Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE RAIN
Luca did not move.
For several seconds, the only sound in the marble foyer was rain hitting the tall windows.
His mother stood on the security monitor.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
Luca’s hand remained pressed against the wooden cabinet.
“Open the door,” he said.
Vanessa spun toward him.
“No.”
Every face in the room turned toward her.
She seemed to hear herself too late.
Luca looked at Daniel.
“Open it.”
Daniel crossed the foyer.
Vanessa caught his sleeve.
“Please.”
Daniel stopped only because Luca lifted one hand.
Vanessa’s voice dropped.
“If that woman is who you think she is, you need to understand something before you let her inside.”
Luca’s expression changed by almost nothing.
“Then explain it.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“She destroyed my family.”
Emma stood near the marble table, still beside the violin case.
Vanessa looked at her as though she had forgotten Emma was there.
“My father lost everything because of Anna Moretti.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Your father died when you were nine.”
“Yes.”
“And you told me he died in an accident.”
“That’s what my mother told people.”
“What did she tell you?”
Vanessa stared toward the doors.
“That your mother caused it.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Daniel.”
The locks clicked.
The front doors opened.
Cold rain swept across the marble.
Anna Moretti stood beneath the portico wearing a dark wool coat that looked twenty years old.
She held no umbrella.
Around her neck hung a wooden rosary.
For the first time since Emma had known him, Luca Moretti looked like a man who had forgotten how to stand.
Anna stepped inside.
“Luca.”
He did not answer.
Her mouth trembled.
“My boy.”
“Don’t.”
One word.
Quiet.
It stopped her harder than a shout would have.
Anna’s eyes filled.
Luca finally looked directly at her.
“Nineteen years.”
“I know.”
“We buried you.”
“I know.”
“Isabella cried herself to sleep for a year.”
Anna closed her eyes.
That hurt her.
Good, Emma thought, then immediately felt guilty.
Luca deserved someone else to hurt too.
Anna opened her hand.
A small photograph rested in her palm.
The missing picture from the locket.
She placed it beside the larger hospital photograph.
It showed the same hospital.
The same day.
But this time Anna was not holding a baby.
She was standing beside a younger woman with dark hair.
The woman looked terrified.
On the back were two names.
Anna Moretti. Elena Bellini.
Vanessa stopped breathing.
“My mother?”
Anna looked at her.
“Yes.”
Vanessa’s anger broke through her fear.
“You stay away from me.”
“I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You already did.”
Luca glanced between them.
“What happened at that hospital?”
Anna turned toward the sealed document.
“Your father wrote the truth down because he knew one day none of us would agree on how to tell it.”
Luca reached for the envelope.
Anna caught his wrist.
Her hand was shaking.
“Not yet.”
His eyes dropped to her fingers.
Anna released him immediately.
“Why?”
“Because Carlo wrote that document after he discovered what Marco Bellini had done.”
Vanessa flinched at her father’s name.
“What did he do?” Luca asked.
Anna took a breath.
“He stole from you.”
Vanessa laughed once, sharp and unbelieving.
“My father built Bellini Imports.”
“He did.”
“Then what did he steal?”
“Not money.”
Anna looked at the violin.
“He stole a name.”
Nobody understood.
Emma saw it first.
Or thought she did.
Her grandfather used to say old instruments told their history through labels, stamps, repairs and ownership marks.
She looked at the rectangular section cut from Anna’s violin.
“Was something written there?”
Anna’s gaze snapped to her.
“What’s your name?”
“Emma Sullivan.”
“How did you know?”
“My grandfather repaired violins.”
Anna walked slowly to the instrument.
When she saw the damage beneath the chin rest, she put one hand over her mouth.
“No.”
Luca’s voice went flat.
“What was removed?”
Anna touched the bare wood.
“A silver maker’s plate.”
Vanessa looked away.
Luca noticed.
“What did it say?”
Anna answered.
“Moretti & Bellini, 1948.”
Luca frowned.
Anna continued.
“Your grandfather and Vanessa’s grandfather started together. Instruments first. Shipping later. The first Moretti-Bellini partnership wasn’t criminal, Luca. It was music.”
She looked toward Vanessa.
“Both families owned half.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“No. Bellini Imports belonged to my grandfather.”
“That is what Marco wanted you to believe.”
Anna pointed toward the sealed document.
“Carlo discovered Marco had erased the Moretti family from the original company records and transferred valuable holdings into Bellini-controlled accounts.”
Vanessa’s eyes flashed.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“Then why disappear?”
The question hit harder because it was the right one.
Luca said nothing.
Anna slowly sat in the chair Daniel pulled behind her.
“I didn’t disappear willingly.”
Luca’s face sharpened.
Anna looked at him.
“The night everyone believed I died, I was driving to meet Elena Bellini.”
Vanessa’s mother.
“She had found records Marco hid.”
Vanessa stared at her.
“My mother never mentioned records.”
“She never got the chance.”
Anna’s fingers tightened around the rosary.
“Our car went through the barrier on Lake Shore Drive.”
Luca went pale.
“That was your accident.”
“Yes.”
“You were in the car.”
“Yes.”
“Then whose body did we bury?”
Anna’s eyes lowered.
“Elena’s.”
Vanessa staggered backward.
A champagne glass slipped from somebody’s hand and shattered.
“No.”
Anna’s voice broke.
“She was driving.”
“No.”
“The car burned. Carlo identified the body through jewelry.”
“No!”
Vanessa knocked the photograph off the table.
Emma bent instinctively and picked it up.
Something slid from behind the picture.
A narrow strip of paper.
Everyone froze.
Emma unfolded it carefully.
It was not writing.
It was a claim ticket.
Old.
Yellowed.
Stamped with the logo of a Chicago train station storage service that had closed years ago.
Anna stared at it.
“I didn’t put that there.”
Vanessa stopped crying.
Her face changed.
Luca saw it.
“You know what this is.”
Vanessa wiped her cheek.
“My mother used storage lockers.”
“Where?”
“She used to take me downtown when I was little.”
Anna stood abruptly.
“What station?”
Vanessa hesitated.
“Union Station.”
Anna went very still.
“What locker number?”
Emma turned the ticket over.
A number was handwritten on the back.
214.
Anna whispered, “That isn’t Elena’s locker.”
Luca looked at her.
“Whose is it?”
Anna’s eyes lifted to Vanessa.
“Marco’s.”
Then Luca reached for the sealed document.
Vanessa lunged across the table.
Not for the document.
For the claim ticket.
Daniel caught her wrist.
She fought him harder than Emma had seen her fight for anything.
“Vanessa.”
Luca’s voice was ice.
She stopped.
His eyes moved to the old ticket in Emma’s hand.
“What is in locker 214?”
Vanessa’s face crumpled.
“I don’t know.”
Luca watched her.
Then she whispered the words that changed everything again.
May you like
“But three weeks ago, someone paid me fifty thousand dollars to make sure you never found it.”
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