Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
“Who are you both so desperate to keep me from finding?”
Luca Moretti's question hung over the dining room like a warning.
His younger brother Michael stood in the doorway, his face drained of color.
Vanessa Bellini had stopped pretending to smile.
And beside me, Teresa Moretti was holding the faded blue cardigan so tightly that one of its old buttons threatened to come loose.
“Michael,” Luca said. “Answer me.”
Michael glanced at the thirty-six guests.
“Not in front of everyone.”
“You were comfortable making decisions about our mother's life without telling me. You can explain them here.”
“Luca, please,” Teresa whispered.
He immediately softened.
“Mom, I'm not angry with you.”
Michael stepped forward.
“You don't understand what you're asking.”
“Then help me understand.”
For several seconds, the brothers stared at one another.
I had worked in the Moretti mansion for eleven months. I knew Luca controlled businesses that made powerful men nervous. I knew conversations stopped when he entered certain rooms.
But I had never seen him look at his brother with such disappointment.
Finally, Michael spoke.
“Dad's house on West Addison was never sold.”
Luca gave a humorless laugh.
“We established that.”
“It's been maintained through a family holding company.”
“Who lives there?”
Michael looked at their mother.
Teresa closed her eyes.
“Her name is Evelyn,” she whispered.
Luca frowned.
“Evelyn who?”
Michael answered before Teresa could.
“Evelyn Ward.”
The name meant nothing to Luca.
But it meant something to me.
Three weeks earlier, while organizing Teresa's correspondence, I had found a Christmas card tucked inside a cookbook.
The envelope was addressed to Mrs. Teresa Moretti.
Inside was a photograph of a silver-haired woman standing beside a garden filled with yellow roses.
On the back, someone had written:
Forty years of kindness. I haven't forgotten.
Beneath those words was a signature.
Evelyn.
“Mrs. Moretti,” I whispered, “the photograph in your cookbook?”
She looked at me.
Then nodded.
Luca turned.
“What photograph?”
Before I could answer, Michael said, “Hannah has nothing to do with this.”
“Then stop making her responsible for keeping your secrets.”
Vanessa suddenly placed both hands on the table.
“This is becoming ridiculous. We have guests, Luca. Your mother's confused, and Michael has been handling family matters you've refused to deal with.”
Luca looked at her.
“Did you know about Evelyn Ward?”
Vanessa hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Before our engagement?”
“Yes.”
“How long before?”
She swallowed.
“Since last spring.”
Luca stepped back.
They had become engaged six months earlier.
For almost a year, the woman he planned to marry had known something about his dead father's house that he did not.
“Everyone except me,” he said quietly.
“That's not fair,” Vanessa replied.
“No. It isn't.”
He turned toward the guests.
“I'm sorry to end the evening early. My staff will arrange transportation for anyone who needs it.”
An older man near the fireplace began to protest.
Luca looked at him.
The protest ended.
Within minutes, chairs scraped against the polished floor and whispered conversations drifted toward the front hall.
I remained beside Teresa.
She was trembling.
“Can I get you some tea?” I asked.
“No, sweetheart.”
She looked at Luca.
“Please don't hate your brother.”
Michael lowered his head.
And that was when I understood something important.
Teresa wasn't frightened because Michael had threatened her.
She was frightened because she believed the truth would destroy her sons.
After the last guest left, Luca pulled out a chair.
“Everybody sits down.”
Vanessa remained standing.
“I won't be interrogated in my own home.”
Luca looked at her.
“This is my mother's home too.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I'm beginning to think I don't.”
Michael sat heavily.
For a moment, he seemed much older than the man I'd seen joking with guests an hour earlier.
“Evelyn Ward lives in the Addison house,” he began. “Dad arranged it before he died. I've been paying the expenses.”
“Why?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“Why didn't he ask me?”
Michael looked away.
“He had his reasons.”
Luca's patience broke.
“Stop protecting me from a dead man's reasons.”
Teresa flinched.
He noticed immediately.
“I'm sorry, Mom.”
She reached for him.
“Your father loved all three of you.”
“Then why was Michael keeping a stranger in our childhood home?”
Teresa slowly unfastened the top button of her cardigan.
“Evelyn isn't a stranger.”
She reached inside the knitted fabric, where a tiny pocket had been sewn near the lining.
I had washed that cardigan twice.
I had never noticed the pocket.
From it, she withdrew a small brass key.
Attached was a faded paper label.
West Addison.
Michael stared at it.
“Mom, where did you get that?”
“Your father gave it to me.”
“When?”
“The night before he went into the hospital.”
She placed the key on the table.
“He told me that someday one of you would need to open the old cedar wardrobe.”
Luca frowned.
“What wardrobe?”
“The one in the Addison bedroom.”
Michael abruptly stood.
“That wardrobe was supposed to be destroyed.”
Teresa looked up.
“Your father said nobody was to touch it.”
Michael passed a hand over his face.
“Mom, you don't understand. Keeping it could hurt somebody.”
“Who?” Luca demanded.
Michael said nothing.
Teresa looked toward me.
“Hannah, would you bring my handbag?”
It sat on a sideboard where I had placed it before dinner.
Inside, beneath her glasses case, was the Christmas card.
She removed the photograph.
Luca leaned forward.
I watched his expression change.
The woman in the picture had gentle brown eyes and silver hair pinned neatly at the back of her head.
But it wasn't her face that captured him.
It was the little boy beside her.
He looked about six years old.
Dark hair.
Serious eyes.
A narrow scar above his left eyebrow.
Luca stared at the photograph.
“That's Daniel.”
Michael stopped breathing.
Daniel Moretti was the youngest of Teresa's three sons.
I had met him only twice. He lived outside Chicago with his wife and rarely attended the large family dinners.
Luca turned the photograph over.
Written beneath the Christmas message were four words.
He finally came home.
“When was this taken?” Luca demanded.
Teresa stared at Michael.
“Tell him.”
Michael lowered his eyes.
“Twenty-nine years ago.”
Luca looked at the picture again.
“Daniel was six.”
“Yes.”
“Why is my little brother standing outside a house you claim belonged to a woman I've never met?”
Michael's voice cracked.
“Because he lived there.”
Luca went completely still.
“For how long?”
Teresa began crying.
Michael answered.
“Almost eleven months.”
Luca shook his head.
“Daniel was never missing.”
“No,” Michael whispered. “He wasn't.”
“Then why don't I remember him leaving?”
Michael looked directly at his brother.
“Because Dad told you Daniel was staying with relatives while he recovered.”
Luca slowly put down the photograph.
“Recovered from what?”
Teresa covered her face.
May you like
And Michael whispered the words that changed everything.
“From the night you found him unconscious at the bottom of the stairs.”
