Chapter 2 - THE GIRL WHO CARRIED HER FATHER'S LAST WORDS
“Don't let Richard Whitmore anywhere near that child!”
Eleanor Moretti's warning was so sharp that Luca stopped halfway across the sitting room.
Richard had already reached the hallway.
“She's lying,” he said. “Whatever Rebecca has told that girl, it's a lie.”
Luca stepped in front of him.
“You haven't seen her yet. How do you know what she's been told?”
Richard opened his mouth, then closed it.
For the first time that evening, Luca saw fear in a man who had spent thirty years pretending he feared nothing.
“Marco,” Luca said to his security chief through the phone, “bring Rebecca and the girl through the east entrance. Nobody approaches them without my permission.”
Vanessa caught his arm.
“Luca, please. We have eighty guests.”
“Then take care of them.”
“You can't seriously believe some woman who disappeared years ago.”
Eleanor raised her cane.
“That woman was your future sister-in-law, Vanessa. And you will speak about her with respect.”
Vanessa turned pale.
Five minutes later, Rebecca Lane entered the sitting room.
She was forty-five now, with tired blue eyes and brown hair pulled into a simple bun. Her gray wool coat had seen better days.
Beside her stood a girl of about sixteen, clutching a worn leather satchel.
The girl had Michael's eyes.
Luca knew it before anyone spoke.
The same deep brown.
The same slightly crooked smile when she was nervous.
The girl looked at a portrait above the fireplace.
“That's my dad.”
Her voice trembled.
Luca felt something tighten inside his chest.
“What's your name?”
“Isabel.”
Rebecca placed a protective hand on her daughter's shoulder.
“Isabel Moretti.”
Richard made a strangled sound.
“Absolutely not.”
The girl flinched.
Luca turned.
“Richard, another word and you're leaving.”
Rebecca looked toward Eleanor.
For a moment, neither woman moved.
Then Eleanor opened her arms.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Rebecca crossed the room and embraced her.
Twenty-two years seemed to collapse between them.
“I tried to come back,” Rebecca whispered.
“I know.”
“No,” Rebecca said, pulling away. “You don't.”
Eleanor's expression changed.
Rebecca reached into Isabel's satchel and withdrew a folded letter.
The paper had yellowed around the edges.
“My husband wrote this the night before he died.”
Luca stared at her.
“Husband.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Michael and I were married for fourteen years, Luca. Quietly. Legally. We never stopped being husband and wife.”
“Why didn't he tell me?”
“Because somebody made him believe telling you would get us killed.”
Luca glanced at Richard.
Richard looked away.
Rebecca unfolded the letter.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
Michael had always written the letter M with an exaggerated curve.
Luca remembered teasing him about it when they were boys.
Rebecca began reading.
Rebecca, if anything happens to me, don't trust the story they'll tell about the accident.
Her voice broke.
She handed the paper to Luca.
He continued silently.
I found the original transfer records. The company didn't lose the waterfront properties. Someone inside our family sold them twice.
Luca's eyes narrowed.
Mercer Point.
The waterfront redevelopment that had nearly destroyed the Moretti family's legitimate businesses eight years earlier.
Michael had been investigating it before his fatal car accident.
The letter continued.
The proof isn't in the office anymore. I left it somewhere only you would understand. Remember the blue coat and the winter photograph.
Luca looked up.
“Blue coat?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I thought I knew what he meant. I was wrong.”
Isabel stepped closer.
“There's something else.”
She removed a small silver watch from her satchel.
Its crystal was cracked.
The hands had stopped at 11:17.
Luca recognized it immediately.
Their father had given Michael that watch for his twenty-first birthday.
“Where did you get this?”
“Mom kept it for me.”
Luca took it carefully.
On the back, someone had scratched three small letters.
E.M.R.
He frowned.
“Those initials weren't there before.”
Rebecca looked surprised.
“Michael scratched them himself, two days before the accident.”
Richard abruptly turned toward the door.
Luca caught his shoulder.
“Where are you going?”
“I won't stand here while you invent accusations against me.”
“Then sit down and defend yourself.”
Richard shook Luca's hand away.
“You're making a terrible mistake.”
“No,” Eleanor said quietly. “The terrible mistake was made twenty-two years ago.”
Rebecca faced Richard.
“You told me Michael would never marry a woman like me.”
Richard's jaw tightened.
“You were a waitress who didn't understand the world you were marrying into.”
“You offered to pay my student loans if I disappeared.”
Vanessa stared at her father.
“Daddy?”
Richard said nothing.
Rebecca continued.
“When I refused, you told Michael I'd been seeing another man. You forged messages. You made him question me.”
Luca looked toward Eleanor.
“Is that why Dad banned him?”
“Part of it,” Eleanor answered.
“What's the other part?”
Eleanor studied Rebecca.
“Tell him about the courthouse.”
Rebecca's face hardened.
“Michael and I married that afternoon. Your father found out three days later.”
Luca struggled to breathe.
“Our father knew?”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing?”
“He believed keeping our marriage secret would protect me.”
Isabel looked up at her mother.
“Protect you from what?”
Rebecca hesitated.
Richard answered before she could.
“From the kind of men Michael was doing business with.”
Luca turned sharply.
“Which men?”
Richard gave a bitter laugh.
“Ask your grandmother why the family bought Mercer Point in the first place.”
Eleanor lowered herself into a chair.
“Luca, your father made an agreement before you took over the businesses. Michael discovered that agreement wasn't what it appeared to be.”
“What agreement?”
“The Whitmore family provided financing when ours was nearly bankrupt.”
Vanessa stared at Eleanor.
“My grandfather saved this family?”
“He helped,” Eleanor said. “And then his son found a way to make us pay for it forever.”
Richard's expression darkened.
“You have no proof.”
“Not yet.”
Luca examined Michael's watch.
Something caught beneath its damaged crystal.
A tiny folded strip of paper.
He carefully loosened the back.
Inside was a narrow handwritten note.
Three words.
Ask Evelyn first.
Luca froze.
“Evelyn?”
Rebecca looked toward the portrait of Luca's late father.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Evelyn was your father's accountant.”
“Where is she now?”
“She retired years ago.”
Richard suddenly laughed.
“You're wasting your time. Evelyn died last winter.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No, she didn't.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Rebecca reached into her coat pocket.
“She lives in Vermont. Michael sent her a letter before the accident.”
“Then why haven't you spoken to her?” Luca demanded.
“I have.”
Rebecca placed a faded photograph on the table.
It showed Michael standing outside a small office with a woman wearing a blue coat.
On the back was a date.
Three days before Michael died.
Rebecca pointed at the woman.
“Evelyn told me something this morning. Something she was afraid to say eight years ago.”
Luca waited.
“She said Michael wasn't alone when he discovered the missing money.”
“Who helped him?”
Rebecca looked directly at Eleanor.
“Your grandmother.”
Silence filled the room.
Eleanor's cane slipped from her hand.
But Rebecca hadn't finished.
“And Evelyn says the last person Michael met before his accident wasn't Richard Whitmore.”
Luca's voice was barely audible.
“Who was it?”
May you like
Rebecca pointed toward the portrait above the fireplace.
“Your father.”
