Chapter 2 - THE NAME BENEATH BENNETT
Nobody moved.
Victoria’s scream still seemed to hang beneath the crystal chandelier.
Gabriel held the photograph between two fingers.
His face had changed.
Not anger.
Not yet.
Something colder.
“Finish the sentence,” he said.
Victoria stared at him.
“What?”
“You said Nora was never supposed to find out who she is.”
“I was upset.”
“You were specific.”
“Gabriel—”
“What does that mean?”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
My injured shoulder throbbed beneath the sling, but I barely noticed.
“What does the photograph say?” I asked.
Gabriel looked at me.
For half a second, I thought he might protect me from it.
Then he turned the photograph around.
Beneath the crossed-out word BENNETT, someone had written another surname in faded blue ink.
DELUCA.
I forgot how to breathe.
“No.”
The word came out automatically.
Gabriel’s eyes remained on mine.
The ballroom blurred around him.
I shook my head.
“No. Your family name?”
Victoria suddenly stepped forward.
“It proves nothing.”
Gabriel turned.
“That wasn’t the question.”
“Old hospital photographs were mislabeled all the time.”
“You recognized it.”
“I recognized the situation.”
“No,” he said quietly. “You recognized Nora.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
That was the first crack.
Not guilt.
Fear.
Gabriel handed the photograph to his security chief, Dominic Moretti.
“Seal the property. Nobody leaves until we know how Evelyn and that nurse got out.”
Victoria laughed once, breathlessly.
“You’re imprisoning your own guests now?”
“I’m protecting someone who was assaulted in my house.”
His gaze fell briefly to my sling.
“And figuring out why my fiancée knew about it.”
“I didn’t push her.”
My stomach dropped.
Gabriel became perfectly still.
I hadn’t accused Victoria of pushing me.
Neither had he.
Dominic looked at her.
Victoria realized it too late.
“I mean—I assumed that’s what Nora told you.”
“I told him I was pushed,” I said. “I never said by whom.”
Her eyes flashed toward me.
For one raw second, the polished socialite disappeared.
There was something almost desperate underneath.
Then she straightened.
“I did not push you.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“But you knew someone did.”
Silence.
Victoria’s jaw trembled.
Finally she whispered, “Because my mother told me.”
That answer surprised everyone.
Especially Gabriel.
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
“What exactly did Evelyn say?”
“That Nora had been snooping where she didn’t belong, that there had been an accident, and that I needed to keep her from making trouble during the dinner.”
I stared at her.
“You squeezed my shoulder.”
Victoria looked at me.
For the first time that night, shame crossed her face.
“Yes.”
“You threatened my job.”
“Yes.”
“You accused me of stealing.”
“I needed you scared.”
“Why?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because I thought if Gabriel saw what you found, my life was over.”
I laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“So you decided to make mine worse first?”
Her face hardened again.
“I didn’t know you were who you are.”
“What am I?”
She looked toward the photograph.
“I don’t know.”
That was when Dominic returned from the front hall carrying something.
A dark green wool coat.
Rainwater dripped from the hem.
“We found this outside near the greenhouse.”
Gabriel recognized it.
“The nurse’s?”
Dominic nodded.
“There’s blood on the sleeve.”
Victoria went pale.
I stepped closer despite Gabriel’s look of warning.
Something metallic protruded from the pocket.
Dominic removed it.
A silver hospital identification bracelet.
Not for a baby.
For a mother.
The letters were worn, but readable.
ELENA DELUCA.
Gabriel took it.
Every trace of emotion vanished from his face.
“My mother was a patient at St. Catherine’s?”
Dominic looked uncomfortable.
“We don’t know.”
“I know,” Victoria whispered.
Gabriel’s head snapped toward her.
I saw regret immediately cross her face.
He walked toward her slowly.
“How?”
Victoria looked trapped.
“My mother kept things.”
“What things?”
“Old correspondence. Receipts. Photographs.”
“And you saw Elena’s name?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When I was sixteen.”
Gabriel stared.
“You have known for sixteen years that my mother was connected to your birth?”
“No. I knew there was some connection.”
“That isn’t the same answer.”
“I found letters in Evelyn’s dressing room. Elena wanted money returned. My mother called her unstable.”
“How much?”
Victoria swallowed.
“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
The exact amount from the nursery card.
A murmur passed through the remaining guests.
Gabriel dismissed them immediately.
Within minutes, only Dominic, Victoria, Gabriel, two guards and I remained.
Gabriel looked at Victoria.
“Where are those letters?”
“She burned most of them.”
“Most?”
“One survived.”
“Where?”
Victoria’s eyes shifted toward the second brass crescent key lying on the entry table.
“My mother kept a box.”
Gabriel picked up the key.
“Where?”
“I haven’t seen it in years.”
“Victoria.”
“She used to hide it inside Grandfather Prescott’s old upright piano.”
Dominic left immediately.
Victoria sat down as if her legs had failed.
I watched her.
“You knew there were two babies?”
“No.”
“You knew about me?”
“No.”
“But when you saw me tonight, you screamed.”
She pressed a hand against her forehead.
“Because my mother described you.”
My pulse jumped.
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
Gabriel’s eyes sharpened.
Victoria looked at me.
“She said, ‘If a Bennett girl ever comes into Gabriel’s house, get her out before Elena’s mistakes come back to life.’”
I felt suddenly cold.
“I’ve worked here eleven months.”
Victoria nodded miserably.
“My mother didn’t realize who you were until she saw your employee photograph three months ago.”
“So she knew my face.”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you why?”
“No. She only said your mother had been paid to disappear.”
Rebecca.
The woman who packed my lunch every morning until high school.
Who sat beside my bed when I had pneumonia.
Who saved grocery coupons because we never had enough.
“She wasn’t paid,” I said.
Victoria looked almost sorry.
“That’s what Evelyn claimed.”
Dominic returned carrying a small mahogany music box.
Two crescent-shaped keyholes sat side by side on its lid.
My key.
The nurse’s key.
Gabriel inserted both.
He turned them together.
The box clicked.
Inside lay one envelope, a child-sized gold bracelet, and a Polaroid photograph.
Gabriel picked up the picture.
Elena DeLuca stood outside St. Catherine’s Hospital.
Beside her stood Rebecca Bennett.
And Rebecca was holding a newborn baby.
Me.
On the back, written in Elena’s handwriting, were six words.
Gabriel read them aloud.
“Rebecca, protect my daughter from Evelyn.”
The room tilted.
Gabriel looked at me.
I looked at the bracelet.
Tiny engraved letters circled the gold.
NORA ELENA DELUCA.
Then Victoria whispered behind us.
“There’s something you don’t understand.”
Gabriel turned.
Victoria’s face was streaked with tears now.
“Nora isn’t Elena’s only daughter.”
May you like
She pointed to the second infant in the hospital photograph.
“I am.”
