Chapter 2 - THE SISTER WHO WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO COME HOME
“Your sister visited me every month for twenty-nine years, Nathan. Every single month. And every time I asked about my family, Isabella told me you were all dead.”
Rebecca's voice came through the phone so clearly that everyone in the sitting room heard her.
Nathan Caruso didn't move.
For a man who controlled half the waterfront businesses around Boston and could silence a room with one glance, he suddenly looked like someone had taken away the ground beneath his feet.
Isabella stood beside the doorway, gripping the back of a chair.
“That isn't the whole story,” she whispered.
Nathan turned toward her.
“Then tell me the part that makes it acceptable.”
She said nothing.
I stood beside Dorothy Hayes, whose trembling fingers were wrapped around the silver locket.
Twenty-nine years.
That was how long Nathan had believed his youngest sister was buried in the family cemetery.
And now she was standing outside his gates, afraid to enter her own father's house.
“Open the gate,” Nathan told his security chief.
“Sir, she specifically requested—”
“I heard her. Tell her Isabella will stay away from her.”
Isabella's head snapped up.
“You cannot let a stranger dictate who enters this house!”
Nathan looked at her.
“You had twenty-nine years to tell me she wasn't a stranger.”
The silence that followed was worse than shouting.
I helped Dorothy stand.
“Are you feeling all right?”
She nodded, but her face had lost its color.
“I never thought she'd come here.”
“You knew she was alive?”
Dorothy looked toward the photograph in Nathan's hand.
“I knew she survived. I never knew what became of her.”
“Then why didn't you tell Nathan?”
“Because his father made me promise.”
There was so much pain in her voice that I couldn't bring myself to ask another question.
Nathan walked toward the entrance hall.
“Grace, stay with Dorothy.”
But Dorothy caught his sleeve.
“No. I need to see Rebecca.”
Nathan studied her.
“Why?”
“Because I held that little girl the night she was taken from the hospital.”
For the first time, Isabella seemed genuinely frightened.
“Dorothy, don't.”
The elderly nurse straightened.
“You've told me what to do for long enough, Isabella.”
We followed Nathan toward the front entrance.
Outside, the October wind carried the smell of salt water from the harbor.
A dark blue sedan waited beyond the gates.
A woman stood beside it, wearing a simple gray coat and holding a faded photograph.
She looked about thirty.
Her dark hair was tied back loosely, and her expression carried the guarded exhaustion of someone who had spent years expecting disappointment.
Nathan stopped halfway down the front steps.
I saw it then.
The resemblance wasn't overwhelming, but it was unmistakable.
The shape of her eyes.
The way she pressed her lips together when she was nervous.
And the small crease between her eyebrows.
It was Nathan's expression on a younger woman's face.
“Rebecca?” he asked.
She looked at him for a long moment.
“You're taller than I imagined.”
Nathan swallowed.
“You imagined me?”
She gave a sad little smile.
“Sometimes.”
Then she held up the photograph.
It showed their father sitting on a hospital bed, holding a newborn wrapped in a pale yellow blanket.
On the back, written in faded blue ink, were four words.
My Rebecca. Always loved.
Nathan stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
“Isabella gave it to me when I was fourteen.”
“Why?”
“She said it belonged to a man who had died before I was born.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Behind us, Dorothy began crying.
Rebecca noticed her.
“Miss Hayes?”
Dorothy took a shaky step forward.
“You remember me?”
“Your face. From a little photograph Isabella once showed me.”
Dorothy reached for her hand.
“I was there when you took your first breath.”
Rebecca's expression changed.
She looked down at their joined hands, as though she wasn't certain she was allowed to believe such kindness.
Then Nathan asked the question none of us could avoid.
“Where have you been living?”
“Mostly in Massachusetts. Different places when I was young. For the past eleven years, a house in Lowell.”
“Who raised you?”
“A woman named Margaret Bell.”
Nathan glanced toward the house.
“Does Isabella know her?”
Rebecca laughed once, without humor.
“Isabella paid her.”
Nathan's jaw tightened.
“Paid her for what?”
“My food. My school. Everything.”
“Why?”
Rebecca looked toward the mansion.
“That's what I came to find out.”
I noticed a narrow leather bracelet around her wrist.
It was old and cracked, with a small brass clasp.
She kept turning it nervously.
Nathan noticed, too.
“What's that?”
Rebecca covered it with her sleeve.
“Something Margaret told me never to lose.”
He didn't push.
Instead, he removed his coat and placed it around her shoulders.
“You're cold.”
Rebecca looked startled.
“I'm all right.”
“I know. Wear it anyway.”
For one brief moment, her guarded expression softened.
Then Isabella appeared at the top of the steps.
“Rebecca.”
Everything changed.
Rebecca stepped backward.
“Stay away from me.”
Isabella stopped.
“I never wanted you to find out like this.”
“Then how did you want me to find out?”
“Please. We should speak privately.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No more private conversations.”
Nathan moved between them.
“You're going to explain everything. But first, Rebecca is coming inside.”
“No!” Isabella cried.
Her reaction startled all of us.
She hurried down two steps.
“Nathan, you cannot bring her into Father's study.”
“Why not?”
“Because there are things in there she shouldn't see.”
Rebecca looked up sharply.
“What things?”
Isabella's mouth trembled.
“I was trying to protect you.”
Rebecca's eyes filled with tears.
“From my own brother?”
Isabella looked away.
Nathan turned to his security chief.
“Escort Isabella to the west sitting room. Nobody threatens her, nobody touches her, but she doesn't go near Rebecca.”
Isabella didn't resist.
That frightened me more than an argument would have.
Inside, the memorial dinner had gone silent.
Sixty guests watched as Nathan walked into the house with a woman wearing his coat.
He didn't introduce her immediately.
He simply said, “The dinner is over. Please leave quietly.”
Within minutes, the staff began escorting guests toward the front doors.
I took Rebecca and Dorothy into the smaller family sitting room.
Rebecca paused beside a portrait of Nathan's father.
Her fingers touched the frame.
“He looks different.”
“Different from what?” I asked.
“From the picture Isabella gave me.”
She reached into her purse and removed a folded photograph.
In it, Nathan's father stood beside a young woman wearing a nurse's uniform.
Dorothy leaned closer.
Then she gasped.
“That's not me.”
Rebecca looked confused.
“Isabella said she was the nurse who delivered me.”
Dorothy's voice dropped.
“No. That's Evelyn Price.”
Nathan entered just in time to hear her.
“Who was Evelyn Price?”
Dorothy turned toward him.
“The hospital administrator who signed Rebecca's transfer papers.”
“And where is she now?”
Dorothy hesitated.
“She disappeared from the hospital three days after your sister was born.”
Rebecca unfolded the photograph completely.
A handwritten note was taped to its back.
Dorothy read the first line.
Her face turned white.
“Good Lord.”
Nathan took the note.
It read:
If Rebecca ever returns to the Caruso house, do not let her see the woman in the blue dress.
Below those words was a date.
The date of the family memorial dinner.
Tonight.
Nathan looked toward the doorway.
Isabella had worn a blue dress.
But she wasn't the only woman who had.
And when I looked through the open doors toward the departing guests, I saw a woman in dark blue standing perfectly still beneath the staircase.
She was watching Rebecca.
Then she lifted one finger to her lips.
May you like
And Rebecca whispered:
“Grace, that's the woman who told me I would be killed if I ever came home.”
