Chapter 3 - THE PHOTOGRAPH THAT BROKE HER HEART
Victoria Moretti had survived a plane crash, months of surgery, and an attempted takeover of everything her family had built.
But she had never been prepared for the way her daughter looked at her now.
Ava wasn't looking at the woman who had returned to save her.
She was looking at the mother who had stayed away.
“Please,” Victoria whispered. “Let me explain.”
Ava held up the photograph.
“Were you in New Jersey eleven months ago?”
“Yes.”
“Could you walk?”
“With a cane.”
“Could you talk?”
Victoria swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Then you could have called me.”
Conrad shifted beside the banquet table.
Victoria didn't look at him.
“Someone was watching every place connected to you.”
Ava shook her head.
“That's not an answer.”
“I believed contacting you would put you in danger.”
“More danger than what?”
Ava pointed toward the dog bowl.
“More danger than having people throw food at me?”
Victoria flinched.
Her daughter wasn't shouting anymore.
That made it worse.
“When I lost my apartment, I called every number I remembered,” Ava continued. “I called Arthur. I called the old house. I even called Conrad.”
She looked at her stepfather.
“He told me you would have been ashamed of me.”
Victoria's face hardened.
Conrad sighed.
“That's not what I said.”
Ava turned on him.
“You told me my mother wouldn't recognize the person I'd become.”
“You were drinking too much and missing appointments.”
“I was grieving!”
The words echoed through the ballroom.
Ava covered her mouth.
For months after the disappearance, she had struggled to function. She had missed classes, lost weight, and needed help sleeping.
Conrad had taken those very real struggles and turned them into evidence that she couldn't manage her inheritance.
Victoria approached her carefully.
“Sweetheart, I didn't know about the apartment.”
Ava laughed bitterly.
“You knew enough to find a warehouse thirty miles away.”
That silenced her mother.
Arthur Bell stepped forward.
“Victoria wasn't alone that day.”
Conrad's head snapped toward him.
“Arthur.”
The attorney ignored him.
“She was meeting me.”
Ava turned.
“You?”
Arthur nodded.
“At Port Liberty.”
Victoria's eyes narrowed.
“Arthur, don't.”
But the attorney continued.
“She had just returned to the United States after spending nearly two years recovering overseas. She wanted access to the family records.”
“Two years?” Ava repeated.
Victoria nodded.
“The fishing vessel that found me brought me to Portugal. I had severe injuries. For months I couldn't remember everything. My medical recovery took much longer than anyone expected.”
“Why didn't they tell anyone?”
“The crew reported finding a survivor, but my identity wasn't established immediately. By the time I could explain who I was, someone had already interfered with the people trying to reach home.”
Ava looked at Conrad.
He spread his hands.
“An extraordinary story. Unfortunately, she has no proof.”
Victoria touched the scar beside her eyebrow.
“I have medical records, witnesses, and a life that didn't stop existing because you found my absence convenient.”
Arthur cleared his throat.
“I can confirm that she was alive eleven months ago.”
“Congratulations,” Ava said quietly. “You both knew.”
Arthur lowered his head.
The old attorney suddenly looked much older than she remembered.
Victoria took a breath.
“I asked Arthur about you.”
Ava's eyes returned to her.
“He told me you were living in Boston.”
“What?”
“He said you'd moved there with friends. He said you wanted nothing to do with the Moretti companies.”
Ava stared at Arthur.
“I never moved to Boston.”
“I know,” he whispered.
The room fell silent.
Conrad's expression changed for the first time.
Not fear.
Calculation.
Victoria slowly turned toward the attorney.
“You told me she'd started a new life.”
Arthur's shoulders sagged.
“I was instructed to keep you apart.”
“By whom?” Ava demanded.
Arthur glanced toward Conrad.
“Don't be theatrical,” Conrad said. “Arthur has been under enormous pressure.”
The attorney removed his glasses.
“My wife Helen has advanced Parkinson's disease. Her residential care costs more than I could ever afford on my own.”
Victoria stared at him.
“Conrad paid for it?”
Arthur nodded.
“He arranged the facility and controlled the payments. When I learned you were alive, he told me Helen would lose her care if I contacted Ava.”
Ava felt sick.
“You let me grieve my mother because he paid your wife's bills?”
Arthur's eyes filled.
“Yes.”
It wasn't an excuse.
And he didn't offer one.
Derek Cole stepped away from Sloane.
He had been standing in the same place for nearly an hour, watching his fiancée's family unravel.
“Ava,” he said, “I didn't know.”
She looked at him.
“You knew they were lying about me.”
Derek opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Sloane grabbed his arm.
“Don't you dare apologize to her.”
He pulled away.
“Sloane, enough.”
Her expression twisted.
“You're taking her side?”
“I'm saying we watched your mother slap her.”
“And where were you when it happened?” Ava asked him.
Derek's face reddened.
He had no answer.
Victoria turned to Noah.
“Take Ava somewhere quiet. No one follows her unless she asks.”
Ava pulled away when Noah approached.
“I can walk by myself.”
Victoria nodded.
“Of course.”
As Ava headed toward the adjoining conservatory, Arthur hurried after her.
“Ava. There's something else.”
She stopped.
“Please don't.”
“I tried to make things right.”
“You invited me here to be humiliated.”
“I invited you because your mother's crest could help establish which family property was actually taken. But Conrad learned about the invitation.”
Ava looked at the broken pendant in her palm.
“And you didn't warn me?”
“I was afraid.”
“You've said that already.”
Arthur removed a narrow envelope from inside his jacket.
It was worn along the edges.
There were traces of blue ink on the front.
Ava recognized the handwriting before she recognized the words.
Her mother always made the capital A in Ava's name with a small curl.
The envelope was addressed to her old apartment.
The postage was from Lisbon.
It had been mailed eighteen months earlier.
Ava stared at Arthur.
“You said she couldn't contact me.”
“She tried.”
He opened his briefcase.
Inside were six more envelopes.
All addressed to Ava.
All written in Victoria's hand.
All returned or intercepted before delivery.
Ava touched the first envelope.
“What is this?”
Arthur's voice nearly disappeared.
“Your mother wrote to you seven times.”
Ava looked at the dates.
One had been mailed before she lost her home.
Another on her birthday.
The last one had been sent only six weeks ago.
“Why didn't I get them?”
Arthur looked back toward the ballroom.
“Because Conrad ordered every letter opened.”
Ava felt the room tilt.
May you like
Then Arthur said something even worse.
“And one of those letters was answered in your name.”
