Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Old Photograph
“Rachel's mother died twenty-two years ago,” Eleanor said. “But your father never believed the official story.”
Alexander remained standing.
Outside the sitting room, servants carried broken crystal away from the ballroom.
Every few seconds, the sound of sweeping reached him.
He looked at Eleanor.
“Why would my father have anything to do with a maid's mother?”
Eleanor lowered her eyes.
“Because her mother worked for your family.”
Alexander searched his memory.
He had been twenty-two when his father, Dominic DeLuca, began expanding the family's legitimate construction business across New York.
There had been dozens of employees.
Secretaries. Housekeepers. Drivers.
Some remained for years.
Others disappeared from his childhood without explanation.
“What was her name?”
“Margaret Collins.”
Something stirred in his memory.
A woman with dark hair, standing beside the kitchen doorway.
A woman who used to bring Nathan hot chocolate when he couldn't sleep.
Alexander remembered her laughing.
Then he remembered something else.
His father telling him she had moved away.
“Margaret died in a warehouse fire,” Eleanor continued. “The official report said she entered the building after hours and became trapped.”
“And my father disputed that?”
“He knew she had been there to meet someone.”
“Who?”
Eleanor hesitated.
“That was the part he never told me.”
Alexander walked toward the window.
His entire life, he had believed Dominic DeLuca was a ruthless but predictable man.
He protected his family.
He controlled his businesses.
And he never allowed outsiders to threaten either.
But Nathan's recording suggested their father had paid millions to conceal a person believed dead.
Now Eleanor was suggesting Rachel's mother had been connected to that secret.
“Where is Rachel's father?”
“He left when she was young.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.”
Alexander turned back.
“Then tell me something you actually know.”
The sharpness in his voice made Eleanor flinch.
For a moment he regretted it.
She had known him since childhood.
She was one of the few people who still remembered the frightened little boy behind the family name.
“I know your father paid Margaret's medical bills before she died,” Eleanor said. “And I know he continued sending money for Rachel's education after the fire.”
Alexander frowned.
“Why?”
“Because he promised Margaret he would.”
Eleanor opened her handbag.
From a velvet pouch, she removed an old photograph.
Dominic stood outside the family estate beside Margaret Collins.
Between them was a little girl, perhaps six years old.
Rachel.
Alexander recognized her eyes immediately.
But something else drew his attention.
Margaret wore a gold necklace with a distinctive pendant.
A small oval containing a blue stone.
Alexander had seen that necklace before.
Vanessa owned one almost identical.
She had claimed it was a family heirloom.
“Where did you get this?”
“Your father gave it to me before his last hospitalization.”
Alexander turned the picture over.
A handwritten date.
August 14, 2004.
And four words.
Keep the children safe.
Children.
Plural.
Alexander looked up.
“Who else was involved?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I wish I knew.”
Thomas entered before Alexander could ask another question.
“We found the Mercedes.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned outside a private medical office in Queens.”
“Rachel?”
“No sign of her.”
“Vanessa?”
“Gone.”
Thomas placed a second tablet on the desk.
“But Rachel left something behind.”
A security camera from the neighboring pharmacy showed Vanessa entering the medical office first.
Rachel followed, visibly limping.
At 12:17 a.m., Vanessa emerged alone.
She looked shaken.
Not triumphant.
Not relieved.
Shaken.
She paused beside the Mercedes and wiped tears from her face.
Then she walked away.
Alexander studied the footage.
“Was someone waiting inside?”
“We're checking.”
Thomas hesitated.
“There was another person in the building.”
“Who?”
“A male patient entered through the rear entrance fifteen minutes earlier. We couldn't see his face.”
Alexander's thoughts returned to Nathan.
“Find him.”
Meanwhile, in a small examination room in Queens, Rachel Collins sat beside a window that wouldn't open.
Her ankle was wrapped in fresh bandages.
A woman in pale blue scrubs had given her water.
But the door remained locked.
Rachel had spent years learning to recognize the difference between kindness and control.
This room offered both.
She touched the empty place on her wrist where her bracelet had been.
She hoped Alexander had found it.
More importantly, she hoped her son was safe.
“Where's Oliver?” she demanded when the woman returned.
The woman set down a folded blanket.
“He's with the nurse assigned to his recovery.”
“That doesn't answer my question.”
The woman looked uncomfortable.
“Mrs. Harrington said you'd understand.”
Rachel stood too quickly.
Pain shot through her ankle.
“Vanessa isn't Mrs. Harrington.”
The woman glanced toward the door.
“Please sit down.”
Rachel refused.
“My son is seven years old. He has screws in his spine, and he still needs help getting up some mornings. If anyone has touched him—”
“Your boy hasn't been harmed.”
A man's voice came from the hallway.
Rachel turned.
A tall man stepped inside.
He was thinner than the photograph Alexander had discovered.
A deep scar ran along his jaw.
But his eyes were unmistakable.
Nathan DeLuca.
Rachel backed away.
“You.”
Nathan closed the door.
“Rachel, we don't have much time.”
“You sent me that bracelet.”
“Yes.”
“You told me Alexander would protect Oliver.”
“He will.”
“Then why did Vanessa take me?”
Nathan looked exhausted.
“Because she believes you're the only person who can get something out of my brother.”
Rachel stared at him.
“What something?”
Nathan reached into his coat.
He withdrew a small child's drawing.
A house.
Three stick figures.
And a blue star above the roof.
Rachel knew the picture.
Oliver had drawn it at the hospital.
She had hung it beside his bed.
“Where did you get that?”
Nathan's expression softened.
“Your son gave it to me.”
Rachel felt cold.
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
She stepped toward him.
“You went near my child?”
“He thought I was a hospital volunteer.”
Rachel slapped him.
The sound startled them both.
Nathan didn't defend himself.
“You don't get to use my son,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Then tell me why he's involved.”
Nathan unfolded the drawing.
On the back was a line of writing.
Not Oliver's.
An adult's handwriting.
The blue star marks where the money went.
Rachel recognized the handwriting.
Her mother had written that way.
She had kept one birthday card for twenty-two years because it was the last thing Margaret had given her.
Rachel sank into the chair.
“That isn't possible.”
Nathan knelt beside her.
“Your mother left something for you. My father spent years trying to protect it.”
“Why didn't anyone tell me?”
“Because the people who killed her are still involved.”
Rachel stared at the drawing.
“My mother was murdered?”
Nathan said nothing.
His silence was answer enough.
Back at the mansion, Alexander opened the records connected to Nathan's old employment agency.
Most had been erased.
But one invoice remained.
It showed monthly payments to an apartment in Brooklyn.
The same building where Rachel and Oliver lived.
Alexander's jaw tightened.
Nathan had been supporting Rachel's family.
The payments had begun three months before Oliver's surgery.
Not after.
Thomas entered with another discovery.
“Sir, we've located the medical office's owner.”
Alexander barely looked up.
“Name?”
“Dr. Samuel Voss.”
Alexander froze.
He knew that name.
Voss had been the physician who signed the death certificate of a woman killed in a car accident twenty-five years earlier.
A woman Alexander had never met.
A woman his father had forbidden anyone to discuss.
His father's first wife.
Isabella DeLuca.
Alexander stared at the computer screen.
According to the records, Isabella had died before Nathan's seventh birthday.
But attached to the medical office's current registration was a photograph taken during a recent licensing inspection.
A silver-haired woman stood beside Dr. Voss.
Around her neck hung a gold necklace with a blue stone.
The same necklace worn by Margaret Collins.
And the same necklace Vanessa had called a family heirloom.
Thomas leaned forward.
“Alexander... who is that woman?”
Alexander could barely speak.
He recognized her from a portrait that had hung in his father's study throughout his childhood.
His father's first wife.
May you like
A woman dead for twenty-five years.
Isabella DeLuca was standing beside a doctor in a photograph taken six weeks ago.
