Chapter 2 - THE GIRL IN THE FORGOTTEN PHOTOGRAPH
“Impossible?” I repeated. “What exactly is impossible about my background?”
My manager, Peter Collins, wouldn't look me in the eye.
Outside the restaurant, two men in dark suits stood beside a black SUV.
“Olivia,” he whispered, “Mr. Moretti asked about your mother.”
My stomach tightened.
“My mother?”
“Her name was Evelyn Marshall, wasn't it?”
I froze.
Nobody at the restaurant knew much about my family. I'd been working there for eight months, and I rarely discussed my childhood.
My mother had died when I was seventeen.
At least, that was what I'd always believed.
“Yes,” I answered carefully. “Why?”
Peter reached into his jacket and handed me a folded piece of paper.
It was a photograph.
A young woman stood outside a beautiful stone mansion, smiling beneath a tree covered in white blossoms.
She wore a simple blue dress.
Around her neck hung a small silver necklace shaped like a crescent moon.
I stopped breathing.
The woman was my mother.
And the enormous black puppy sitting beside her looked exactly like Orion.
“Where did you get this?”
“Mr. Moretti sent it.”
I stared at the photograph again.
My mother looked younger than I'd ever remembered her. Perhaps twenty-five.
On the back, written in faded blue ink, were four words.
Evelyn and Orion. Spring, 2000.
My hands began shaking.
“This can't be right.”
Peter swallowed.
“Why not?”
“Because my mother told me she'd never been to New York before I was born.”
The restaurant doors opened.
One of the suited men stepped inside.
“Miss Marshall,” he said politely, “Mr. Moretti would like to speak with you.”
I straightened.
“Then Mr. Moretti can come here.”
The man blinked.
Behind me, Peter made a strangled noise.
“Olivia—”
“No.” I folded the photograph carefully. “I don't know this man. I'm not getting into a stranger's car because he owns a frightening dog.”
A voice came from the doorway.
“That's a reasonable objection.”
Dante Moretti stood beneath the restaurant's brass entrance lamp.
He looked different in daylight.
Still handsome.
Still intimidating.
But there were dark circles beneath his gray eyes, and something unusually tired about his expression.
Orion stood beside him.
The enormous hound saw me.
Then he ran.
“Orion!” one of the guards shouted.
The dog ignored him completely.
He crossed the restaurant, pressed his huge body against my legs, and rested his head against my stomach.
I laughed nervously.
“Well, hello again.”
Orion whined.
Dante watched us without speaking.
Then he looked at the photograph in my hand.
“That's why I came.”
I lifted it.
“Who took this?”
“My father.”
“Why was my mother at your house?”
Dante's expression hardened.
“That's what I've been trying to discover.”
He glanced toward Peter.
“May we have somewhere private to talk?”
Peter immediately offered his office.
I shook my head.
“Here is fine.”
Dante studied me.
Then, surprisingly, he nodded.
“My mother owned that dog,” he said.
I looked down at Orion.
“But the picture is twenty-six years old.”
“This isn't the same dog. The original Orion died years ago. My mother named him. I named this one after him.”
Something in his voice softened when he mentioned his mother.
“She loved dogs?”
“More than most people.”
I smiled faintly.
“Mine did too.”
Dante's eyes moved to my necklace.
I'd worn it beneath my uniform for nine years.
A tiny silver crescent moon.
My mother's last birthday gift to me.
“May I see that?”
I hesitated.
Then I pulled the chain above my collar.
The moment Dante saw it, his face changed.
He took a slow step backward.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother.”
“Did she tell you where it came from?”
“She said someone gave it to her when she was young.”
Dante closed his eyes.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Finally, he reached beneath his charcoal coat.
One of his guards moved instinctively.
Dante raised his hand.
Then he withdrew a small velvet pouch.
Inside was another silver crescent moon.
Identical to mine.
Except his had a tiny blue stone embedded in its center.
“My mother wore this every day,” he said.
I stared at it.
“That's a coincidence.”
“I thought so yesterday.”
“And now?”
He opened the pouch wider.
On the back of the necklace were three tiny engraved letters.
E.M.M.
My breath caught.
“Those are my mother's initials.”
“No,” Dante said quietly. “They were my mother's initials.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“Her name was Elena Maria Moretti.”
The restaurant suddenly felt much too warm.
Elena Moretti.
Evelyn Marshall.
Two women.
Two necklaces.
And a photograph that shouldn't have existed.
“Maybe they were friends,” I whispered.
Dante nodded slowly.
“That's what I hoped.”
“Hoped?”
He looked toward Orion.
“After you left last night, he wouldn't settle. He kept returning to the kitchen doors. I brought him home and showed him something I hadn't opened in years.”
“What?”
“My mother's old belongings.”
He took out a second photograph.
This one showed a grand dining room.
An elegant woman sat beside a young boy with dark hair and serious gray eyes.
Dante.
He couldn't have been older than twelve.
Standing behind them was my mother.
I recognized her immediately.
She was wearing the same blue dress.
But what caught my attention wasn't her face.
It was the way Elena Moretti was holding her hand.
Not like an employer holding a servant's hand.
Like a sister.
“Your mother knew mine,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn't you tell me that immediately?”
“Because I didn't remember her until I found the photograph.”
His jaw tightened.
“And because I was told Evelyn Marshall died in 2000.”
I felt the floor tilt.
“What did you say?”
Dante's eyes never left mine.
“My father told me she died in a house fire when I was twelve.”
I shook my head.
“No. My mother raised me. We lived in Connecticut until I was nine, then moved to Pennsylvania.”
Dante looked stunned.
“Pennsylvania?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“A small town outside Lancaster.”
He turned sharply toward his guard.
“Marco. Get the old property records.”
I stepped backward.
“Stop.”
Dante looked at me.
“Stop investigating my mother like she's some criminal.”
For the first time, his authority seemed to fail him.
“Olivia, I didn't mean—”
“She worked hard. She cleaned houses. She raised me alone. Whatever happened between your family and mine, she deserves respect.”
Dante remained silent.
Then he lowered his head.
“You're right.”
I hadn't expected that.
He placed both photographs on the table.
“I owe you an apology.”
Orion nudged my hand.
I scratched behind his ears, trying to steady myself.
“Why does he like me so much?”
Dante studied the dog.
“I don't know.”
But I could tell he wasn't being completely honest.
Then his phone lit up.
He glanced at the screen.
His expression changed instantly.
“Who gave you this number?” he asked the caller.
I couldn't hear the answer.
Dante's face turned pale.
“What do you mean, she was never supposed to see the photographs?”
He listened for another moment.
Then he slowly lowered the phone.
“Olivia,” he said, “did your mother ever mention a woman named Margaret?”
I went cold.
Margaret.
My mother's closest friend.
The woman who had attended her funeral.
The woman who had disappeared two days afterward.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Dante looked toward the restaurant windows.
“Margaret Moretti is my aunt.”
I stared at him.
He swallowed.
“And twenty-six years ago, she told my father that your mother had taken something from our family.”
“What something?”
Dante hesitated.
Then he said the words that changed everything.
“Me.”
I couldn't speak.
He continued, his voice barely audible.
“She told my father Evelyn Marshall tried to kidnap me.”
I shook my head.
“My mother would never hurt a child.”
Dante looked at the photograph again.
“I know.”
“How?”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“Because this morning, I found a letter she wrote to my mother.”
He unfolded a yellowed sheet.
Across the top were seven handwritten words.
Elena, if anything happens to me, protect Olivia.
Underneath was a single sentence.
She is the only child who can prove what happened to your husband.
Dante looked at me.
“Olivia,” he whispered, “my father was murdered the night you were born.”
May you like
And beneath the letter, in my mother's handwriting, was a name.
Margaret Moretti.
