Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN AT THE DOOR
Dominic Russo had spent twenty-three years believing his mother was dead.
He had stood beside her coffin at seventeen.
He had watched dirt hit the polished wood.
He had watched his father stand motionless beside the grave while Eleanor cried hard enough for both of them.
Now a guard was telling him Catherine Russo was downstairs.
Alive.
Dominic stared at the cassette player.
His mother’s recorded voice still seemed to hang in the study.
The woman they buried wasn’t me.
Rachel stood three feet away, clutching the old photograph of Catherine holding a newborn.
Marco broke the silence first.
“Sir, we should verify who she is before you go anywhere near her.”
Dominic picked up the cassette.
“No.”
Marco frowned.
“No?”
“I’ve waited twenty-three years.”
Dominic turned toward the door.
“I’m going downstairs.”
Rachel followed without being asked.
The ballroom looked nothing like it had fifteen minutes earlier.
The musicians had been moved against the wall. Guests whispered beneath the chandeliers. Security stood at every exit.
Vivian was nowhere near the staircase.
Dominic noticed immediately.
“Where is Vivian?”
One of the guards looked toward Marco.
“She was told not to leave the ballroom.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
The guard swallowed.
“We can’t find her.”
Dominic stopped walking.
Rachel felt the room change around him.
His voice became quieter.
“You lost my fiancée inside my own house?”
“Sir—”
“Find her.”
Marco began issuing orders.
Then the front doors opened.
An older woman stood between two security men.
She was perhaps sixty-five.
Silver threaded through dark hair pulled loosely behind her head. She wore a simple navy coat darkened by rain.
There was nothing glamorous about her.
Nothing theatrical.
Yet every person who had known Catherine Russo twenty-three years earlier went silent.
Eleanor’s champagne glass slipped from her fingers.
It shattered.
“Oh, God.”
The woman looked at Eleanor.
Then at Dominic.
Her hand rose to her mouth.
Dominic did not move.
The woman took one step forward.
“Dom.”
Something broke behind his eyes.
Nobody called him that.
Not Marco.
Not Vivian.
Not Eleanor anymore.
His father had called him Dominic.
Business associates called him Russo.
His mother had called him Dom.
Still, he remained where he was.
“Anyone could know that.”
The woman nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled.
“You broke your left wrist falling from the west orchard wall when you were nine. You told your father you fell from a horse because you were afraid he’d cut down the tree.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Eleanor whispered, “Catherine.”
The woman kept looking at her son.
“You hated peas, so you hid them in the false bottom of the blue flowerpot in the breakfast room.”
Dominic’s face lost color.
Rachel looked around.
Guests had stopped pretending not to listen.
The woman touched her own right hand.
“And when you couldn’t sleep after thunderstorms, you made me draw circles on your palm until you counted twenty.”
Dominic stared at her.
Then walked forward.
He stopped five feet away.
“Show me your shoulder.”
The woman didn’t hesitate.
She loosened the coat and pulled the collar of her blouse aside.
A pale crescent-shaped scar crossed her upper shoulder.
Eleanor began crying.
Dominic’s mother had received that scar when a kitchen window shattered during a storm when Dominic was six.
He remembered helping his father pick glass from her hair.
Dominic stepped back as though the floor had shifted.
“You’re alive.”
Catherine’s voice cracked.
“Yes.”
His expression changed.
Not relief.
Not yet.
Anger arrived first.
“You’re alive.”
“Dominic—”
“You let me bury you.”
Catherine closed her eyes.
“You let me stand beside a grave.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe you were dead for twenty-three years.”
“I know.”
His voice dropped.
“Do you?”
Rachel had never heard anything so controlled sound so wounded.
Catherine tried to move closer.
Dominic moved back.
That hurt her more visibly than shouting would have.
Eleanor approached.
“Catherine, where have you been?”
Catherine looked at her sister.
“You knew enough to be afraid of that key.”
Eleanor froze.
Dominic looked between them.
“What does that mean?”
Catherine’s attention shifted to the brass cylinder still in his hand.
“Where did you find it?”
“Rachel did.”
For the first time, Catherine looked directly at Rachel.
Everything changed.
Her breath caught.
Rachel felt it.
Catherine stared at her hair.
Her eyes.
Her face.
Then at the delicate gold chain around Rachel’s neck.
Catherine went completely still.
“Where did you get that necklace?”
Rachel touched it instinctively.
“My mother gave it to me.”
“What’s your mother’s name?”
Rachel frowned.
“Patricia Monroe.”
Catherine’s knees nearly failed.
Dominic caught her elbow.
She looked at Rachel again.
“Patricia kept it.”
“What?”
Catherine covered her mouth.
Rachel felt cold spread through her body.
“Why do you know my mother?”
Before Catherine could answer, Marco returned.
“Sir.”
Dominic glanced at him.
“Vivian’s gone.”
“How?”
“The service corridor connects to the wine cellar. One exterior door was opened seven minutes ago.”
“Camera?”
“Disabled.”
Dominic looked toward the ballroom.
“Who can disable that system?”
“Me. Two senior guards. You.”
Marco hesitated.
“And Vivian knew the security administrator password.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“I never gave it to her.”
Marco understood.
“Someone did.”
Catherine suddenly grabbed Dominic’s sleeve.
“She called me.”
Everyone looked at her.
Dominic turned slowly.
“Vivian?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Forty minutes ago.”
“What did she say?”
Catherine looked at Rachel.
“She said the girl had found the box.”
Rachel’s stomach tightened.
“What girl?”
Catherine didn’t answer.
Dominic did.
“Rachel.”
Catherine’s silence was enough.
Rachel shook her head.
“No.”
Catherine took a step toward her.
“Rachel—”
“No. You came here because she mentioned me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Catherine’s eyes filled again.
Dominic looked at the photograph.
The newborn.
The handwriting.
DOMINIC MUST NEVER KNOW.
Then he looked at Rachel.
Rachel looked twenty-three or twenty-four.
His mother had supposedly died twenty-three years ago.
He suddenly understood the question before he understood the answer.
“No.”
Catherine looked at him.
Dominic held up the photograph.
“Who is this baby?”
Catherine said nothing.
“Mother.”
Rachel flinched at the word.
It was the first time Dominic had called her that.
Catherine lowered her eyes.
“The baby was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital on October nineteenth.”
Rachel’s lips parted.
That was her birthday.
“No.”
Catherine continued.
“She weighed six pounds, three ounces. She had a small heart-shaped birthmark beneath her left shoulder.”
Rachel stumbled backward.
Her hand went immediately to the place beneath her blouse.
Nobody there could see the mark.
But she had seen it every day of her life.
Catherine began crying.
Rachel’s voice came out almost soundless.
“How do you know that?”
Catherine moved closer.
Rachel retreated.
“Don’t.”
Catherine stopped.
Dominic looked between them.
“Tell us.”
“I was supposed to disappear with her.”
Catherine’s hands trembled.
“But something went wrong.”
“What?”
“Malcolm Cross found out.”
Dominic frowned.
“Vivian’s father?”
Catherine nodded.
“He was your father’s attorney back then.”
Eleanor suddenly looked ill.
Catherine saw it.
“You never told him, did you?”
Eleanor whispered, “I didn’t know what Malcolm would do.”
Dominic turned toward his aunt.
“What did Malcolm do?”
Catherine answered.
“He arranged my funeral.”
Silence rolled across the ballroom.
Rachel stared.
“You’re saying Vivian’s father faked your death?”
“No.”
Catherine’s face tightened.
“He intended to make it real.”
Marco stepped closer.
Catherine continued.
“The night everyone was told I died, Malcolm had already decided the baby and I were liabilities.”
Dominic stared at the woman he thought he had buried.
“Why was a newborn baby a liability?”
Catherine looked at Rachel.
“Because she changed who would inherit something Malcolm wanted.”
Rachel’s breathing became shallow.
Dominic unfolded the photograph again.
“Whose baby was she?”
Catherine closed her eyes.
When she opened them, she looked first at Dominic.
Then at Rachel.
“Mine.”
Rachel stopped breathing.
Dominic did not react for several seconds.
Then his gaze dropped to Rachel.
Catherine’s next words seemed to silence the entire mansion.
“Rachel Monroe is my daughter.”
Rachel backed into a table.
A champagne flute tipped and rolled across the carpet.
Dominic’s voice was barely audible.
“My sister?”
“Yes.”
Rachel shook her head harder.
“No. My mother is Patricia.”
“Patricia raised you,” Catherine whispered.
“She is my mother.”
“Yes.”
Catherine’s face broke.
“And she saved your life.”
Rachel stared at her.
Dominic turned toward the staircase.
“Marco.”
“Yes?”
“Find Vivian.”
Then he looked at Catherine.
“And nobody leaves this house until I know why my fiancée spent four years sleeping beside me while hunting for a sister I didn’t know existed.”
Catherine’s face changed.
Fear returned.
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“You still don’t understand.”
She pointed toward the cassette in his hand.
“Vivian didn’t come into your life because of Rachel.”
Dominic became still.
“Then why?”
Catherine looked toward the locked doors.
“Because her father died trying to find what your father hid beneath this house.”
May you like
And from somewhere below the ballroom floor, a deep metallic alarm suddenly began to ring.
---
