Chapter 4 - THE BABY IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
“What baby did they take from my mother?”
My voice echoed down the hallway.
Luca immediately stepped closer.
“Claire, Grandpa needs a moment.”
I turned toward him.
“My mother was carried out of a hotel unconscious. Your grandfather has been hiding a watch with her initials for eleven years. Now someone has written about a baby.”
My hands were shaking.
“I think I've waited long enough.”
Giuseppe began crying.
I regretted raising my voice the moment I saw his face.
I knelt beside him.
“I'm sorry.”
He reached out.
I let him take my hand.
“Not... taken,” he whispered.
I looked up.
“What?”
He struggled to form the words.
“Baby... protected.”
Edward moved closer.
“Mr. Moretti, was Anna pregnant when she left the hotel?”
Giuseppe shook his head.
Then pointed at me.
My heart stopped.
“Me?”
He nodded.
I stared at Edward.
“But I was fourteen when my mother left the Bellavista.”
Edward closed his eyes.
“Of course.”
Luca frowned.
“What are we missing?”
Edward looked at me with a sadness that made my stomach tighten.
“Claire, perhaps the baby wasn't your mother's.”
Giuseppe suddenly struck his wheelchair arm.
“No!”
We all turned.
He was looking at Edward with unmistakable frustration.
Then he pointed at me again.
“Baby... you.”
I couldn't speak.
Luca crouched beside him.
“Grandpa, are you saying Claire was the child Anna was trying to protect?”
Giuseppe nodded.
Edward rubbed his forehead.
“That makes more sense. Anna had a daughter before she came to work at the hotel.”
I stared at him.
“You knew about me?”
“She kept a photograph of you on her desk. You were about four, wearing a yellow raincoat.”
My eyes filled.
I remembered that raincoat.
My mother had saved it until the fabric became too small to fit around my shoulders.
“Why would anyone threaten me?”
Giuseppe looked toward the dining room.
“Money,” he whispered.
Luca's face hardened.
“Richard?”
Giuseppe closed his eyes.
I understood then that he was exhausted beyond anything he could explain.
Luca called the nurse back.
She insisted Giuseppe needed rest.
This time I didn't argue.
As we helped him settle into a guest bedroom, he caught my wrist and pointed at the watch.
I placed it in his hand.
He shook his head.
“For... you.”
I swallowed.
“Thank you.”
He closed his eyes.
And for the first time that evening, his face relaxed.
Outside the room, Luca turned toward me.
“Claire, I owe you an apology.”
I looked at him.
“For what?”
“For allowing Vanessa to treat you the way she did.”
I thought about the dinner.
The guests.
The way Vanessa had called me stupid.
The way my fear of losing my job had nearly stopped me from protecting Giuseppe.
“You heard her threaten to fire me,” I said.
“I did.”
“And you only intervened after Grandpa became upset.”
Luca accepted that without argument.
“You're right.”
I looked away.
“Your grandfather has been telling people something was wrong for weeks.”
“I know.”
“No,” I said quietly. “You knew he was upset. That's different from listening.”
His expression changed.
For a moment, I saw something other than the intimidating man everyone obeyed.
I saw a grandson who understood he'd failed someone he loved.
“I'll do better,” he said.
I wanted to believe him.
But promises were easy.
I'd heard plenty of them from people who had more money than I would earn in a lifetime.
Before I could answer, Edward approached carrying a thin leather folder.
“I found something in the old management files.”
Luca looked at it.
“Where?”
“In the renovation records Richard left with your staff. I was supposed to review them tomorrow.”
He opened the folder.
Inside was a photograph.
Three women stood in front of the Bellavista's entrance.
Helen Mercer.
My mother.
And a younger woman I didn't recognize.
Helen stood in the center, smiling.
My mother held a little girl wearing a yellow raincoat.
Me.
I touched the photograph.
“Oh, Mom.”
She looked so young.
So happy.
Edward pointed to the third woman.
“That's Margaret Lewis. She was one of the six residents still living at the hotel.”
“Was?” Luca asked.
Edward hesitated.
“She died eighteen months ago.”
I stared at him.
“Then why was her name on the tag?”
“Because her name was never removed from the emergency register.”
Luca frowned.
“But the six people on the tag were supposed to be residents when renovations began three weeks ago.”
Edward nodded.
“Exactly.”
We looked at each other.
Someone had used an old list.
I remembered the five check marks.
“Maybe the checks don't mean people were transferred.”
Edward's expression changed.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe they mean someone had already found them.”
Luca looked down at the photograph.
“Then Helen's question mark means someone hasn't found her yet.”
For the first time, I felt something like hope.
Perhaps Helen had escaped.
Perhaps the message from Room Twelve was a warning sent after she'd found somewhere safer.
But Edward shook his head.
“There's something else.”
He turned the photograph over.
Written on the back were three dates.
The first was the day my mother started working at the Bellavista.
The second was the night of the alleged theft.
The third was dated just six weeks earlier.
Beside it, in shaky handwriting, someone had written:
Margaret's key returned.
Luca stared.
“Margaret died eighteen months ago.”
I nodded.
“Then who returned her key six weeks ago?”
Edward glanced toward the hallway.
“Her daughter came to the Bellavista.”
“What daughter?”
“Rebecca Lewis. She's a nurse. She'd been caring for Margaret for years.”
He swallowed.
“She told me she'd found something among her mother's belongings.”
Luca leaned forward.
“What?”
“A photograph and an old hospital bracelet.”
My heart began pounding.
“Whose bracelet?”
Edward looked at me.
“I don't know.”
Then he reached inside the folder and removed a yellowed envelope.
“Rebecca gave this to me. I hadn't opened it because it was addressed to Giuseppe.”
I stared at him.
“You've had it for six weeks?”
Edward looked ashamed.
“I assumed it concerned Margaret's personal effects.”
Luca said quietly, “Open it.”
Edward did.
Inside was a child's hospital bracelet.
The plastic had yellowed.
A name was printed across it.
BENNETT, CLAIRE.
My breath caught.
Beneath the name was a date.
My fourth birthday.
I shook my head.
“That doesn't make sense.”
Luca looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because I wasn't in the hospital on my fourth birthday.”
At least, that's what my mother had always told me.
Edward turned the bracelet over.
There was a handwritten notation.
AUTHORIZED RELEASE: G. MORETTI.
We stood in stunned silence.
Then Edward pulled a second photograph from the envelope.
It showed Giuseppe standing outside a hospital.
He held a sleeping little girl wrapped in a white blanket.
I recognized the yellow raincoat draped across his arm.
It was me.
On the back, someone had written:
He brought her home when nobody else would.
Luca stared at his grandfather's signature.
Then looked toward the bedroom.
“Grandpa saved Claire?”
Edward's eyes filled.
“I think so.”
But I barely heard him.
Because tucked behind the photograph was one final piece of paper.
A hospital discharge instruction.
Across the bottom, in red ink, were five words.
DO NOT RELEASE TO FATHER.
May you like
And beneath them was a name.
RICHARD BELLINI.
