Chapter 5 - THE ROOM WHERE CATHERINE DISAPPEARED
St. Agnes had been abandoned for eighteen years.
The brick building stood behind dead trees twenty miles north of Greenwich.
Most of its windows were boarded.
Rain streamed down the black glass that remained.
Rachel rode in Dominic’s SUV with him and Marco.
Catherine had insisted on coming.
Dominic had refused.
She came anyway.
For a woman who had spent twenty-three years hiding, Catherine Russo had apparently lost her patience with being told where she could go.
Eleanor remained at the mansion under guard.
Rachel stared through the windshield.
“My mother’s car is really here?”
Marco nodded.
“East parking lot.”
“Any sign of her?”
“No.”
Dominic looked at Rachel.
“We find Patricia. Everything else waits.”
It was the first thing anyone had said all night that sounded simple.
Inside St. Agnes, the air smelled like wet plaster.
Flashlights moved across abandoned corridors.
Marco’s men cleared rooms ahead of them.
Rachel found Patricia’s scarf first.
It lay near an old nurses’ station.
She grabbed it.
“This is hers.”
Catherine touched her shoulder.
Rachel jerked away.
Catherine immediately lowered her hand.
“I’m sorry.”
Rachel looked at her.
For the first time, anger became exhaustion.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to call you.”
“Catherine is fine.”
“You’re my biological mother.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t say it like that’s simple.”
“I know it isn’t.”
Rachel stared at the scarf.
“Patricia is still my mother.”
“I know.”
Catherine’s voice softened.
“I never wanted to take that from her.”
Before Rachel could answer, Marco called from the end of the hall.
“Here.”
Room 317.
The brass number remained attached to the door.
Catherine stopped walking.
For twenty-three years, that room had existed in memory.
Now she stood before it.
Dominic watched her.
“This is where Rachel was born?”
“Yes.”
The door opened.
Inside, somebody had recently cleaned.
That was more frightening than dust would have been.
A folding chair sat beneath the window.
A bottle of water rested on the floor.
There were fresh footprints.
Rachel called out.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
Then she heard a sound.
Three soft knocks.
From behind the wall.
Rachel ran toward it.
“Mom?”
Three more knocks.
Marco found a narrow utility door.
It had been locked from the outside.
He opened it.
Patricia Monroe stumbled forward.
Rachel caught her.
“Mom!”
Patricia was frightened and exhausted but alive.
Rachel held her so tightly Patricia laughed through tears.
“I’m okay.”
“Who did this?”
“I never saw his face.”
Dominic crouched beside them.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
Patricia looked at Catherine.
Her expression changed.
Twenty-three years disappeared between them.
“You came back.”
Catherine nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
Patricia’s eyes hardened.
“You always are.”
Rachel looked between them.
“You knew she was alive?”
“For years.”
Rachel slowly released her.
Another betrayal.
“Mom.”
Patricia immediately understood.
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Everybody keeps saying that!”
Her shout echoed through the abandoned room.
Patricia closed her eyes.
“I promised.”
“To who?”
“Catherine.”
Rachel turned away.
Dominic spoke quietly.
“Rachel.”
“No.”
She raised both hands.
“No one gets to tell me to calm down.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
That stopped her.
Dominic looked at Patricia.
“Who brought you here?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they want?”
“The letter.”
Rachel held the envelope tighter.
“What letter?”
“The one I left at home.”
Patricia looked embarrassed.
“I wrote it years ago.”
“Why didn’t they take it?”
“I hid it. Whoever came searched until I told him it was in a safe-deposit box.”
Rachel frowned.
“But it was on your kitchen table.”
Patricia almost smiled.
“I lied.”
Dominic’s eyebrows lifted.
Patricia looked at him.
“I raised a Russo. I learned something.”
For the first time that night, Dominic nearly smiled.
Then Patricia reached inside her coat.
She removed a small key.
“The real thing they wanted was this.”
Catherine recognized it.
“Antonio’s deposit box.”
Dominic looked at his mother.
“You knew?”
“I knew he opened one. Not where.”
Patricia handed the key to Rachel.
“He told me it belonged to you.”
Rachel stared at it.
“Me?”
“He said when Catherine’s secret finally came out, this would prove why.”
Dominic looked around the room.
“Then whoever took Patricia expected us to come here.”
Marco examined the hallway.
“A trap?”
“Or a delay.”
Catherine suddenly turned.
“The mansion.”
Dominic already had his phone out.
Eleanor didn’t answer.
Neither did the guard assigned to the library.
Dominic called security control.
A guard picked up.
“Sir?”
“Where is my aunt?”
A pause.
“She’s in the east sitting room.”
“Confirm visually.”
Another pause.
Then:
“Sir, she’s gone.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Rachel stared.
“Vivian took her?”
Catherine looked genuinely afraid.
“No.”
“How can you know?”
“Because Eleanor would go voluntarily if she thought she could fix what she did.”
Dominic looked at his mother.
“What exactly did she do?”
Catherine closed her eyes.
“She gave Malcolm the hospital schedule.”
Patricia looked away.
Rachel felt the story rearrange itself again.
Dominic’s face became unreadable.
“Eleanor knew you were pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“And she told Malcolm where you would be?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Catherine looked toward the dark window.
“Because she was in love with him.”
Dominic laughed once.
Cold.
“My aunt helped the man who tried to kill my mother.”
“She didn’t know what he planned.”
“She hid it for twenty-three years.”
Patricia spoke.
“She also came back.”
Dominic turned toward her.
“What?”
“The night Rachel was born.”
Patricia looked at Eleanor’s old photograph on Rachel’s phone.
“She discovered what Malcolm had done. She brought Antonio.”
Catherine nodded.
“Without Eleanor, Rachel and I might not have survived.”
Rachel stared.
Another reversal.
Guilt and rescue.
Betrayal and loyalty.
Nothing in this family remained simple for more than five minutes.
Dominic’s phone vibrated.
A message.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
Eleanor sat in a chair.
Alive.
Beside her stood Vivian.
Vivian had removed her evening gown and wore a dark coat.
Her face looked calm.
Beneath the picture was a message.
BRING THE CASSETTE AND THE DEPOSIT-BOX KEY TO THE OLD CROSS HOUSE. ALONE.
Another message followed.
OR ELEANOR FINALLY PAYS FOR WHAT SHE DID.
Dominic stared at it.
Marco looked over his shoulder.
“It’s a setup.”
“Obviously.”
Rachel took the deposit key from Patricia.
“You’re not going alone.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You are absolutely not coming.”
“If that box belongs to me, I’m coming.”
“Rachel.”
“You found out you had a sister tonight.”
Her voice trembled but remained firm.
“I found out my entire life was arranged by people who thought keeping me ignorant was protection.”
She closed her fist around the key.
“That ends tonight.”
Patricia whispered, “Rachel.”
Rachel looked at her mother.
“I love you.”
Patricia’s eyes filled.
“But I need to know.”
Catherine studied Rachel.
For the first time, pride appeared through the fear.
Dominic saw it too.
He sighed.
“You stay beside me.”
Rachel nodded.
“Fine.”
“And you do exactly what I say.”
She gave him a look.
Dominic almost smiled again.
“Right. We’ll negotiate that part later.”
Marco’s phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
“The bank.”
“What bank?”
“The deposit box is at First Connecticut Private.”
Rachel frowned.
“At midnight?”
Marco turned the phone toward them.
The bank’s automated security service had sent an access alert.
Someone had just entered the vault.
Using Antonio Russo’s old authorization code.
Dominic’s face hardened.
“That code died with my father.”
Catherine whispered:
May you like
“Unless the person who killed him kept it.”
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