Chapter 4 - What Nora Saw at Saint Agnes
“That’s the night I watched my sister die.”
Dominic stared at her.
“You told me Claire disappeared.”
“I thought she died.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Nora’s hands began shaking.
The first real tremor Dominic had seen since coming home.
He crouched in front of her.
“What happened?”
She looked toward the basement door.
“If Vivien has Claire’s bracelet, I need to hear what she knows.”
Dominic rose.
“Then we go together.”
They found Vivien in the wine cellar rather than the unfinished basement room.
Dominic had ordered the change after seeing her injuries.
A doctor had already set her nose.
One eye had swollen nearly shut.
Yet the moment Nora entered, Vivien recoiled.
Dominic noticed.
Nora noticed too.
“Sit,” Dominic said.
Nora remained standing.
Vivien laughed painfully.
“Still giving orders, Dom?”
“You entered my home.”
“To save you.”
Nora’s jaw tightened.
Dominic caught that.
“From what?”
Vivien’s one good eye moved toward Nora.
“Her.”
Nora stepped closer.
Vivien shrank against the chair.
“Careful,” she said. “Your gentle little restorer has a temper.”
“Where did you get Claire’s bracelet?”
Vivien stopped smiling.
“There she is.”
Nora took another step.
Dominic put one hand around her wrist.
Not restraining.
Grounding.
“Answer her.”
Vivien looked at Dominic.
“My father gave it to me when I was sixteen.”
“Why?”
“He said it belonged to a dead girl who ruined everything.”
Nora’s face crumpled for half a second.
Dominic tightened his hand around hers.
“Claire,” Nora whispered.
“I didn’t know her name then.”
“When did you learn it?”
“Last month.”
That surprised them both.
Vivien leaned back carefully.
“My father is sick.”
Dominic knew Arthur had recently disappeared from public meetings.
Rumor said heart trouble.
“He started sorting old papers,” Vivien said. “He burned most of them.”
“Convenient.”
“He thought so too.”
Vivien looked at Nora.
“Then he found your photograph.”
Nora’s eyes narrowed.
“The one in my drawer?”
“Yes.”
“You put it there.”
Vivien nodded.
“Why?”
“Because I needed you scared enough to listen.”
“You could have spoken to me.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“At the museum gala.”
Nora remembered.
Vivien had bumped her near the coat check and whispered, Leave Dominic while you still can.
Nora had assumed it was a threat.
It had been a warning.
Reversal after reversal.
Dominic saw the same realization on Nora’s face.
“You were warning me?”
“Badly.”
Vivien gave a broken laugh.
“I’m my father’s daughter. We don’t do vulnerability well.”
Dominic almost believed her.
Almost.
“Then why terrorize my house?”
“Because when I came through the gate and saw her…”
Vivien looked down.
“I hated her.”
Nora’s expression hardened.
“At least that part was honest.”
“Yes.”
Vivien looked directly at her.
“I hated that Dominic chose you. I hated that he looked peaceful. I hated that after everything I did for him, he could build a life with somebody else.”
Dominic’s voice chilled.
“That does not excuse today.”
“I know.”
Vivien did not defend herself.
That made the admission more credible.
“But jealousy wasn’t why I came.”
She pointed toward Nora.
“She has something my father is willing to start a war over.”
“The painting.”
“Yes.”
“What’s inside it?”
“I don’t know.”
Nora scoffed.
Vivien snapped, “If I knew, I wouldn’t have come here looking like some rejected lunatic.”
Fair point.
Dominic asked, “Saint Agnes.”
Vivien grew serious.
“My father mentioned it while feverish two weeks ago. He kept saying, ‘The wrong girl left Saint Agnes.’”
Nora went rigid.
Dominic turned toward her.
“What happened there?”
Nora looked trapped.
Finally, she sat.
“When I was seventeen, Claire and I were hiding in a church shelter attached to Saint Agnes Parish in Queens.”
“You were together?”
“Yes.”
“But you said she disappeared three days after your father.”
“She did.”
Nora rubbed her palms against her dress.
“I found her again six months later.”
Dominic said nothing.
“I’d been sleeping in train stations and shelters. Someone told me a girl matching Claire’s description had been taken to Saint Agnes.”
Her voice became distant.
“I went there. She was outside behind the parish hall.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Nora’s breath caught.
“She was terrified. She kept saying we had to leave immediately.”
“What happened?”
“A black Lincoln pulled into the alley.”
Nora closed her eyes.
“Two men got out.”
“Arthur’s?”
“I recognized one.”
“Who?”
“Angelo Gallo.”
The room changed.
Dominic released her hand.
“My father.”
Nora nodded.
“He grabbed Claire.”
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“And you?”
“I hid beneath a delivery staircase.”
Shame entered her face.
“I watched.”
“You were seventeen.”
“I watched.”
“Nora—”
“I watched him put my sister in that car.”
Vivien leaned forward.
“My father told me Claire died that night.”
Nora turned sharply.
“How?”
“He never said.”
“Then why did you say I watched her die?”
Vivien’s expression became strange.
“Because that’s what you believe.”
Silence.
Dominic caught the distinction.
“What do you believe?”
Vivien looked between them.
“I think Claire survived Saint Agnes.”
Nora stared.
“No.”
“My father kept that bracelet for twenty-four years. He doesn’t keep jewelry from dead girls.”
“What does he keep?”
“Leverage.”
Nora rose so quickly the chair moved backward.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You came here with her bracelet!”
“I said I don’t know.”
Nora grabbed Vivien by the coat.
Dominic immediately stepped between them.
“Nora.”
“She knows.”
Vivien looked terrified but did not look away.
“I know one more thing.”
Nora froze.
“My father wrote three names beside Saint Agnes.”
“What names?”
“Claire Vale.”
Nora’s breathing stopped.
“Angelo Gallo.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“And?”
Vivien looked at him.
“Beatrice Romano.”
Dominic stared.
“No.”
The basement seemed to fall silent around them.
Beatrice.
His housekeeper.
The woman upstairs.
The woman who had worked for his family twenty years.
The woman who had called him tonight.
Nora took one slow step backward.
“She knew Claire?”
Vivien nodded.
“My father wrote one sentence beneath the names.”
Dominic’s voice was barely audible.
“What sentence?”
Vivien swallowed.
“Beatrice took the wrong sister.”
Upstairs, something heavy crashed.
Dominic and Nora looked at each other.
Then they ran.
They found the kitchen empty.
The back door stood open.
Rain swept across the tile.
Beatrice was gone.
On the table lay only her rosary.
May you like
Wrapped around it was Nora’s old green-bird bracelet.
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