Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS BURIED
“That's impossible,” Vincent whispered. “If Rose is dead, why is her photograph on Brianna's phone?”
Salvatore Moretti reached for the phone with trembling fingers.
“Because somebody wants me to remember what I did to her.”
The ballroom fell silent.
Emily Parker stood at the bottom of the grand staircase, still wearing the faded blue dress that had turned a cruel joke into a family nightmare.
Brianna Collins stepped backward.
“Vincent, please. You're letting an old man's confusion ruin everything.”
Salvatore struck his cane against the marble.
“Don't you dare call me confused!”
His voice cracked.
“I held Rose when she died. I watched them close her coffin. And I helped bury her under a name nobody would recognize.”
Vincent stared at his grandfather.
“You told everyone she ran away.”
“I know.”
“Your own wife?”
Salvatore looked toward the blue gown.
“She was my wife before Teresa. And I let the whole world remember her as a woman who abandoned me.”
Brianna reached for her phone.
Vincent moved it out of reach.
“Who is Mother?”
“My mother, obviously.”
“Then why is Rose Moretti her photograph?”
Brianna swallowed.
“It's an old picture. My mother collects historical photographs.”
Vincent enlarged the image.
Rose stood beside a garden bench wearing a pale cardigan. Her dark hair was pinned beneath a blue ribbon.
Something about her expression made Emily uncomfortable.
She looked frightened.
Not frightened of the camera.
Of someone standing beyond it.
Salvatore recognized the photograph immediately.
“It was taken three days before she died.”
His eyes filled.
“She was supposed to meet me that afternoon. Instead, she went to see my brother.”
Vincent looked up.
“Enzo?”
Salvatore nodded.
“His name was Enzo Moretti. And whatever this woman wants, it started with him.”
Brianna suddenly spoke.
“Can we please stop discussing ancient history? We have guests.”
Vincent turned toward her.
“Emily's mother.”
“What?”
“You threatened her mother's nursing home if she refused to wear this dress.”
Brianna's face hardened.
“She's lying.”
Emily lifted her chin.
“No, I'm not.”
The words came quietly.
But she was tired of being frightened.
“You said my mother would be thrown out by Monday.”
Vincent looked at Brianna for several seconds.
“Did you?”
Brianna glanced toward the guests.
“I was trying to make her cooperate. She's been difficult lately.”
“Difficult how?”
“She questions instructions.”
Emily felt something inside her finally break.
“You ordered me to clean the kitchen at midnight after I'd already worked fourteen hours. When I asked to leave because my mother was sick, you threatened to fire me.”
Brianna's cheeks reddened.
“That is completely inappropriate to discuss here.”
Vincent's voice turned cold.
“What's inappropriate is threatening a woman through her sick mother.”
He faced his security chief, Marco.
“Make sure every employee receives full pay for tonight. Give the guests their coats. Nobody needs to remain here against their will.”
Then he turned back to Brianna.
“You're staying.”
For the first time, Brianna looked genuinely afraid.
Not of Vincent.
Of something else.
Salvatore reached toward Emily.
“Please, sweetheart. Take off that dress. Not because you don't deserve to wear something beautiful.”
His eyes filled again.
“Because Rose was wearing it when she told me she thought someone was going to kill her.”
Emily's breath caught.
Vincent asked a female housekeeper, Nora, to accompany Emily upstairs.
In a guest bedroom, Emily carefully removed the gown.
She expected to feel relieved.
Instead, she felt strangely protective of it.
The silk was old, but somebody had once cared for it.
Every pearl button had been reinforced by hand. The cuffs had been repaired with tiny, almost invisible stitches.
Then Emily noticed a mark inside the hem.
Three small letters.
M. P.
Her heart began pounding.
She turned the fabric toward the light.
Underneath the initials was a date.
1978\.
Emily knew those stitches.
Her mother had taught her the same neat cross-stitch when she was eight.
Margaret Parker had worked as a seamstress before arthritis forced her to retire.
Emily had seen those exact initials inside dozens of dresses.
She hurried downstairs carrying the gown.
“Mr. Moretti!”
Vincent turned.
“My mother made this dress.”
Salvatore went very still.
“What did you say?”
Emily showed him the hem.
“My mother always marked her work this way.”
The old man's face changed.
“Margaret?”
Emily nodded.
“Margaret Parker.”
His cane slipped from his hand.
Vincent caught him before he fell.
Salvatore gripped Vincent's arm.
“Margaret was Rose's friend.”
A terrible silence followed.
“She was supposed to be with Rose the night she died.”
Emily stared at him.
“My mother never told me she knew your family.”
Salvatore closed his eyes.
“Because I paid her to leave Philadelphia.”
The words struck Emily harder than Brianna's humiliation.
“You paid my mother?”
“I gave her money and told her never to come back.”
“Why?”
Salvatore looked away.
“Because I was a coward.”
Vincent helped his grandfather into the wheelchair.
Then he held up the brass key.
“We're opening that nursery.”
The room was at the far end of the mansion's oldest wing.
Emily had cleaned almost every room in the estate.
But never this one.
A heavy oak door stood beneath a painted wooden sign.
The Little Garden.
Vincent examined the lock.
“Teresa always told us this room had been damaged by a water leak.”
Salvatore whispered, “There was never a leak.”
Vincent opened the door.
The air smelled of cedar and dust.
A small white cradle stood near the window.
Blue roses were painted around the ceiling.
There was a rocking chair, a children's bookshelf, and a silver music box shaped like a swan.
Everything appeared frozen in another lifetime.
Emily approached the cradle.
Someone had embroidered a yellow blanket with tiny blue flowers.
She touched the fabric.
Then stopped.
The stitching was identical to her mother's.
“Grandpa,” Vincent said, “whose nursery was this?”
Salvatore stared at the cradle.
“Rose wanted to give a child a home.”
“Your child?”
The old man hesitated.
“Not ours.”
He pointed toward a narrow cabinet beside the fireplace.
“The key.”
Vincent inserted the brass key.
It turned immediately.
Inside were twelve small silver bracelets, each bearing a number.
A photograph lay beneath them.
Emily picked it up.
It showed Rose standing outside a brick building beside a much younger Margaret Parker.
Behind them stood thirteen women holding babies.
On the back, Rose had written:
Every child deserves to know where they came from.
Vincent counted the bracelets.
“Twelve.”
Salvatore frowned.
“There should be thirteen.”
A drawer beneath the bracelets stood partly open.
Its wood had been scratched recently.
Someone had searched it.
Emily noticed a strip of white plastic caught behind the drawer.
She pulled it free.
Her stomach dropped.
It was a patient identification band from Willow Creek Care Center.
Her mother's nursing home.
Printed across it were the words:
MARGARET PARKER — TRANSFER AUTHORIZED.
The transfer date was tomorrow.
Vincent took it from her.
“Emily, did you request this?”
“No.”
At the bottom was a signature.
EMILY PARKER.
She stared at the handwriting.
“That isn't mine.”
Vincent looked toward the open nursery door.
Somebody had entered a room sealed for forty-eight years.
Somebody had known exactly where to look.
And somebody had already arranged to remove the only living woman who might explain Rose's death.
Emily grabbed his sleeve.
“Vincent, my mother can't survive being moved without proper care.”
He turned to Marco.
“Bring the car.”
Then Emily noticed the destination printed beneath the forged signature.
ST. AGNES — NORTH WING.
Salvatore saw it too.
His face became gray.
“No,” he whispered.
Vincent knelt beside him.
“Grandpa?”
Salvatore gripped his wrist.
“St. Agnes closed thirty years ago.”
Emily looked between them.
The old man began shaking.
“That was where Enzo took the babies.”
May you like
And from the doorway, Brianna spoke so softly that only Vincent heard her.
“If Margaret goes there, she isn't coming back.”
