Chapter 2 - THE NIGHT HIS MOTHER OPENED THE DOOR
“My mother helped Richard take my brother?”
Matteo Bellini stared at Evelyn Parker, waiting for the seventy-eight-year-old woman to tell him he had misunderstood.
She didn't.
Instead, she tightened her trembling fingers around Sophie Bennett's hand.
“Your mother showed Richard which door to use,” Evelyn repeated. “I saw her standing beside the east service entrance.”
Matteo felt something cold settle in his chest.
For fifteen years, he had believed his younger brother had been kidnapped during a school trip.
For fifteen years, his mother had cried on Anthony's birthday, set an empty plate at Christmas, and blamed herself for letting her eleven-year-old son leave the house that morning.
Now Evelyn was telling him Anthony had never disappeared from school at all.
“Why would my mother do that?” he demanded.
“I don't know everything.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
From the hallway, Richard Whitmore gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Careful, Matteo. You're asking an elderly woman to reconstruct a night she barely remembers.”
Matteo turned toward him.
“Get out of this room.”
Richard remained in the doorway.
He was sixty-four, silver-haired, impeccably dressed, and powerful enough that half of Philadelphia's political establishment returned his calls.
He had also been Matteo's father's closest business adviser.
Growing up, Matteo had called him Uncle Richard.
“Your mother was a troubled woman after Anthony disappeared,” Richard continued. “Don't let Evelyn tarnish her memory.”
Matteo approached him.
“My mother is alive. And I intend to ask her myself.”
Richard's expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Matteo noticed.
“She's in a private care facility,” Richard said. “You know how fragile she's become.”
“I know where she is.”
“Then you know upsetting her could be dangerous.”
Matteo stopped inches away.
“That's the second time tonight someone has warned me not to ask questions.”
Richard straightened his jacket.
“I'm trying to protect your family.”
“Then start by telling me where Anthony is.”
Silence.
Richard looked past Matteo toward Evelyn.
“You should have left the past alone.”
Sophie stepped between Evelyn and the doorway.
“Mr. Bellini asked you to leave.”
Richard stared at her.
“Do you have any idea who you're speaking to?”
“Yes,” Sophie answered, although her voice shook. “The man who threatened a housekeeper fifteen years ago.”
Matteo raised one hand.
“Marco.”
His security chief appeared immediately.
“Escort Mr. Whitmore downstairs. He doesn't leave the property until I've spoken to him again.”
Richard's face hardened.
“You cannot detain me because an old woman tells stories.”
“Then you're free to leave,” Matteo replied. “But don't expect to enter this house again.”
Richard hesitated.
Then he walked away.
That hesitation frightened Matteo more than the argument.
Richard had never been a man who surrendered control voluntarily.
Something had changed.
And Matteo intended to discover what.
When the hallway was quiet, Evelyn reached toward her bedside table.
“There's something else.”
She opened a small wooden sewing box.
Inside lay a silver pocket watch.
Matteo recognized it instantly.
His father had carried it every day.
The initials A.B. were engraved beneath the lid.
“Dad's watch?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Anthony took it that morning. Your father promised he could keep it when he turned twelve.”
Matteo opened the watch.
Its hands had stopped at 8:17.
Beneath the glass was a tiny photograph of two boys.
Matteo was sixteen.
Anthony was eleven.
Both stood beside their father in the mansion garden.
On the back, scratched into the silver, were three words.
Ask for Laura.
Matteo looked up.
“Who wrote this?”
“Anthony.”
“Before he disappeared?”
“No.”
Evelyn swallowed.
“Three weeks afterward.”
For a moment, Matteo could not speak.
“If Anthony wrote that afterward, then someone knew where he was.”
“Yes.”
“Who brought the watch here?”
Evelyn's eyes filled.
“Your mother.”
Matteo sat down slowly.
He remembered the morning his brother vanished.
His mother had held him so tightly that he could barely breathe.
She had whispered that she would never forgive herself.
He had believed she was grieving.
Now he wondered what else she had been hiding.
“Did she tell you where Anthony was?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“She told me never to show anyone the watch. She said Richard would hurt Anthony if he learned she'd brought it home.”
Matteo stared at the stopped hands.
“Then why didn't she go to the police?”
“Because she believed someone inside the police department was helping Richard.”
Sophie looked toward the door.
“The same person who helped accuse Laura of stealing documents?”
Evelyn nodded.
“And there was another reason.”
Matteo looked at her.
“What reason?”
Evelyn wiped her cheeks.
“Your mother believed Anthony had been taken because of something your father was planning to expose.”
Matteo's father, Lorenzo Bellini, had controlled shipping companies, construction contracts, and enough criminal operations to make enemies across three states.
But Anthony had been a child.
“What was Dad planning to expose?”
“A financial arrangement involving Richard.”
Matteo frowned.
“What arrangement?”
“I only heard fragments. Your father wanted to end it. Richard said ending it would destroy both families.”
Matteo closed the watch.
“Tomorrow morning, I'll speak to my mother.”
Evelyn caught his sleeve.
“Don't tell Richard where you're going.”
“He already knows where she lives.”
“No, Matteo.”
Her voice became unexpectedly firm.
“Richard knows where everyone believes she lives.”
Matteo froze.
His mother had spent the previous seven years at St. Catherine's Residential Care, a private facility outside Philadelphia.
He visited monthly.
Camille usually arranged the appointments because her family helped fund the institution.
“What are you saying?”
Evelyn lowered her voice.
“Your mother once told me there were days she was taken somewhere else. She said she wasn't supposed to remember those visits.”
Sophie stared at her.
“Was she being threatened?”
“I believe so.”
Matteo reached for his phone, then stopped.
Richard might have allies inside the facility.
Calling ahead would warn them.
He turned to Sophie.
“You've done enough tonight. I'll arrange protection for you and your mother.”
“My mother doesn't need strangers frightening her.”
“Then I'll ask what she's comfortable with.”
Sophie's expression softened.
It was the first time that evening anyone had considered what her mother might want.
Evelyn suddenly gripped Matteo's wrist.
“One more thing.”
She looked at the torn photograph Camille had dropped beside her chair.
“Laura didn't work here when Anthony disappeared because she needed money.”
Matteo frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“She came here looking for someone.”
“Who?”
Evelyn looked directly into his eyes.
“Your brother.”
Matteo's breath caught.
“But Laura was employed here before Anthony disappeared.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn's hands shook harder.
“Because she already knew Richard intended to take him.”
Matteo stared at the photograph.
“Why would Laura know that?”
Evelyn began crying again.
“Because Laura Mitchell wasn't just a maid, Matteo.”
May you like
She pointed toward the woman smiling beside the mansion's old garden fountain.
“She was Anthony's mother.”
