Chapter 3 - THE BOY IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Gabriel did not ask who Daniel was.
Not immediately.
He looked at Margaret as though giving her one final chance to correct herself.
She didn’t.
“Name him,” Gabriel said.
Margaret tightened both hands around Elena’s coat.
“Daniel Reed was renamed after Anna died.”
“Renamed what?”
“Daniel Moretti.”
Rachel turned toward Victor.
Victor went white.
Gabriel’s gaze followed hers.
For the first time since Rachel had known him, Gabriel looked genuinely stunned.
“Your brother?”
Victor said nothing.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
The word landed softly.
Victor’s younger brother, Daniel Moretti, had grown up around the DeLuca family.
Rachel had seen photographs of him in the estate hallways.
Daniel and Gabriel at fourteen beside a fishing boat.
At nineteen in tuxedos.
At twenty-six standing on either side of Elena at a charity dinner.
Daniel had died seven years ago in a highway accident.
Gabriel stared at the photograph.
“My mother knew Daniel might have been her biological son?”
Margaret nodded.
“She believed it was possible.”
“And she let him grow up believing someone else was his mother?”
“His mother loved him.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Margaret flinched.
Gabriel turned away.
Victor spoke.
“Elena did not know.”
Gabriel spun back.
“You just heard her.”
“She suspected.”
Victor pointed toward the blue bracelet.
“That thing was the beginning of the suspicion, not proof.”
“And Daniel?”
“He never knew.”
Gabriel’s voice lowered.
“You’re certain?”
Victor hesitated.
Wrong answer.
Gabriel saw it.
“So he did know.”
“Near the end.”
The room fell quiet.
Victor looked at the floor.
“Daniel found one of Elena’s letters.”
Gabriel walked closer.
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
“One year before he died.”
“Yes.”
“What did the letter say?”
“That Elena had spent years trying to determine whether there had actually been a switch.”
Gabriel’s anger shifted into something heavier.
“And you knew.”
“I knew Daniel was frightened.”
“You knew my mother thought he might be her son.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel shoved a chair backward.
It hit the carpet and toppled.
Rachel had never seen him lose control that way.
Not loudly.
Not violently.
Just one sudden movement from a man who normally measured every inch.
Victor did not step back.
“You want to hate me, do it,” he said. “But understand what Daniel wanted.”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“You’re going to tell me what he wanted?”
“He wanted you left alone.”
Gabriel froze.
Victor reached into his wallet.
He removed an old train ticket preserved inside clear plastic.
Atlantic City to Philadelphia.
Dated seven years earlier.
The day before Daniel died.
“He went to see Samuel.”
Gabriel looked at it.
“What happened?”
“Samuel told Daniel he could not prove the babies were switched.”
Margaret nodded slowly.
“That’s true.”
Victor continued.
“Daniel came home relieved.”
“Relieved?”
“He didn’t want your life.”
Gabriel’s eyes flashed.
“That’s what you think this is about?”
“No. I know what it was about.”
Victor’s voice broke for the first time.
“My brother loved the people who raised him. He loved Elena. He loved you. He said if the truth was only suspicion, then destroying four lives to satisfy curiosity was selfish.”
Gabriel stared at him.
“And the next day he died.”
“Yes.”
“Accident?”
Victor looked away.
Rachel felt her chest tighten.
Gabriel noticed.
“You don’t believe it was.”
“I don’t know.”
That was worse.
Rachel remembered Madeline and Samuel.
“Where is Madeline now?”
Victor looked at her.
“I thought she was with Samuel.”
“She was.”
Victor shook his head.
“No. She left me less than fifteen minutes after we entered the Atlantic City house.”
Gabriel frowned.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“She called me after leaving the party. Said Samuel had contacted her first and was threatening to release something that would ruin you.”
“And you went with her?”
“I followed her.”
Victor looked at Rachel.
“When Samuel called Gabriel, Madeline took his phone. I entered through the rear door. She ran.”
“Why didn’t Samuel leave with you?”
“He refused.”
“Why?”
Victor glanced at Margaret.
“Because he said the proof wasn’t in Atlantic City anymore.”
Rachel immediately looked at Elena’s coat.
Margaret noticed.
“No.”
She searched the lining again.
Nothing.
Gabriel picked up the old address book.
“What exactly are we looking for?”
Victor said, “Daniel told me there were two hospital bracelets.”
Gabriel looked at the blue REED bracelet.
“Where’s the other?”
“Nobody knows.”
Margaret shook her head.
“Elena had it once.”
“Name?”
“DeLuca.”
Gabriel’s mouth tightened.
“If both survived, they could establish that two infants left the nursery wearing the wrong surnames.”
Margaret nodded.
“But it still wouldn’t prove whether the babies themselves were switched.”
Rachel stared at the photograph.
Something bothered her.
“Why is Elena holding Daniel?”
Everyone looked at her.
Rachel pointed.
“If Elena only suspected after finding the bracelet when she took Gabriel home, why is she sitting with Daniel later?”
Margaret’s expression changed.
“She visited Anna.”
“Why?”
“Because Elena wanted to see the other child.”
Gabriel absorbed that.
Rachel turned the photograph over again.
October seventeenth was mentioned, but the photo itself had no date.
“Was this taken before Anna died?”
Margaret nodded.
“Several years before.”
“Did Anna know?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Yes.”
That reopened everything.
“What did she say?” Gabriel asked.
“She said the hospital had made a mistake.”
Gabriel’s eyes sharpened.
“A mistake switching babies?”
“No.”
Margaret looked at the blue bracelet.
“A mistake with the bracelets.”
Rachel exhaled.
There.
Maybe there had been no switched babies at all.
Gabriel was Gabriel.
Daniel was Daniel.
A clerical error had created decades of fear.
Then Margaret added:
“But Elena never believed her.”
“Why?”
“Because Anna had something Elena had never seen before.”
“What?”
“A gold Saint Christopher medal.”
Victor shut his eyes.
Gabriel noticed.
“You know about it.”
Victor reached beneath his shirt.
A fine chain appeared.
At its end hung a small gold medal.
Rachel stared.
Victor placed it in Gabriel’s palm.
“It belonged to Daniel.”
Gabriel turned it over.
Tiny initials were engraved on the back.
E.D.
Elena DeLuca.
Rachel’s skin prickled.
“Elena gave it to him?”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
“Then how did Anna have it?”
Margaret looked at Gabriel.
“Because Elena placed that medal around her newborn son’s neck before the nurses took him to the nursery.”
Nobody moved.
Gabriel stared at the medal.
If Daniel had ended up with the medal meant for Elena’s baby, then the bracelet mistake was no longer just a bracelet mistake.
Rachel whispered, “Daniel may really have been her son.”
Gabriel closed his fist around the medal.
Victor stepped forward.
“There’s something else.”
Gabriel looked at him.
Victor’s face carried seven years of guilt.
“The night before Daniel died, he gave me that medal and told me one sentence.”
“What sentence?”
Victor swallowed.
“He said, ‘If anything happens to me, don’t let Gabriel find out until you know what his father did.’”
Gabriel went completely still.
“My father?”
Victor nodded.
May you like
“And Daniel wasn’t talking about the hospital.”
---
