”
I looked at his tattooed hands.
They were resting on the back of a chair.
Hands that had made powerful men afraid.
Yet he hadn't been able to protect his own mother.
Perhaps he was beginning to understand how that felt.
“Can Daniel stay with Rose?” I asked.
“He already intends to.”
“Then I need to see Carol.”
Luca reached for his coat.
“I'll drive you.”
“You don't have to.”
“I know.”
He looked at me.
“But my family is part of this. And I won't let you face it alone.”
Forty minutes later, we reached the small apartment building where Carol lived.
The building smelled of laundry detergent and freshly painted walls.
Luca looked painfully out of place in the narrow hallway.
For the first time since I'd known him, that seemed to embarrass him.
Carol opened the door wearing her favorite blue cardigan.
Her face was pale.
A scarf covered her thinning hair.
When she saw me, her eyes filled immediately.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
I stepped into her arms.
For several seconds, I forgot everything except that she was my mother.
The woman who had raised me.
The woman I'd been so afraid of losing.
Then I pulled back.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Carol closed her eyes.
“Because I made a promise.”
“To whom?”
“Maria.”
My throat tightened.
“You knew her?”
Carol nodded.
“We worked together before she disappeared.”
I stared at her.
“You told me an adoption agency brought me to you.”
“It did. But Maria had asked me to become your foster parent before the adoption was finalized.”
“Then why pretend you didn't know her?”
Carol looked toward Luca.
“Because someone from the Bellini Foundation was watching us.”
Luca's expression hardened.
“Who?”
Carol disappeared into her bedroom.
She returned carrying an old gray coat.
It was a man's coat, much too large for her.
“I kept this because Maria asked me to.”
She spread it across the table.
Inside the lining was a narrow pocket.
From it, Carol removed a faded photograph.
Three women stood outside a hospital.
Maria.
Carol.
And a third woman holding two babies wrapped in matching blankets.
I leaned forward.
“Who is she?”
Carol answered quietly.
“Evelyn Bellini.”
Luca frowned.
“Vanessa's mother?”
Carol nodded.
“She worked as a nurse before she married Antonio Bellini.”
I studied the photograph.
Evelyn looked younger, softer, with dark hair pulled into a simple ponytail.
“Why was she holding us?”
“Because she helped deliver you.”
Carol sat down slowly.
“Maria worked at the Moretti mansion. She also helped manage paperwork for the children's charity. She discovered money disappearing from accounts meant to support families with sick children.”
Luca pulled out a chair.
“My father funded that charity.”
“Yes,” Carol said. “But Antonio Bellini controlled its finances.”
“What did Maria discover?”
Carol glanced at me.
“That the money wasn't simply disappearing. It was being redirected through organizations claiming to place vulnerable children with new families.”
I felt sick.
“You mean adoptions?”
“Some were legitimate. Some weren't.”
She folded her hands.
“Maria believed certain wealthy families were paying enormous fees to receive children whose parents had never consented to give them up.”
Luca stared at her.
“Was my father involved?”
Carol shook her head.
“Maria never believed he knew.”
I glanced at the photograph.
“And Hope?”
Carol's eyes filled.
“She was taken while Maria was preparing to leave Chicago.”
The room fell silent.
“How?”
“Maria had arranged to take both girls to Boston. She planned to deliver copies of her records to a journalist there.”
Carol pressed a trembling hand against her mouth.
“She left the twins with Evelyn for one afternoon. When she returned, Hope was gone.”
I gripped the table.
“Evelyn took her?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Carol looked toward the gray coat.
“Maria believed a man wearing this coat collected Hope from the hospital.”
Luca examined the garment.
“Whose was it?”
“I don't know. Maria found it abandoned beside a service entrance days later. She hid a copy of his identification card in the lining.”
Carol turned the coat over.
She showed Luca a second seam near the collar.
He carefully opened it.
A small laminated card slid out.
The photograph showed a younger man with neatly combed hair and a narrow face.
Beneath it was a name.
Thomas Vale.
Luca's expression changed.
“That's impossible.”
I looked at him.
“You know him?”
“He worked as a private security contractor for the foundation.”
“Where is he now?”
Luca didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, “He died in a boating accident nine years ago.”
I stared at the photograph.
Another dead man.
Another missing piece.
Carol shook her head.
“Maria never believed the accident.”
Luca looked up sharply.
“Why?”
“Because two weeks after the funeral, someone wearing that same coat appeared outside my apartment.”
A chill moved through me.
“What did he want?”
“He left a warning.”
Carol reached into the coat pocket again.
This time she removed a small child's drawing.
Two little girls stood beneath a yellow sun.
One wore a red dress.
The other wore blue.
Between them was a house with a green roof.
At the bottom, written in uneven adult handwriting, were five words.
Keep one. Forget the other.
I couldn't take my eyes off it.
“Who drew this?”
Carol's voice broke.
“You did, Hannah. When you were three.”
My chest tightened.
“I remember a green house.”
Carol nodded.
“Maria said you and Hope used to draw it together.”
Luca examined the back of the paper.
A date had been stamped there.
And beneath it, in smaller handwriting:
St. Agnes Children's Residence.
Luca frowned.
“I've never heard of it.”
Carol turned pale.
“That building closed years ago.”
“Where was it?” I asked.
“Near Lake Michigan.”
I picked up the photograph of Thomas Vale.
The background showed the corner of a building.
A green roof.
A white stone cross.
The same building from my drawing.
“Hope was there,” I whispered.
Carol nodded slowly.
“She was. But not for long.”
I looked up.
“What happened?”
Carol swallowed.
“Last Thursday, Hope told me she'd spent years trying to discover who paid for her placement. She found a file with a name she recognized.”
“Whose name?”
Carol looked at Luca.
“Your mother's.”
Luca stood motionless.
“Rose?”
Carol nodded.
“According to Hope's file, Rose Moretti signed the authorization that sent her away.”
I felt the floor shift beneath me.
Rose had protected me.
She had hidden Maria's evidence.
She had risked her life for a key.
But had she also helped take my sister?
Then Carol reached beneath the table and placed a small blue child's shoe in front of me.
“Hope left this for you.”
Inside was a folded note.
I opened it.
The message was written in careful, adult handwriting.
Hannah, if you find this, don't trust the signature.
May you like
Beneath those words was something even more frightening.
Ask Rose why she kept my other shoe.
