Chapter 4 - THE DOCTOR WHO REMEMBERED THE BLANKET
"That bracelet belonged to your mother."
Roman spoke slowly, as though testing the words.
I shook my head.
"My mother never mentioned it."
"Look at the initials."
"C.H. could mean anything."
"And the date?"
I didn't answer.
The date was too familiar.
Every year, my father had bought my mother white roses.
Every year, she'd smiled at him over dinner.
But now I remembered something strange.
She never wore her wedding ring on their anniversary.
She wore it every other day.
Just not that one.
Roman watched my face.
"What are you thinking?"
"My mother used to say some promises cost more than they should."
"Did she explain?"
"No."
I sat down.
For twenty-seven years, I'd believed I understood my parents' marriage.
My father was a proud man who hated asking for help.
My mother was patient, generous, and unusually private about her years in nursing.
After she died, he'd sold nearly everything she'd owned.
Including the house where I'd grown up.
He said he needed the money.
Now I wondered what else he'd been trying to erase.
Roman reached for the photograph.
"We need to speak to Dr. Reed."
"Not with armed men standing outside her clinic."
He looked at me.
"Claire, someone tampered with our convoy."
"And someone bought me a bus ticket I never requested."
"Exactly."
"Then listen to me. If Allison Reed wanted to hurt me, she's had plenty of opportunities."
Roman's expression didn't change.
"People can be useful to dangerous men without wanting to be dangerous themselves."
I thought about that.
It sounded too much like our marriage.
"Is that how you think of me?"
His head lifted.
"What?"
"Useful?"
"Claire."
"Two years ago, my father brought me into your office and told me our marriage would solve a problem."
Roman remained silent.
"You never asked whether I loved you."
His eyes darkened.
"You told me you didn't."
"Because I barely knew you."
"I know."
"Then why did you marry me?"
Roman looked toward the wooden box.
"My father's will contained a provision. Certain family assets couldn't transfer to me until I married."
I stared at him.
"So you needed a wife."
"At the time, yes."
The answer hurt more than I expected.
He continued.
"But I didn't need you specifically."
"Then why me?"
"Your father approached my people. He offered to settle his obligations through the marriage."
I folded my arms.
"Did you know how much I hated the arrangement?"
"Yes."
"And you married me anyway."
Roman didn't look away.
"Yes."
For once, there was no excuse.
No attempt to make the past sound romantic.
Just the truth.
It was almost enough to make me cry.
"What changed?" I asked.
Roman hesitated.
"I stopped thinking of you as part of an agreement."
"When?"
He gave a tired, humorless smile.
"The first time you told my head of security that I was perfectly capable of making my own coffee."
Despite everything, I nearly laughed.
That had happened three weeks after our wedding.
I'd found four employees waiting to pour Roman's morning espresso.
I had told them to go home and see their families.
Roman had looked scandalized.
Then he'd quietly poured the coffee himself.
"You never said anything."
"I didn't know how."
"You're thirty-nine years old."
"I can negotiate a million-dollar contract," he said, "but I don't always know how to speak to my wife."
The honesty surprised me.
But it didn't erase two years of silence.
"Then start learning."
Roman nodded.
"I will."
By morning, the rain had stopped.
We went to Bloomfield in an ordinary gray sedan, accompanied by one discreet security vehicle.
I insisted on sitting in the front passenger seat.
Roman didn't argue.
Dr. Allison Reed was finishing a consultation when we arrived.
She looked startled to see Roman.
Then she saw the photograph in my hand.
Her expression changed.
"Where did you get that?"
"It belonged to Roman's mother."
Allison closed her office door.
She was sixty-eight, with silver hair cut neatly above her shoulders.
I'd trusted her because she reminded me of my mother.
Now I wondered whether that resemblance had been accidental.
"Claire," she said gently, "how much do you know?"
"Not enough."
Roman placed the bracelet on her desk.
Allison covered her mouth.
"Oh, Mary."
My heart squeezed.
"You knew my mother."
"Yes."
"How?"
"We worked together at St. Agnes."
"Was she involved in Roman's sister's birth?"
Allison looked toward the window.
Roman leaned forward.
"Doctor."
She turned back.
"Your mother delivered a little girl."
Roman became still.
"Alive?"
Allison nodded.
"Alive."
He closed his eyes.
For thirty years, he'd believed his sister had died.
Now a woman who'd held her in the delivery room sat three feet away.
"Where is she?"
Allison's eyes filled.
"I don't know."
Roman's expression tightened.
"How can you not know?"
"Because the child was taken away before the official paperwork was completed."
"By whom?"
Allison shook her head.
"That night, the hospital was under enormous pressure. Your father arrived with two men. There were threats. The records were altered."
"My father ordered it?"
"He ordered something. I never knew precisely what."
I glanced at Roman.
His hands were clenched.
"What did my mother do?" I asked.
Allison looked at me for a long moment.
"Mary refused to cooperate."
A strange pride rose in my chest.
"She refused?"
"She believed the child deserved a chance to live without being used as leverage."
Allison opened an old filing cabinet.
From a folder, she removed a yellowed piece of fabric.
White cotton.
Tiny embroidered flowers.
Roman made a small sound.
"The blanket."
Allison placed it gently on the desk.
"Your mother made two."
"Why two?" he asked.
"One for the baby. One for whoever eventually brought her home."
I traced a yellow flower with my fingertip.
Inside the hem, my mother's handwriting had been stitched in blue thread.
Every child deserves a safe place.
Tears blurred my vision.
Allison watched me.
"Your mother kept that promise for years."
"What promise?"
She hesitated.
"She helped protect the woman who raised the baby."
Roman leaned forward.
"Who was she?"
Allison reached into the folder.
But instead of answering, she removed a photograph.
A little girl stood outside a modest house, holding a stuffed rabbit.
She looked about six.
Behind her stood my mother.
And beside my mother was a much younger Marco Velez.
Roman took the photograph.
His hand began to shake.
"Marco?"
Allison nodded sadly.
"He wasn't always your security chief."
Roman turned the photograph over.
There was an address.
And underneath it, a handwritten note.
If anything happens to Mary, don't let Marco take the girl.
I stared at the warning.
"Why would my mother write that?"
Allison's voice trembled.
"Because Marco was supposed to protect her."
May you like
She looked at Roman.
"And because, fifteen years ago, he was the man who made your sister disappear a second time."
