Chapter 4 - THE TRAIN TICKET THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
“That cannot be right,” I whispered.
Harrison looked at the ticket again.
“It is.”
I shook my head.
“If I was the child, I would have been three years old. But I'm twenty-five now, not twenty-nine.”
Luca immediately turned toward him.
“You've mixed up the dates.”
Harrison's face tightened.
For the first time that evening, someone had challenged his story with a fact he couldn't explain away.
He adjusted his glasses.
“Then I have misunderstood the passenger record.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“You've misunderstood something you've been hiding for twenty-six years?”
He didn't answer.
I looked at the ticket.
My birthday appeared clearly.
November 18.
Twenty-six years earlier.
If I'd been born that day, I would have been an infant.
Not a three-year-old.
And my mother, Rose, would have been the child.
The numbers suddenly made sense.
“One adult,” I said slowly. “Samuel.”
Luca nodded.
“One child. Rose.”
“And one infant. Me.”
Harrison's shoulders dropped.
“Yes.”
I felt anger rise in my throat.
“Then why did you just say the infant was Luca's brother?”
“Because that was the arrangement Dominic ordered.”
“What arrangement?”
Harrison rubbed his temples.
“Your grandfather was supposed to take the boy. Not you.”
The room became very quiet.
Luca stared at him.
“You're saying Samuel changed the plan?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your grandmother intervened.”
That was the first moment I began to understand.
Samuel hadn't simply escaped Chicago.
He'd been carrying out a promise.
And somebody had tried to change what that promise meant.
Luca pulled out a chair.
“Anna, sit down.”
“I don't want to sit.”
“Please.”
His voice was gentle.
I realized my legs were shaking.
Oliver had fallen asleep against my shoulder. I sat and arranged him across my lap.
Luca crouched beside us.
“We're going to get through this.”
I looked at him.
“You don't know that.”
He accepted the answer.
“No. I don't.”
Then he stood.
“Harrison, tell us what happened at St. Mary's.”
The attorney stared at the photograph.
“Amelia Moretti discovered Dominic had fathered two children outside his marriage. Rose was the older child. The boy had just been born.”
“Did my mother know?” Luca asked.
Harrison hesitated.
“Yes.”
Luca looked wounded.
“My mother knew about both?”
“She found out shortly before the boy was born.”
“And what did she do?”
“She tried to protect the children.”
Vanessa spoke quietly.
“My mother said Amelia brought clothing to the hospital. A little blue coat with silver buttons.”
Harrison looked surprised.
“You remember that?”
“Of course. She kept talking about it before she died.”
Vanessa pressed her fingers together.
“She said the baby looked cold. Amelia wrapped him in the coat even though it was too large.”
I glanced at Oliver.
My son had a blue coat at home.
Not the same one, certainly.
But the thought of a frightened woman wrapping a baby against the cold made my throat tighten.
“What happened to the boy?” Luca asked.
Harrison took a breath.
“Dominic ordered him placed at St. Agnes. He wanted a permanent adoption.”
“Without his mother's permission?”
“The baby's mother signed the forms.”
“Catherine Doyle?”
“Yes.”
“Was she forced?”
Harrison looked toward Vanessa.
“I don't know.”
Vanessa's expression hardened.
“My mother said Catherine was crying so hard she couldn't hold the pen.”
Luca turned toward Harrison.
“That sounds like an answer.”
The attorney said nothing.
I looked at the photograph again.
“Where was my mother during all this?”
Harrison spoke carefully.
“Rose was living with Samuel. Amelia had arranged it after discovering what Dominic intended to do.”
“And I was born when?”
“November eighteenth.”
“Where?”
“St. Mary's.”
My chest tightened.
For twenty-five years, I'd believed I'd been born in a small Pittsburgh hospital.
Grandpa had even shown me a certificate.
“Was Rose at St. Mary's when she delivered me?”
“Yes.”
“Was my father there?”
Harrison's eyes flickered.
“He came afterward.”
“Who was he?”
Harrison didn't answer.
Luca stepped closer.
“Tell her.”
The attorney looked at the floor.
“Daniel Bellini.”
Vanessa made a small, strangled sound.
I turned toward her.
She stared at Harrison.
“No.”
Harrison closed his eyes.
“Vanessa—”
“No. My brother Daniel died before I was born.”
I looked at her.
“Your brother?”
Vanessa's voice shook.
“My parents had a son. He died in an accident when he was nineteen. That's what I've always been told.”
Harrison slowly shook his head.
“He didn't die at nineteen.”
Vanessa backed away.
“What?”
“He left Chicago at nineteen.”
“Where did he go?”
Harrison looked at me.
“To Pennsylvania.”
My heart pounded.
If Daniel Bellini was my father, Vanessa wasn't merely the woman who had hired me.
She was my father's sister.
My aunt.
And she'd spent eight months treating me like dirt.
Vanessa seemed to reach the same conclusion.
She sank into a chair.
“No. My father would have told me.”
“Carlo told you what served him,” Harrison said.
Luca's expression grew dangerous.
“Why did Carlo want Anna in this house?”
Vanessa covered her face.
“Because he thought Samuel had hidden something.”
“The watch?”
“Yes.”
“But you knew who Anna was?”
She nodded through tears.
“Not at first. Father gave me a photograph of Samuel when he was younger. When Anna applied, I recognized the name. I told Father, and he said to hire her.”
I felt physically ill.
“My grandfather spent his whole life protecting us. And you brought me here to steal from me.”
Vanessa looked up.
“I didn't know about Daniel.”
“You knew enough.”
She flinched.
I didn't feel sorry for her.
Not yet.
Luca asked, “What did Carlo believe was inside the watch?”
Vanessa hesitated.
“A key.”
Harrison looked sharply at her.
“What key?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know. Father said Samuel had taken a key from Dominic, and that someday it would ruin both families.”
Luca examined the watch.
“The compartment held a note. No key.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“Then perhaps Samuel moved it.”
I remembered the red ledger.
Grandpa's railway belongings.
The watch that had started ticking.
Oliver's strange message about a train coming late.
And suddenly I remembered something else.
Three weeks before Grandpa died, he'd asked me to bring him the little red book.
I had found it beneath his bed.
Inside were pages of numbers and dates.
He had opened the last page, looked at it for a long time, and begun crying.
When I'd asked what was wrong, he'd said, “I hope I haven't waited too long.”
I looked at Luca.
“I need to go home.”
He nodded.
“I'll take you.”
Vanessa stood.
“I should come.”
“No,” I said immediately.
She stopped.
For eight months, she had given me orders.
Now I was the one refusing her.
Luca looked at Marco.
“Keep Mr. Harrison here. Vanessa may stay in the guest wing. Nobody speaks to Carlo Bellini until I return.”
Harrison looked alarmed.
“Luca, your father—”
“My father is dead. Stop using him to frighten people.”
I carried Oliver toward the doorway.
Then Harrison called after me.
“Anna.”
I turned.
He looked suddenly older.
“Samuel wasn't waiting for someone at the station.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“He was waiting for a particular train.”
“Why?”
Harrison swallowed.
“Because every year, on November eighteenth, someone sent him a ticket.”
I stared at him.
“Who?”
He shook his head.
“I never knew.”
Luca stepped toward him.
“Did Samuel ever use one?”
“Not until the year before he died.”
My breath caught.
Grandpa had traveled to Chicago that year.
He'd told me he was visiting an old friend.
He returned exhausted and refused to explain.
Harrison looked directly at me.
“When Samuel came back from that trip, he sent me one message.”
“What message?”
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The attorney's voice broke.
“He said, 'Tell Dominic's son that the wrong child was buried.'”
