Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN HIS FATHER HAD ERASED
“Play it.”
Owen looked at the message glowing on Nicholas's phone.
“Your sister specifically warned you not to.”
Nicholas set the phone facedown.
“That's exactly why we're watching.”
The security room was silent except for the faint hum of computer equipment.
On the monitor, Vincent Caruso sat beside Thomas Whitaker in a room Nicholas didn't recognize.
The recording was dated August 17, 2001.
Five days after the Morgan family fire.
A woman entered carrying a crying baby wrapped in a pale yellow blanket.
She looked exhausted.
There was dried blood on the sleeve of her blue dress.
“Please,” she said. “She's only six days old.”
Whitaker stood.
“Put the child down.”
The woman backed away.
“She needs her mother.”
Vincent looked toward the camera.
“Thomas, this wasn't our agreement.”
Whitaker ignored him.
“The little girl is already listed as missing. Once the mother signs, there's nothing connecting this child to the Morgans.”
Nicholas leaned closer.
The woman turned toward the camera.
Her face was clear for barely two seconds.
Dark brown eyes.
A small scar beneath her chin.
And a silver necklace shaped like a rose.
Then the picture flickered.
“Freeze it,” Nicholas ordered.
Owen stopped the recording.
Nicholas studied the woman's face.
Something about her was familiar.
Not because he remembered meeting her.
Because she looked like Rebecca.
Before he could speak, the security-room door opened.
Rebecca stood there, leaning on a crutch.
Her injured foot was wrapped in thick white bandages.
Behind her was a housekeeper carrying a chair.
“Mr. Caruso,” Rebecca said, “your sister told the medical staff I was being discharged.”
Nicholas frowned.
“Who authorized that?”
“She said I was no longer employed here.”
Owen pushed back his chair.
Nicholas remained still.
“Sit down, Rebecca.”
She hesitated.
“I need my paycheck.”
“You'll receive it.”
“And my daughter's insurance?”
“That stays in place.”
Rebecca swallowed.
She had heard wealthy people make promises before.
Usually just before taking something away.
Nicholas turned the monitor toward her.
“I need you to look at someone.”
Rebecca stared at the frozen picture.
Her crutch slipped from her hand.
“Oh, my God.”
Nicholas caught it before it struck her injured foot.
“Do you recognize her?”
Rebecca covered her mouth.
“That's my mother.”
Owen slowly turned toward Nicholas.
Rebecca pointed at the necklace.
“My father gave her that rose pendant. She wore it every Sunday.”
Nicholas looked at the photograph on the screen again.
“And the baby?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I don't know.”
The woman on the recording looked frightened.
But Rebecca had never seen her mother look so young.
Or so desperate.
“My mother told me my father didn't die in the fire,” she whispered. “But she never told me there was a baby.”
Nicholas resumed the recording.
Whitaker placed a document on the table.
“Sign the release, Elena.”
The woman tightened her arms around the infant.
“What happens to my daughter?”
“She goes somewhere safe.”
“And Rebecca?”
Whitaker's expression hardened.
“Your oldest girl stays with you. That's more than we originally agreed to.”
Nicholas felt his stomach tighten.
Vincent stood suddenly.
“Enough. You promised nobody would touch Rebecca.”
Whitaker smiled.
“Then perhaps you should have thought about that before getting involved with her mother.”
The recording ended abruptly.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Rebecca finally turned toward Nicholas.
“What did he mean?”
Nicholas had no answer.
He examined the confidential agreement again.
The payment of $750,000 had supposedly been made to Elena Morgan.
But the bank reference led to a Caruso charitable foundation.
Not an account belonging to Elena.
Someone had approved the transfer.
Someone else had received the money.
“Nicholas.”
Owen was studying the office security logs.
“Your sister entered your office at 2:14 this afternoon. Whitaker was with her.”
“Where did they go afterward?”
“The security window was damaged at 2:31. Catherine ordered maintenance to collect the glass.”
Rebecca touched her bandage.
“And she dumped some of it beside the pool.”
Nicholas looked at Owen.
“Preserve every camera recording. Nobody deletes anything.”
He turned back to Rebecca.
“Did Catherine say why she wanted you to pick it up?”
“She said I needed to learn what happens to people who put their noses where they don't belong.”
Rebecca's voice shook.
“She knew I'd seen the photograph.”
A terrible possibility crossed Nicholas's mind.
Catherine hadn't merely punished Rebecca.
She had used broken glass to frighten a witness.
Nicholas had spent years believing his sister was difficult, demanding, and sometimes cruel.
But he had never imagined her doing something like this.
“Where's Hannah?” he asked.
“With my neighbor.”
“Call her. Tell her you're staying somewhere safe tonight.”
Rebecca stiffened.
“I don't want charity.”
“It's not charity. You were injured in my home because someone used my authority against you.”
The door opened again.
Catherine stepped inside.
Her cream silk dress looked untouched by the afternoon's violence.
Then she saw the frozen video.
All the color drained from her face.
“You watched it.”
Nicholas stood.
“Who is Elena Morgan?”
Catherine glanced at Rebecca.
“Get her out of here.”
“No.”
“Nicholas, you don't understand what you're doing.”
“Then explain it.”
Catherine's eyes filled with something Rebecca hadn't expected.
Fear.
Not the fear of being caught stealing.
The fear of watching something terrible happen again.
“Whitaker has people watching her mother,” Catherine whispered. “That woman has survived this long because she kept quiet.”
Nicholas stepped closer.
“You put Rebecca barefoot on broken glass.”
Catherine flinched.
“I needed her to stop asking questions.”
“You could have talked to me.”
“You never listened when it came to Father.”
Nicholas said nothing.
His father, Vincent Caruso, had died six years earlier.
Nicholas had inherited his businesses, his mansion, and a reputation powerful enough to silence entire rooms.
He had also inherited the belief that Vincent had been a devoted husband to Margaret Caruso.
The woman Nicholas had called Mom until her death.
Catherine looked at the video again.
“Father made a mistake before you were born,” she said. “Margaret spent the rest of her life paying for it.”
Rebecca stared at her.
“What does that have to do with my mother?”
Catherine opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Owen's assistant appeared.
“Mr. Caruso? There's a woman at the front entrance. She says Rebecca asked her to come.”
Rebecca gripped her crutch.
“My mother.”
Catherine seized Nicholas's arm.
“Don't bring her in.”
He pulled away.
“Why?”
“Because the last time Elena Morgan entered this house, somebody disappeared.”
Nicholas ordered Owen to escort the visitor inside.
Five minutes later, Elena Morgan walked into the security room.
She was sixty-four, with silver threaded through her dark hair.
She wore an old navy coat.
Around her neck hung a small silver rose.
The same necklace from the recording.
Rebecca struggled to stand.
“Mom.”
Elena rushed to support her.
“My goodness, sweetheart. What happened to your foot?”
Then she saw Nicholas.
Everything about her changed.
Her hands trembled.
She stared at his face, his dark eyes, and the small scar above his left eyebrow.
Nicholas had seen that expression before.
In the recording.
When she was trying to protect the baby.
“Elena,” Catherine whispered. “Please don't.”
Elena ignored her.
She reached into her coat and removed a faded hospital photograph.
It showed a young woman holding a newborn boy.
On the baby's wrist was a white bracelet bearing the Caruso name.
She handed it to Nicholas.
He turned the photograph over.
Written on the back were three words.
My son, Nicholas.
Nicholas looked up.
Elena's eyes filled with tears.
“I've waited forty-four years to tell you this.”
May you like
She took one trembling breath.
“Nicholas, I am your mother.”
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