Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO CALLED HERSELF GRANDMA
“Don't let that limousine reach the expressway.”
Luca Moretti's command stopped every conversation in the security office.
Marco stood beside the desk, holding his phone.
“Boss, we've identified the vehicle. Black Lincoln Navigator. Temporary registration. It left Mia's after-school center seventeen minutes ago.”
“Who was driving?”
“A man named Victor Shaw. Former private security contractor.”
“And the woman?”
Marco hesitated.
“We're still confirming her identity.”
Luca looked toward Emma.
She sat on the leather couch with her injured ankle elevated, gripping her daughter's pink backpack against her chest.
Twenty minutes ago, Mia had been safe.
Now an unknown woman had taken her.
Emma had watched the video six times, searching her daughter's frightened face for any indication that she was hurt.
“Mia doesn't go anywhere with strangers,” she whispered.
Luca turned toward her.
“Someone convinced her she wasn't a stranger.”
Emma shook her head.
“She knows better.”
“Emma.”
His voice softened.
“Children can be frightened into doing things they know are wrong.”
Across the room, Vanessa Bellini stood with her arms folded.
Her mascara had run slightly beneath her eyes.
“I told you I wasn't responsible for Sofia's disappearance,” she said. “You heard her yourself.”
Luca looked at his fiancée.
“You also knew she was alive.”
Vanessa lowered her gaze.
“Yes.”
“For a month?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was trying to bring her home safely.”
“By hiding her photograph inside your wedding dress box?”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
No explanation came.
Marco interrupted.
“Boss, there's something else.”
He placed a tablet on the desk.
Security footage from Mia's after-school center appeared.
At 3:41 p.m., a silver-haired woman approached the reception counter.
She wore a camel-colored coat and carried a brown leather handbag.
The receptionist smiled at her.
The woman produced identification.
Then Mia entered the frame.
Emma leaned forward.
Her daughter stopped several feet from the stranger.
She didn't run into the woman's arms.
She backed away.
The woman crouched and said something.
Mia looked toward the hallway.
Then slowly followed.
“Turn up the sound,” Emma demanded.
Marco adjusted the recording.
The woman's voice emerged, calm and almost grandmotherly.
“Your mother fell again, sweetheart. She asked me to take you to the hospital.”
Emma covered her mouth.
The woman continued.
“And Sophie is waiting in the car. She said you could bring your pink backpack.”
Mia hesitated.
“Mommy said not to go.”
The woman smiled.
“Then let's call her.”
She held up a phone.
The screen was turned away from the camera.
A moment later, Mia nodded.
Emma's face went pale.
“She showed Mia something.”
Marco froze the image.
On the phone was a photograph.
Emma recognized the staircase.
Her own injured ankle.
And Luca standing beside her.
Someone had photographed the confrontation with Vanessa earlier that morning.
“Who had access to that picture?” Luca asked.
Nobody answered.
Then Vanessa whispered, “My father.”
Luca turned.
“What?”
“He came to the house this morning. He saw the argument.”
“You told me your father was in Wisconsin.”
“He was supposed to be.”
Luca stepped closer.
“Vanessa, what else haven't you told me?”
She looked at Emma.
Then at the floor.
“The woman in that video is Dr. Evelyn Hart.”
Marco immediately started typing.
Emma frowned.
“Dr. Hart?”
Vanessa nodded.
“She used to work at Lakeshore Children's Hospital.”
Luca's expression hardened.
“That was the hospital where Sofia received treatment before our vacation.”
“Yes.”
“Why would a pediatric specialist take my daughter?”
Vanessa's eyes filled.
“Because Sofia wasn't kidnapped by a stranger.”
The room went silent.
Luca stared at her.
“Explain.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“Six years ago, Sofia had a medical examination the morning before your family left Chicago. Evelyn Hart was there. So was my father.”
“And?”
“Your daughter was supposed to be transferred to another specialist.”
Luca shook his head.
“No. Sofia was healthy. She had a routine appointment.”
“That's what you were told.”
Before Luca could respond, Emma suddenly remembered something.
“Mia drew that woman.”
Everyone turned.
“What?” Luca asked.
“Three weeks ago. After therapy. Mia drew an older woman wearing a brown coat. I thought she was drawing one of the nurses.”
“Where is it?”
Emma opened her daughter's backpack.
Inside were crayons, a small stuffed rabbit, a therapy notebook, and several folded sheets of paper.
She found the drawing.
Two little girls stood beside a woman.
One girl had dark curls.
The other had a yellow dress.
Above the woman, Mia had written three words in uneven purple letters.
THE BAD GRANDMA.
Luca stared.
Then Marco pointed to something in the corner.
A small red house.
Three windows.
A chimney.
And a black iron gate.
“That could be any house,” Vanessa said.
Emma turned the paper over.
On the back, Mia had written another sentence.
SOPHIE SAYS THE HOUSE HAS NO CLOCKS.
Luca looked at Marco.
“Find that house.”
Marco studied the drawing.
“Boss, Sofia disappeared from the family vacation property near Lake Geneva. Your father sold that estate afterward.”
“I remember.”
“But your family owned another property nearby.”
Luca frowned.
“The caretaker's cottage?”
“Not the cottage.”
Marco enlarged an old property map.
“The rehabilitation residence your father donated to a private medical foundation. It was never publicly listed.”
Vanessa became very still.
Luca noticed.
“You know the place.”
She nodded.
“My father helped establish it.”
Emma's voice broke.
“Is Mia there?”
“We don't know,” Marco answered.
Luca was already reaching for his coat.
Vanessa stepped in front of him.
“Luca, you cannot go there with armed men.”
“Move.”
“Please listen. If Evelyn thinks she's trapped, she'll hurt someone.”
“Then tell me how to stop her.”
Vanessa's eyes shifted toward the yellow coat lying on the desk.
“The coat,” she whispered.
“What about it?”
“Look inside the lining.”
Marco carefully turned the little coat inside out.
Near the collar, someone had sewn a narrow piece of white fabric.
There were three handwritten numbers.
6 — 14 — 23.
Luca frowned.
“A date?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“An address code. Evelyn used it for her patients.”
“Which patients?”
“The children she transferred without permission.”
Luca looked at her in disbelief.
“You knew she was trafficking children?”
“No!” Vanessa cried. “I discovered records of unauthorized transfers last month. Sofia was one of them.”
“Then why didn't you come to me?”
“Because my father told me he'd make Sofia disappear again if I did.”
The words hung between them.
For the first time, Luca saw genuine terror behind Vanessa's polished appearance.
But Emma wasn't looking at Vanessa.
She was staring at the numbers.
“Mr. Moretti,” she said, “those aren't just numbers.”
She reached into Mia's backpack and took out the appointment card for her daughter's neurological therapy.
Printed at the bottom was a patient reference.
LH-61423.
Luca slowly looked up.
“LH?”
Emma's hands began shaking.
“Lakeshore Hospital.”
Marco checked the medical documents recovered from the wedding box.
Then his expression changed.
“Boss, the same reference appears on Sofia's discharge records.”
Luca leaned over the desk.
Beneath the reference number was a patient authorization field.
One name appeared in clear black letters.
AUTHORIZED GUARDIAN: EMMA WILSON.
Emma stared at it.
“No,” she whispered. “I've never signed anything for Sofia.”
Luca looked from the document to the terrified young mother.
Then Marco turned the page.
Attached was a scanned signature dated six years earlier.
Emma Wilson.
And directly beneath it was a fingerprint.
Marco enlarged the identification photograph connected to the signature.
The woman in the photograph wasn't Emma.
It was someone older.
Someone with dark hair and a familiar smile.
Luca recognized her immediately.
His late wife's younger sister.
May you like
Rachel Bennett.
And Rachel had supposedly died three months after Sofia disappeared.
