Chapter 3 - TWO DAUGHTERS, ONE LIE
I stared at Victoria.
“No.”
It was the only word I seemed capable of saying anymore.
Victoria stood beneath the chandelier, pale and shaking.
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“Explain.”
“I can’t explain what I don’t fully know.”
“You just said you’re my mother’s daughter.”
“I said Nora isn’t her only daughter.”
“That sounds remarkably specific.”
Victoria looked at me.
“My mother—Evelyn—told me something three months ago when she found out Nora worked here.”
Her voice dropped.
“She said Elena had given birth to twins.”
My knees nearly failed.
Gabriel caught my right elbow before I fell.
Twins.
I looked at Victoria again.
Same dark eyes?
No.
Her eyes were gray.
Mine were brown.
But we had the same narrow chin.
The same arch in our brows.
I had never noticed.
Or maybe I had never been given a reason to.
Gabriel released me carefully.
“Why would Evelyn raise one twin and Rebecca raise the other?”
Victoria gave a humorless laugh.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?”
She reached toward the music box.
Gabriel stopped her.
“Don’t.”
“That letter may explain it.”
He removed the envelope himself.
The paper inside was brittle.
Elena’s handwriting filled both sides.
Gabriel read silently first.
His face changed halfway down the page.
“What?” I asked.
He handed it to me.
My left arm was useless, so I held the letter with my right.
Rebecca,
If you are reading this, then Evelyn has forced my hand.
The girls cannot remain together.
She knows about the accounts, and she knows what Antonio intends to do if he learns there were two births.
Take Nora.
Use your name.
Do not contact me unless I contact you first.
I will keep the other child close enough to protect her, even if she grows believing Evelyn is her mother.
One day I will bring them back together.
Forgive me.
E.
I read the paragraph twice.
Then a third time.
“The other child.”
Victoria whispered, “Me.”
Gabriel took the letter.
“Who is Antonio?”
Victoria’s eyes went to him.
“You know.”
His jaw tightened.
“Say it.”
“Your father.”
The room went quiet.
Gabriel’s father, Antonio DeLuca, had died when Gabriel was twenty-three.
People in Greenwich remembered him as a businessman.
People who worked for the family remembered something else.
A brutal man.
A man Gabriel almost never spoke about.
Gabriel folded the letter very carefully.
“My mother had twins with whom?”
Victoria whispered, “That’s the part Evelyn never told me.”
Gabriel looked at the bracelet.
NORA ELENA DELUCA.
Then at me.
I knew what he was thinking.
If Elena was my mother, Gabriel might be my brother.
The thought landed strangely.
All those months working in his home.
Calling him sir.
Being frightened by his reputation.
And now—
No.
We still knew almost nothing.
I looked back at the letter.
“Why did Elena say Antonio couldn’t know there were two births?”
Gabriel’s face went hard.
“Because anything my father feared, he destroyed.”
Victoria flinched.
Gabriel noticed.
“What did Evelyn tell you about him?”
“She said Antonio believed Elena had betrayed him.”
“With another man?”
Victoria nodded.
Suddenly, the $250,000 made different sense.
Not buying a baby.
Buying silence.
I looked at Gabriel.
“If Antonio thought the babies weren’t his…”
“They weren’t babies to him,” Gabriel said quietly. “They were evidence.”
Dominic entered again.
“We found security footage from the greenhouse path.”
Gabriel looked up.
“Evelyn?”
“Yes. But she wasn’t alone.”
He placed a tablet on the table.
The video showed Evelyn moving quickly through the rain.
The missing nurse was beside her.
Not struggling.
Not being dragged.
Walking willingly.
I stared.
“They left together.”
Dominic nodded.
“There’s more.”
He advanced the footage.
Near the garden wall, Evelyn stumbled.
The nurse caught her.
Then Evelyn gave the nurse something.
A folded piece of paper.
The nurse tucked it into her coat.
Victoria shook her head.
“So the nurse wasn’t kidnapped.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
“No.”
Reversal.
The terrified witness who had accused Evelyn had escaped with her.
“Maybe they planned everything,” Victoria said.
I remembered the nurse’s face when she saw me.
The shock had looked real.
“She was afraid of Evelyn.”
“People can act.”
I looked at Victoria.
“So can you.”
She recoiled.
Fair.
But painful.
Gabriel interrupted before either of us could continue.
“Dominic. Search the coat again.”
They emptied every pocket.
Nothing.
Then I noticed the lining.
One seam had been freshly stitched.
“Wait.”
Dominic cut three threads.
Inside was a folded paper.
Not the note from Evelyn.
A train ticket.
New Haven to Greenwich.
Purchased that morning.
On the back, written in pencil, was an address.
I knew it.
I stared at the numbers.
“That’s my parents’ house.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“What?”
“My father’s house. In Bridgeport.”
My mouth went dry.
“The nurse was going to see Rebecca.”
Gabriel reached for his phone.
I stopped him.
“My mother died six years ago.”
Nobody spoke.
“She can’t tell us anything.”
Dominic examined the ticket.
“There’s another notation.”
He read it.
R.B. KNOWS WHERE THE SECOND BOX IS.
I looked at the mahogany music box.
“This is the first?”
Gabriel nodded.
Then the front doors opened.
Not mysteriously.
Two security men entered supporting my father.
Daniel Bennett.
He looked twenty years older than he had that morning.
His shirt was half buttoned.
His face was gray.
“Dad?”
He saw me.
Then the bracelet in my hand.
And stopped dead.
“Oh, Nora.”
I moved toward him.
“What happened?”
“I got a call from Mrs. DeLuca’s old nurse.”
“You knew her?”
He closed his eyes.
That was answer enough.
My chest tightened.
“You knew.”
“Nora—”
“You knew Rebecca wasn’t my biological mother.”
Tears filled his eyes.
“Yes.”
The word hurt more than I expected.
Victoria sat down slowly.
Gabriel said nothing.
I stared at the man who had taught me to ride a bike.
Who had worked double shifts when we were children.
Who had never once made me feel unwanted.
“How much?”
He looked confused.
“How much did you get?”
His face crumpled.
“We didn’t take money.”
“The hospital record says someone got $250,000.”
“Not us.”
“Then who?”
Daniel looked at Victoria.
Then at Gabriel.
“Evelyn.”
Victoria stood sharply.
“My mother paid herself?”
“No.”
Daniel shook his head.
“She was paid by Antonio DeLuca.”
Gabriel’s expression turned murderous.
“For what?”
My father looked at me.
“To make sure Elena’s twins were separated.”
I swallowed.
“Why?”
“Because one of those babies belonged to Antonio.”
He pointed at Victoria.
“And the other didn’t.”
The room went silent.
Gabriel’s voice came low.
“Which one?”
Daniel looked straight at me.
Then reached into his coat.
He removed an old man’s wristwatch.
On the back were engraved two initials.
G.M.
“I promised Rebecca I would never give this to you unless Evelyn came looking.”
I stared at it.
“Who was G.M.?”
May you like
Daniel’s hand trembled.
“Your father.”
