Chapter 4 - THE BABY BRACELET
Saint Agnes had been closed for eleven years.
The old brick building still stood behind chain-link fencing because apparently nobody could agree whether to demolish it or turn it into expensive apartments.
Rain began before we arrived.
Of course it did.
Some nights were too dramatic to occur under clear skies.
Adrian’s security team found a maintenance entrance open.
Not forced.
Opened with a key.
“Celeste planned this,” I said.
Adrian looked at the rusted lock.
“She plans everything.”
“You say that like you admire her.”
“I used to.”
That was the first time he had spoken about her as someone he had once loved instead of an enemy.
It reminded me that this was not simple for him either.
Three weeks earlier, he had probably expected to marry her.
Now he was following her into an abandoned hospital because she had restrained his mother and threatened mine.
“How long were you together?”
“Four years.”
“And you never saw this?”
He looked at me.
“You never knew your father’s name.”
That shut me up.
Fair.
We entered Saint Agnes.
My mother had insisted on coming.
I had insisted she stay in the car.
She had responded by getting out before I finished the sentence.
Apparently stubbornness was hereditary on both sides of my family.
We found the old maternity records room on the third floor.
The door was open.
Inside, metal shelves had been cleared.
Boxes lay across the floor.
Celeste stood in the center of the room.
She was holding my mother’s black jewelry box.
No gun.
No hostage.
No theatrical smile.
She just looked exhausted.
“Rachel.”
Adrian stepped in front of me.
Celeste actually rolled her eyes.
“If I wanted to hurt her, Adrian, I had twenty-nine years to arrange it.”
My mother’s face hardened.
“You didn’t know where she was twenty-nine years ago.”
Celeste looked at her.
“No. My father did.”
That stopped everyone.
Adrian’s voice dropped.
“Daniel Ward knew Rachel existed?”
“Eventually.”
“You told me your father died believing my family destroyed him over a bad investment.”
“He did.”
“Was that a lie too?”
“No.”
For the first time, something cracked in her expression.
“Your father destroyed mine.”
“My father is dead.”
“So is mine.”
“And that gave you permission to tie up my mother?”
“No.”
Celeste looked toward the floor.
“That was never supposed to happen.”
Margaret would have laughed at that.
But none of us did.
“You restrained her,” I said.
“I ordered a nurse to keep her in bed because she kept trying to reach Margaret.”
“You hit me.”
Her eyes met mine.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
No denial.
That almost made it worse.
“I was afraid,” she said.
“So you made everyone else afraid.”
“Yes.”
Adrian looked at the jewelry box.
“Give it to me.”
Celeste tightened her grip.
“No.”
His entire body became still.
“Celeste.”
“You don’t understand what’s inside.”
“Then explain it.”
She laughed bitterly.
“That’s the Romano solution, isn’t it? Demand the truth after spending thirty years burying it.”
My mother stepped forward.
“Your father helped bury it.”
Celeste turned.
“My father tried to expose Joseph.”
“No. Daniel tried to buy Anthony’s share after Anthony vanished.”
“Because Joseph offered it to him.”
“He knew Rachel owned it.”
“He didn’t know Rachel existed.”
“Stop.”
The word came from me.
Everybody looked at me.
I was suddenly tired of listening to other people debate my childhood like I was a parcel of waterfront property.
“That box came from my mother’s house.”
Celeste stared at me.
“I know.”
“The watch belongs to my father.”
“Yes.”
“The bracelet has my name.”
“Yes.”
“Then give it to me.”
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Celeste crossed the room.
Adrian shifted.
I touched his arm.
“Let her.”
Celeste stopped in front of me.
Up close, she looked nothing like the polished woman who had slapped me upstairs.
Her hair was wet.
Her makeup had streaked under one eye.
She looked scared.
She handed me the box.
“Your mother lied about one thing,” she said.
I opened it.
The watch was inside.
Heavy.
Gold.
The back was engraved with two initials.
A.R.
Beside it lay a hospital bracelet sealed in a plastic sleeve.
BABY GIRL ROMANO.
DATE: APRIL 17, 1997.
MOTHER: MAUREEN COOPER.
FATHER: ANTHONY ROMANO.
Proof.
Not scientific.
Not modern.
But official.
Contemporaneous.
Real.
My knees weakened.
Adrian put one hand beneath my elbow.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
I almost smiled.
Then I noticed something else.
The watch had stopped.
4:17.
“Mom.”
She saw it too.
Her hand went to her mouth.
“What?”
“It didn’t stop at 4:17 when I had it.”
Everyone looked at Celeste.
She shook her head.
“I didn’t touch the mechanism.”
“Then who did?” Adrian asked.
Celeste looked at my mother.
“That watch hasn’t worked in years.”
“It worked when Eleanor brought it to me.”
Silence.
Celeste’s eyes narrowed.
“When?”
“Three days after Anthony vanished.”
Celeste slowly sat down on an overturned records box.
She suddenly looked as though the room had tilted.
“My father had this watch.”
My mother stared.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“April eighteenth.”
One day after Anthony disappeared.
Adrian moved closer.
“How?”
“My father came home with blood on his shirt and Anthony’s watch in his pocket.”
Now we had two people claiming they had seen the same watch in different places.
That was impossible.
Unless one of them was lying.
Or there were two watches.
Celeste opened the back panel with her fingernail.
Inside the gold case was a tiny manufacturer’s stamp.
A serial number.
Then an engraving.
TO A.R. — J.R.
Adrian frowned.
“My father gave this to Anthony.”
Celeste nodded.
“My father photographed it.”
She pulled out her phone.
Not a mysterious message.
A photograph she had kept for years.
The image showed Daniel Ward’s hand holding the same watch.
Same engraving.
Same scratch near the hinge.
The date embedded in the old scanned photograph was April 18, 1997.
My mother whispered:
“That’s impossible.”
Celeste looked at her.
“Unless Eleanor didn’t bring you the watch you thought she did.”
Reversal.
I turned to my mother.
“You said Eleanor was covered in blood.”
“She was.”
“What exactly did she say?”
My mother stared into the past.
“She said, ‘Anthony won’t be coming home.’”
“Nothing else?”
“She told me to take you and leave Boston.”
“Did you ask if he was dead?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Tears filled my mother’s eyes.
“She said, ‘Not every dead man gets buried.’”
The room went cold.
Adrian swore softly.
Celeste stood.
“You want to know why I needed this bracelet?”
“Yes.”
“Because Pier Nine isn’t just land.”
“What is it?”
“A controlling asset.”
“In what?”
She looked at Adrian.
“Three holding companies Joseph built his entire legitimate empire around.”
Adrian’s face changed.
Celeste continued.
“If Rachel’s claim is recognized, she doesn’t own forty percent of one pier.”
She looked at me.
“She controls the voting block Joseph stole from Anthony.”
“How much?”
“Enough to remove Adrian from his own companies.”
I stared at him.
He did not look angry.
He looked thoughtful.
“That’s what you wanted?” I asked Celeste.
“No.”
“What did you want?”
“To stop Joseph’s structure from automatically transferring that voting authority to me when I married Adrian.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if Eleanor is declared incompetent.”
Now I understood the restraints.
The medication.
The forced confusion.
My stomach turned.
“You were trying to become trustee.”
Celeste shook her head.
“I was trying to make the trust activate.”
“For you.”
“For the Ward family.”
There it was.
Her motive.
Not money alone.
Revenge wearing legal clothes.
“My father lost everything because of Joseph Romano,” she said. “His company. His name. His health. He died being called a thief.”
“So you tortured an old woman.”
Her eyes filled.
“I told myself I was forcing the truth into the open.”
“No. You forced people.”
She looked away.
That landed.
Adrian held out his hand.
“Enough. You’re coming back.”
Celeste laughed once.
“To your house?”
“To answer for what you did.”
She stepped backward.
“You still think I’m the worst thing in this story.”
“No,” Adrian said. “I think you’re the one standing in front of me.”
A sound came from the hall.
Security.
Celeste did not run.
That surprised me.
Instead, she reached into her coat.
Adrian’s men reacted instantly.
“Hands!”
She slowly removed a photograph.
Nothing more.
She handed it to me.
It showed three men on a dock.
Anthony Romano.
Joseph Romano.
Daniel Ward.
Date stamped on the back:
APRIL 17, 1997.
Behind them was Pier Nine.
And in the corner of the photograph stood Eleanor.
Wearing a pale coat.
The front of it dark with blood.
I looked at Celeste.
“Who took this?”
“My mother.”
Adrian stared.
Celeste’s voice became very quiet.
“And she took one more photograph that night.”
“What photograph?”
“One your mother has never seen.”
She looked directly at me.
“Anthony was alive after Eleanor told everyone he disappeared.”
May you like
Then she pointed at the watch in my hand.
“And he wasn’t alone.”
