Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN IN THE CAR
Dominic did not sleep.
Neither did Isabella.
The children finally collapsed together in Leo’s room, Lily curled beneath a blanket near the foot of his bed because she had announced that “Leo gets scary dreams.”
Dominic allowed it.
That alone told Isabella the rules of the Moretti house were changing.
At 2:13 in the morning, she found Dominic sitting at the kitchen island.
The soap bubbles were gone.
The marble gleamed again.
But one tiny wet footprint remained beneath a cabinet.
Dominic was staring at it.
“You missed one,” Isabella said.
He looked down.
“No.”
She followed his gaze.
“You want me to clean it?”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“Leave it.”
Isabella sat across from him.
On the counter between them lay Elena’s photograph, her father’s watch and the crash photograph showing the gold bracelet.
Dominic tapped the picture.
“My sister-in-law was named Maria.”
“Marco’s wife?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
“She left him.”
“When?”
Dominic looked up.
“Three days before Elena died.”
Isabella felt the connection immediately.
“Did anyone see her after that?”
“No.”
Dominic leaned back.
“Marco said she went to Florida.”
“Did she?”
“I never cared enough to check.”
That admission cost him something.
“I was grieving Elena. Leo was an infant. My entire organization was unstable. Marco handled everything.”
“Including Elena’s death.”
“Yes.”
“And Maria disappeared at the same time.”
“Yes.”
Isabella stared at the gold bracelet.
“So the body in the car could have been Maria.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“Maybe.”
“But Elena wrote the message three days after everyone thought she was dead.”
“That means she was alive.”
“Then where did she go?”
Dominic didn’t answer.
By sunrise, he had made one decision.
He would visit the hospital Elena’s coded message referenced.
Not with armed men.
Not with Marco.
Only Isabella.
“You’re taking me?”
“You noticed the charm.”
“That doesn’t make me an investigator.”
“No.”
Dominic looked toward the stairs.
“It makes you someone Leo trusts.”
“And?”
“And right now, I trust everyone he trusts more than I trust my own blood.”
They drove to Saint Agnes Hospital outside Providence.
The building had changed since Elena’s disappearance.
One wing had been replaced.
Another converted into rehabilitation offices.
Dominic asked for old admission records.
The clerk shook her head.
“Anything older than seven years is archived off-site.”
Dominic gave her Elena’s name.
Nothing.
He gave Maria’s.
Nothing.
Then Isabella remembered the message.
“Ask about the red bracelet.”
The clerk frowned.
“Red bracelet?”
“Yes.”
She glanced toward an older nurse seated behind another desk.
Something passed over the woman’s face.
Recognition.
Dominic saw it too.
He walked toward her.
The nurse was in her late sixties.
Her badge read Janet Webb.
Dominic placed Elena’s photograph on the desk.
Janet stopped breathing.
“You know her,” he said.
The nurse looked toward the security camera.
Then at Dominic.
“I know who you are.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Janet’s hands tightened.
“I can’t discuss patients.”
“She was my wife.”
“I know.”
“Then tell me why she was alive three days after her funeral.”
Janet went pale.
Isabella stepped closer.
“We’re not asking you to break every rule you ever followed.”
Janet looked at her.
“A six-year-old boy has spent years believing he killed his mother. Whatever happened here did not stay buried.”
That changed something.
Janet stood.
“Come with me.”
She led them into an empty consultation room.
Then she shut the door.
“In those days, our emergency department used colored wristbands for unidentified patients.”
Dominic’s gaze sharpened.
“Red?”
“Red meant identity restricted by police request.”
“Police?”
“Or federal protection.”
Dominic’s mouth tightened.
“Elena was under protection?”
Janet hesitated.
“I never knew her name.”
“But you saw her.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“March fifteenth.”
Dominic gripped the back of a chair.
Janet continued.
“A woman arrived shortly after midnight. Head injury. Broken wrist. Bruising along her ribs. She was conscious.”
“Was she in a car accident?”
“No.”
Dominic’s face changed.
“How do you know?”
“Because she told me somebody tried to force her into a car.”
Isabella’s skin prickled.
“She escaped?”
“She said she did.”
Dominic took out the photograph.
“This woman?”
Janet looked.
Then nodded.
“Yes.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
For seven years he had lived with one version of Elena’s final hours.
Now it was disappearing piece by piece.
“Who brought her in?”
Janet swallowed.
“A man.”
“Marco?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic slid a second photo across the table from his phone.
Marco.
Janet stared at it.
“No.”
Dominic’s shoulders dropped slightly.
Then Janet said, “But he came later.”
The air changed.
“What did he do?”
“He argued with someone from hospital administration.”
“About Elena?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“I was told to stay away from the room.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“What happened to her?”
“She left.”
“When?”
“March eighteenth.”
The date on the photograph.
Dominic gripped the table.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“With whom?”
“I never saw.”
“Was she forced?”
“I don’t know.”
Janet looked at Isabella.
“But before she left, she asked me for paper.”
Dominic stared.
“The note.”
“Maybe.”
“She also asked me to mail something.”
“What?”
“A small envelope.”
“To me?”
Janet shook her head.
“To her son.”
Dominic went still.
“What address?”
“She gave me an address in Boston.”
“Our house?”
“No.”
Janet wrote it down.
Dominic looked at the paper.
He knew the address.
Isabella could see it instantly.
“Whose house?”
Dominic’s answer came slowly.
“My mother’s.”
They returned to Boston without stopping.
Dominic’s mother, Rosa Moretti, had died eighteen months earlier.
Her house had remained closed since.
Dominic owned it.
Marco had the only other key.
They entered through the front.
Dust covered the furniture.
Family photographs remained on the walls.
Leo as a baby.
Dominic and Marco as boys.
Rosa Moretti smiling stiffly beside both sons.
Isabella spotted something strange in one picture.
Dominic wore a dark suit.
Marco stood beside him.
Between them was Elena.
Behind Elena, half hidden, stood Maria.
And Maria was wearing the gold bracelet.
“Dominic.”
He saw it.
His jaw tightened.
They searched Rosa’s desk.
Nothing.
Her bedroom.
Nothing.
Finally Isabella opened a sewing cabinet.
Inside were old buttons, thread, needles and several envelopes tied together.
One envelope had Leo’s name written on it.
Dominic stopped.
He didn’t touch it.
“You open it,” he said.
“Why me?”
His voice cracked.
“Because I don’t know if I can.”
Isabella opened the envelope.
Inside was a child’s drawing.
A woman in a red coat.
A baby.
A black car.
On the back, Elena had written:
For my Leo. If your father ever finds this, tell him I tried to come home.
Dominic sat down hard.
Isabella unfolded another sheet.
It contained only three sentences.
Dominic, Marco believes I saw what happened to Maria.
He is wrong.
I didn’t see it. I helped her escape.
Dominic stared at the words.
“Maria was alive.”
Isabella nodded.
Then she noticed one final object inside the envelope.
A train ticket.
Providence to Albany.
March 18.
Two passengers.
One adult.
One infant.
Isabella frowned.
“Elena didn’t have Leo.”
“No.”
Dominic’s eyes lowered toward the ticket.
“Then whose baby was she traveling with?”
Behind them came the soft scrape of a shoe.
Dominic spun around.
Someone stood in the hallway.
Marco Moretti.
His expression was not angry.
It was exhausted.
He looked at the ticket in Dominic’s hand and whispered,
May you like
“That child is the reason Elena never came home.”
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