Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Was Buried Twice
“Your father signed both death certificates, Dante. And one of them says your mother died eleven days after her funeral.”
Marcus stood across the desk, holding the original hospital record beneath the office lamp.
Dante didn't answer.
Outside his office, hundreds of guests were still enjoying the engagement celebration. Music drifted through the walls, mixed with occasional laughter.
Inside, everything had changed.
Dante stared at the photograph on his phone.
Elizabeth Bellini.
He hadn't spoken her name aloud in years.
His mother had died when he was nineteen.
He remembered the morning his father told him.
The closed bedroom door.
The black coat his father wore.
And the silver watch Elizabeth had given Dante on his eighteenth birthday.
He still wore that watch.
“Where did the second certificate come from?” he asked.
Marcus placed a folder on the desk.
“Your father's private attorney retained copies of everything from 2002. Richard Prescott requested access to those records six months ago.”
Dante looked up.
“Richard?”
“Yes.”
“Why would Savannah's brother need my mother's death certificate?”
“That,” Marcus replied, “is what concerns me.”
Dante opened the folder.
The first certificate listed Elizabeth's death as September 6, 2002.
The second listed September 17.
Both bore the signature of Dr. Harold Mercer.
Both identified his father, Vincent Bellini, as the person who had confirmed her identity.
But the second document contained something the first did not.
A handwritten notation.
Transfer authorized under protective family order.
Dante read it twice.
“What transfer?”
Marcus shook his head.
“No destination listed.”
Dante stood so suddenly his chair struck the wall.
“Find Savannah.”
Marcus hesitated.
“She left the ballroom eight minutes ago.”
“Alone?”
“With Richard.”
Dante reached for his jacket.
“Lock down the property.”
“Already done.”
“And my father?”
Marcus's expression changed.
“He's in the west library.”
Dante stopped.
His father hadn't attended a family celebration in nearly three years.
Vincent Bellini was seventy-one now. A stroke had weakened his right hand, but not his pride.
He rarely appeared in public.
Tonight, however, he had insisted on attending the engagement.
Dante had assumed it was a gesture of reconciliation.
Now he wasn't so sure.
Vincent was sitting beside the fireplace when Dante entered.
An old leather-bound book rested on his knees.
“You should be with your guests,” Vincent said.
Dante shut the door.
“Tell me about September 17, 2002.”
His father's fingers tightened around the book.
For several seconds, neither man spoke.
Then Vincent closed it.
“Who gave you that date?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
Dante approached him.
“Mother was buried on September 10. You told me she died four days earlier.”
Vincent stared at the fire.
“She did.”
“Then why is there another death certificate?”
His father slowly raised his eyes.
“Because sometimes paperwork is the only thing standing between a family and destruction.”
Dante felt his jaw tighten.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you should stop asking questions.”
Dante laughed once, without humor.
“I buried my mother. I stood beside her coffin while you told me to be strong. I spent twenty-four years believing I didn't get to say goodbye.”
Vincent's expression hardened.
“You think I don't remember that day?”
“I think you've lied about it.”
His father struggled to stand.
“Everything I did was to keep this family alive.”
“Then tell me what you did.”
Vincent opened his mouth.
But a sharp cough interrupted him.
He grabbed the armrest.
Dante instinctively stepped forward.
Vincent pushed his hand away.
“There's a reason the archives were sealed.”
“What reason?”
“Your mother made a decision.”
Dante went still.
“What decision?”
Vincent looked toward the library door.
Then he spoke so quietly Dante nearly missed it.
“She chose to protect someone.”
“Who?”
Vincent's face twisted with an emotion Dante couldn't identify.
“Not you.”
The words struck harder than Dante expected.
For twenty-four years, he'd believed his mother loved him more than anything.
Now his father was suggesting she had abandoned him to save someone else.
Dante backed away.
“I'm opening the archives.”
Vincent's voice rose.
“You do that, and people who have done nothing wrong will suffer.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
But Vincent lowered himself into the chair again.
He wouldn't say another word.
Emma was waiting outside the medical suite when Dante returned.
A doctor had wrapped her wrist and placed her arm in a sling.
She looked exhausted.
“You should be resting,” Dante told her.
“I needed to talk to you.”
“About Savannah?”
Emma nodded.
“There's something else.”
She reached into her pocket with her uninjured hand.
A folded piece of paper emerged.
“I found this yesterday, after Miss Prescott left the private dining room.”
Dante unfolded it.
It was a photocopy of a hospital payment receipt.
The amount was $18,400.
The patient number was partially obscured.
The date was March 17, 2026.
And the payment source was the Bellini Private Foundation.
Dante's stomach tightened.
“Where did Savannah get this?”
“I don't know.”
Emma hesitated.
“But when she saw me pick it up, she grabbed my arm.”
Dante glanced at her bruises.
“That's when she hurt you?”
Emma nodded.
“She kept asking whether I'd read the name.”
“Had you?”
“No. I only saw the payment.”
Dante noticed something on the back.
A handwritten address.
St. Catherine's Medical Residence — Henderson.
He had never heard of it.
“Emma, did Savannah say anything else?”
Emma looked frightened.
“She said some people were better off forgotten.”
Dante folded the paper carefully.
Then his phone rang.
It was Marcus.
“We found Richard's car,” Marcus said. “He never left the property.”
“Where is he?”
“In the underground parking garage.”
“And Savannah?”
“She's here, too.”
Dante headed toward the elevator.
“Keep them there.”
“Boss, there's something you need to see first.”
“What?”
“The champagne glass.”
Dante stopped walking.
“What about it?”
“We tested the residue.”
“And?”
Marcus paused.
“There was no poison.”
Dante frowned.
“Then what was she so afraid of?”
“Because the glass wasn't prepared for murder.”
“Explain.”
Marcus lowered his voice.
“The gold ribbon concealed a tiny numbered seal. It's part of an old document verification system.”
Dante remembered his father's archives.
“What system?”
“One used by the Bellini Foundation before 2002.”
Dante entered the elevator.
“I'm coming down.”
But Marcus wasn't finished.
“Boss, Richard had a passenger.”
“Who?”
“A woman. Elderly. Gray hair. She was wearing a blue coat.”
Dante barely heard the elevator doors open.
Marcus continued.
“We found a small photograph in her handbag. It shows you at eight years old, standing beside your mother.”
Dante's breath caught.
“Where is she now?”
“Richard says she's a private medical consultant.”
“And her name?”
Marcus hesitated.
“He says her name is Margaret Vale.”
Dante stepped into the garage.
At the far end, surrounded by guards, stood Savannah and Richard.
Beside them sat an elderly woman in a wheelchair.
She wore a faded blue coat.
Her face was turned away.
Then Dante saw her wrist.
A delicate silver bracelet hung beneath her sleeve.
He knew that bracelet.
He had bought it with his allowance for Mother's Day when he was eleven.
Dante walked toward her.
The woman slowly turned.
Her eyes filled with tears.
May you like
And in a voice he hadn't heard since he was nineteen, she whispered:
“Danny, please don't be angry with me.”
Related Stories
