Chapter 5 - THE GIRL MADELINE NEVER MENTIONED
Madeline didn’t deny it.
They returned to Bellucci’s at 2:07 a.m.
She was still there.
When Dominic placed the child’s drawing in front of her, Madeline stared at it for several seconds.
Then she sat down.
“My father kept a copy.”
Emily could barely process the words.
“Daniel Hale is your father?”
Madeline nodded.
Dominic’s face hardened.
“So you knew you were connected to my family.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“My entire life.”
“And you never told me.”
“I was going to.”
“When? After our wedding?”
Madeline looked at him.
“After you signed the trust amendment.”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“So Thomas was right.”
“No.”
She stood.
“Thomas told me the amendment would expose my father.”
“Expose him how?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes, because it’s the truth.”
Emily stepped between them emotionally if not physically.
“What happened when I was six?”
Madeline looked at her.
“You remember the pond?”
Emily did.
A frozen pond behind an old house.
Skates.
Adults shouting.
Then nothing.
“You fell through,” Emily whispered.
Madeline nodded.
“I followed you onto the ice.”
Memory returned in fragments.
A crack.
A red mitten disappearing beneath black water.
Emily lying flat on her stomach while adults screamed.
Reaching.
Catching a wrist.
“I pulled you out.”
“You held me until Danny got there.”
Madeline’s eyes glistened.
“You were six. I was four.”
Emily sat.
The girl she had saved had grown into the woman who tried to destroy her livelihood.
Madeline understood what she was thinking.
“I didn’t recognize you at Bellucci’s.”
“Until Room Seven.”
“Until Thomas told me your full name.”
Emily shook her head.
“And then you poured wine on me.”
Madeline looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas told me if you remembered my father, everything would collapse.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“What exactly is everything?”
Madeline took a breath.
“My father is alive.”
Dominic froze.
Emily did too.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic’s restraint finally snapped.
“You don’t know where your own father is?”
“He left eight months ago.”
“Why?”
“He believed someone was following him.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Madeline looked at Dominic.
“But before he disappeared, he gave me the original trust amendment.”
Dominic stood.
“You had it.”
“Not anymore.”
“Thomas?”
“Yes.”
She rubbed her arms.
“I made a terrible mistake.”
Three months earlier, Madeline had contacted Thomas Vale privately.
She wanted him to examine Vittorio’s amendment before she told Dominic about Daniel.
Thomas claimed the document was fraudulent.
Then he claimed something worse.
If Dominic signed a routine restructuring scheduled for Friday, the old trust would be replaced and nobody could challenge Russo Holdings.
Madeline believed she was protecting Dominic from a scandal involving her father.
“But Thomas kept the original,” she said.
Dominic’s expression turned lethal.
“And you let him.”
“He said he needed it authenticated.”
Emily thought about Room Seven.
“You told him Dominic would never see the original.”
Madeline closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas convinced me showing Dominic would make Daniel public.”
Dominic stared at her.
“You chose for me.”
“I know.”
“No, Madeline. You chose what version of my family I was allowed to know.”
She had no answer.
Emily almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
Then Ray entered carrying a laptop.
“I found something.”
Dominic looked at him.
“The deleted security footage?”
“Not the footage. Access logs.”
He set the laptop down.
“Someone logged into the camera system remotely three nights ago.”
“Thomas?”
Ray shook his head.
“Credentials belonged to me.”
Emily stared.
“You said you weren’t involved.”
“I wasn’t.”
Ray pointed at the screen.
“My password was used from the restaurant office.”
Madeline frowned.
“Who was working?”
“Me. Emily. Kitchen crew.”
“And?”
Ray hesitated.
“Thomas Vale.”
Dominic looked at Madeline.
“He was in the office?”
“For about ten minutes.”
Ray nodded.
“He said he needed to print something.”
The pieces shifted.
Thomas had known Emily was listening because he watched the security feed.
He could have planted the pills.
He could have taken the key.
But Emily remembered something.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“The key disappeared tonight.”
“Thomas was here tonight,” Ray said.
“When?”
“About nine.”
Emily shook her head.
“My key was still in my apron after nine.”
She remembered touching it after Madeline poured the wine.
“So Thomas didn’t take it.”
Madeline went still.
Dominic looked at her.
“You?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Ray slowly closed the laptop.
“One other person had access to the locker room.”
Emily turned.
“Who?”
“Your replacement.”
“My what?”
Ray looked uncomfortable.
“Someone came in around ten-thirty saying the agency sent her because you were being dismissed.”
“I wasn’t dismissed.”
“I know. That’s why I sent her away.”
Dominic asked, “Description?”
“Woman. Mid-fifties. Brown coat. Gray scarf.”
Emily’s heartbeat changed.
“What kind of coat?”
Ray frowned.
“Long wool coat.”
“Buttons?”
“What?”
“Were the buttons wooden?”
“I think so.”
Emily sat down hard.
Dominic noticed.
“You know her.”
Emily couldn’t speak.
Because she had seen that coat hundreds of times.
It hung on the hook beside her mother’s apartment door at Cedar Glen.
“No,” she whispered.
Dominic understood.
“Your mother?”
Emily shook her head.
“My mother can barely walk without her cane.”
Madeline stared at her.
“Then who wears her coat?”
Emily thought about Cedar Glen.
About Margaret looking toward the hallway before speaking.
About the wooden box already waiting beside her bed.
Her mother hadn’t been surprised enough.
She had known this night was coming.
Emily stood.
“We need to go back.”
Dominic checked the time.
“Emily—”
“My mother lied.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at the photograph.
“But she knew that bracelet was inside Room Seven.”
Dominic frowned.
“How?”
Emily swallowed.
“Because nobody told her where we found it.”
The room went silent.
Then Ray turned the laptop around.
A still image had recovered from the building’s entrance camera.
A woman in Margaret’s brown coat was leaving Bellucci’s at 10:46 p.m.
Her face was turned toward the camera.
Emily stared.
It wasn’t Margaret.
But she knew the woman.
She had seen her every Sunday for the last eight months, sitting beside her mother at Cedar Glen.
Emily whispered her name.
“Ruth.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Who is Ruth?”
Emily couldn’t stop staring at the screen.
“My mother’s roommate.”
Madeline leaned closer.
Emily shook her head slowly.
“No.”
Because now she remembered something else.
Ruth had once mentioned having a son.
May you like
A son named Thomas.
---
