Chapter 6 - THE RED SHOE AND THE MISSING GIRL
“Who ordered the children taken?”
Vincent's question was so quiet that Mrs. Delgado almost did not hear it.
The elderly woman shook her head.
“Your father never gave Evelyn a name.”
Nora stared at the photograph in her hands.
For twenty years, she had believed she understood the important things about her childhood.
Her mother had been poor.
Their apartment had been small.
Her father had been absent.
But she had been loved.
Now she was discovering that her mother's love had existed inside a story of frightened children, dangerous men, and promises that had never been kept.
“Did my mother say anything about the red shoe?” Nora asked.
Mrs. Delgado nodded slowly.
“She kept it.”
Nora looked up.
“What?”
“Evelyn kept the shoe after the man left. She said it belonged to a child who needed someone to remember her.”
Nora's hands began trembling.
“Where?”
“Your mother put it in a wooden box.”
Nora remembered the box immediately.
It had sat beneath Evelyn's bed for years.
After her mother's death, Nora had placed it in storage because she couldn't bear to sort through everything.
Vincent stood.
“We should find it.”
Nora did not move.
“Nora?”
She looked up at him.
“Your father knew where Anna was.”
Vincent said nothing.
“And he left her there.”
The accusation struck harder because Vincent had no answer.
“I don't know why,” he said.
“Does it matter?”
“It matters if we're going to find her.”
Nora looked down.
Then she stood.
“Let's go.”
The storage facility in Queens was nearly empty when they arrived.
Nora unlocked a narrow unit containing six cardboard boxes, an old lamp, a folded kitchen table, and the wooden chest that had belonged to Evelyn Hayes.
She knelt beside it.
For a moment, she simply rested her palm against the lid.
Vincent stayed back.
He understood that this was not merely evidence.
It was the last untouched corner of Nora's life with her mother.
She opened the chest.
Inside were photographs, folded blankets, a sewing kit, and a little blue dress.
Nora lifted the dress.
“I wore this on my fifth birthday.”
She smiled faintly.
“Mom stayed up all night sewing those flowers.”
Vincent watched her fingers trace the crooked stitching.
Then Nora carefully set it aside.
At the bottom of the chest lay a small paper bag.
Inside was a child's red leather shoe.
One strap was broken.
The sole was worn.
And tucked inside was a folded scrap of paper.
Nora opened it.
Four words appeared in Evelyn's handwriting.
Anna was not abandoned.
Beneath the message was a date.
October 17.
Three days after the storm.
Vincent examined the shoe.
The inside label bore a store name from Chicago.
That detail caught his attention.
“Beatrice.”
Nora looked up.
“What about her?”
“She grew up in Chicago. Her family had connections there long before Carmine.”
Nora studied him.
“You think Anna was taken back to Chicago?”
“Possibly.”
“Then we need to ask her.”
Vincent shook his head.
“Not yet.”
Nora's expression hardened.
“Why?”
“Because if Beatrice knows where Anna is, she's spent twenty years keeping that information private.”
“Maybe she's been trying to find her.”
“Maybe.”
Nora placed the red shoe back in the bag.
“But you don't believe that.”
Vincent hesitated.
“I believe Beatrice is afraid of something.”
The next morning, Nora returned to Camila's rooms.
The elderly woman was sitting near the window, watching a gray sky.
Nora placed the little red shoe on the table.
Camila stared at it.
Her face changed.
“Anna.”
Nora sat beside her.
“You remember?”
Camila reached out but did not touch the shoe.
“She lost it.”
“When?”
“The night Thomas brought the children.”
Nora spoke gently.
“What happened after that?”
Camila's lips trembled.
“They were crying.”
“Both girls?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know which was which?”
Camila nodded.
“Anna had the red shoes. Ellie had the yellow coat.”
Nora felt a familiar ache behind her ribs.
She was beginning to accept that she had once been Ellie.
But accepting it meant acknowledging that her mother had protected her from a danger she could no longer explain.
“What happened to Anna?”
Camila looked toward the doorway.
“Thomas sent her away.”
“Where?”
“With the woman.”
“Which woman?”
Camila stared at Nora.
“The woman who said she was going to save everybody.”
Nora waited.
Camila's expression grew distressed.
“She lied.”
“About what?”
“She said Anna would be safe.”
Nora took her hand.
“Who was she?”
Camila squeezed her eyes shut.
“The woman with the red dress.”
Nora went still.
“Beatrice?”
Camila began crying.
“She came back without her.”
That afternoon, Vincent confronted Carmine in the estate's private dining room.
The Chicago underboss looked exhausted.
“You could have called.”
“I wanted to see your face.”
Carmine sat down slowly.
“Then ask what you came to ask.”
“Where is Anna?”
Carmine's eyes narrowed.
“Who told you that name?”
“My mother.”
Carmine looked away.
Vincent continued.
“I know there were two children. I know Evelyn Hayes took Eleanor. And I know my father was told Anna survived.”
Carmine pressed his lips together.
“Then you know more than I did when I married Beatrice.”
Vincent frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Carmine stared at his wedding ring.
“Beatrice told me her daughter died.”
The room became quiet.
“When?” Vincent asked.
“Before we met.”
“Did you believe her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
Carmine removed his glasses.
“I don't know.”
Vincent studied him.
“You've been protecting her.”
“She's my wife.”
“And you think that excuses everything?”
“No.”
Carmine looked up.
“But I know what fear does to people. Beatrice spent years believing Arthur Bell would destroy anyone she loved. By the time I met her, she didn't know how to live without expecting punishment.”
Vincent remembered the ballroom.
The cruelty.
The laughter.
“Fear doesn't give her the right to hurt my mother.”
“I know.”
Carmine nodded.
“And I should have stopped her.”
For the first time, Vincent heard something resembling genuine regret.
Then Carmine said, “There's something else.”
Vincent waited.
“Beatrice never liked photographs.”
“What?”
“She destroyed nearly every picture from before our marriage. But she kept one.”
“Of Anna?”
Carmine nodded.
“A little girl standing beside a woman at a train station.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“Which station?”
“I don't know. The sign was partly covered.”
“Where is the picture?”
“In her dressing room.”
Vincent's expression hardened.
“Get it.”
Carmine shook his head.
“She'd know.”
“Then tell her the truth.”
Carmine stared at him.
“You think she'd listen?”
“No.”
Vincent stood.
“But I'm finished letting our parents' secrets decide what happens to their children.”
That evening, Nora was preparing Camila for bed when the elderly woman asked for the red shoe.
Nora gave it to her.
Camila held it carefully.
Then she turned it upside down.
“There's something inside.”
Nora frowned.
“We checked.”
“Not there.”
Camila pointed to the heel.
“Thomas hid things in heels. He thought women never looked.”
Nora examined the small shoe.
A narrow section of the inner lining had been stitched closed with darker thread.
She fetched a sewing kit and carefully opened the seam.
Inside lay a tightly folded piece of thin paper.
Nora unfolded it.
It was a receipt from a private medical clinic in Connecticut.
Dated October 18.
Four days after the storm.
The patient's name was listed simply as Anna B.
Under the treatment notes, one sentence had been underlined.
Child discharged into the custody of Mrs. Beatrice Gallow.
Nora stared at the date.
Beatrice had not yet married Carmine Gallow.
Somebody had altered the name.
Then she saw the signature authorizing the child's discharge.
It was not Thomas Russo's.
May you like
It was not Beatrice's.
It was Paulie Moretti's.
