Chapter 3 - THE SIGNATURE OF A DEAD WOMAN
“Rachel couldn't have signed that document.”
Luca stood over the desk, staring at the photograph.
His sister-in-law's face looked exactly as he remembered it.
Soft brown eyes.
Dark hair pulled into a loose bun.
A small mole beside her chin.
Rachel Bennett had been twenty-nine when the police reported her death in a highway accident.
She had been one of the last people to see Sofia before the little girl vanished.
Emma remained seated.
“Why is my name on her identification?”
Marco examined the page.
“The database identifies Rachel's photograph as Emma Wilson. Someone deliberately replaced the identity details.”
Vanessa stepped closer.
“Rachel worked in patient registration before she died.”
Luca turned sharply.
“How do you know that?”
“My father mentioned it. He said she helped coordinate pediatric transfers.”
“Rachel was a schoolteacher.”
“That's what I thought too.”
Luca looked at Marco.
“Get me everything on Rachel. Employment records, bank accounts, the accident report.”
Marco nodded.
Then Emma spoke.
“Mr. Moretti, before you send anyone after Mia, there's something you need to understand.”
Luca faced her.
“Tell me.”
“Mia has a seizure condition. Stress and missed medication can make it worse. Her medicine is in the front pocket of that backpack.”
Everyone looked at the pink bag.
It was still sitting beside Emma.
The medication had never left the house.
Emma opened the pocket and held up a small blue case.
“She needs her next dose tonight.”
Luca immediately turned to Marco.
“Have her neurologist prepare an emergency treatment plan. Send the medication details to our medical team.”
Marco moved toward the door.
“Luca,” Vanessa said, “Evelyn was a pediatric doctor. She'll know what to do.”
Emma stood so suddenly that pain shot through her ankle.
“Don't you dare use that to make me feel better.”
Vanessa stopped.
Emma's eyes filled with tears.
“My daughter is eight years old. She thinks her mother is hurt. She's probably waiting for someone to come get her. And you're telling me to trust the woman who took her?”
Vanessa lowered her gaze.
“No.”
“Then stop defending her.”
Luca moved a chair behind Emma.
“Sit down before you hurt yourself.”
“I can't sit here.”
“You won't help Mia by making that ankle worse.”
Emma looked at him.
For a moment, the feared Mafia boss sounded less like a dangerous man and more like a father who understood exactly what she was feeling.
She sat.
Marco returned with another discovery.
“Rachel Bennett's accident file is restricted.”
Luca frowned.
“Restricted by whom?”
“A private request filed through the hospital's legal office.”
“Who signed it?”
Marco looked toward Vanessa.
“Anthony Bellini.”
Vanessa's father.
Luca closed his eyes.
Anthony Bellini had been his business partner for almost ten years.
A powerful Chicago developer with investments in private healthcare, transportation, and real estate.
He had also been the man who introduced Luca to Vanessa.
“Get the original accident report,” Luca ordered.
Marco hesitated.
“Boss, there's something you should see first.”
He placed a second file on the desk.
It contained an old photograph of Rachel standing beside a white ambulance.
The vehicle carried the logo of Lakeshore Children's Hospital.
Beside Rachel stood Dr. Evelyn Hart.
And a third woman.
Luca studied her face.
“That's my wife.”
His voice came out barely above a whisper.
Six years earlier, his wife, Isabella Moretti, had died from complications of an illness.
Her death came just two weeks after Sofia disappeared.
Luca had always believed grief and exhaustion had made her illness worse.
But now Isabella was standing in a photograph beside the two women involved in Sofia's disappearance.
Emma studied the picture.
“Mr. Moretti, what's in your wife's hand?”
Luca leaned closer.
Isabella held a small silver bracelet.
It had a butterfly charm.
Sofia's bracelet.
The same one Luca had given her for her fifth birthday.
On the back, he had engraved three words.
ALWAYS MY GIRL.
Luca remembered Isabella searching the entire house for that bracelet after Sofia vanished.
She had told him it disappeared with their daughter.
Yet the photograph showed it in her hand.
“Why would Isabella have it?” he whispered.
Marco checked the date.
“The photograph was taken four days after Sofia disappeared.”
Luca stepped backward.
“No.”
Vanessa looked troubled.
“Luca—”
“My wife told me she hadn't seen Sofia.”
He looked at the photograph again.
“She told me our daughter was gone.”
The memory returned with painful clarity.
Isabella sitting at the kitchen table.
Her face pale.
Her hands trembling around a cup of untouched tea.
Please don't ask me about Sofia again tonight.
He had thought she was grieving.
Now he wondered whether she had been frightened.
Emma broke the silence.
“Maybe she was trying to find her.”
Luca looked at her.
“What?”
“If someone had Sofia, perhaps your wife was collecting evidence.”
Vanessa nodded slowly.
“Rachel was Isabella's sister. If Rachel knew something, Isabella might have gone to her.”
Marco checked the photograph's background.
“There's a street sign.”
He enlarged the image.
HARBOR VIEW ROAD.
Luca recognized it.
“That's near the old rehabilitation residence.”
Then Marco's phone vibrated with an internal security alert.
A camera had captured the black Navigator entering a private medical complex in northern Illinois.
The plate matched.
The vehicle had stopped beneath a covered entrance.
Two girls emerged.
One wore a yellow coat.
The other carried a stuffed white rabbit.
“Mia,” Emma whispered.
The girls entered the building beside the silver-haired woman.
Luca gripped the edge of the desk.
“Send the team.”
Marco shook his head.
“Boss, there are children inside. We can't storm a medical facility without knowing who's involved.”
“Then get the police.”
“Already contacting the state investigators.”
Vanessa suddenly reached for the photograph.
“Wait.”
She studied the bracelet in Isabella's hand.
“Luca, I saw this bracelet last month.”
Luca froze.
“Where?”
“In my father's office.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I didn't know it belonged to Sofia.”
Vanessa hesitated.
“He kept it in a wooden box with a hospital access card.”
Luca looked at her.
“Do you still have the card?”
She nodded.
“I took it when I found Sofia's records.”
“Where is it?”
“In my handbag.”
Vanessa opened her purse and removed a faded plastic card.
Marco examined it.
It belonged to the medical complex where the Navigator had just arrived.
The card carried Rachel Bennett's photograph.
But the name printed underneath was different.
DR. EVELYN HART.
Luca looked at Vanessa.
“Your father was using Rachel's identity.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“Or Rachel was using Evelyn's.”
Emma suddenly remembered something.
“The older woman in Mia's drawing.”
She picked up the page.
“She has a mole beside her chin.”
Luca stared.
Rachel had possessed that same small mole.
He replayed the security footage.
The silver-haired woman turned slightly toward the camera.
A tiny dark mark appeared beside her chin.
Luca felt the blood drain from his face.
“Marco, enlarge it.”
The image sharpened.
The woman who had taken Mia was not Dr. Evelyn Hart.
It was Rachel Bennett.
The woman whose funeral Luca had attended six years earlier.
And when Marco checked the original medical staff directory, he found one more disturbing detail.
May you like
Dr. Evelyn Hart had died seven years ago.
Someone had been using her name ever since.
