Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN AT THE GATE
Dominic Moretti stared at the woman standing between the open garden doors.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
The party still existed somewhere beyond the hedges. A violin played. Glasses clinked. Guests laughed without realizing that Dominic’s understanding of his family had just split in half.
The woman looked about twenty-eight.
Dark brown hair.
Gray-green eyes.
A plain navy coat despite the warm September evening.
She didn’t look frightened.
She looked like someone who had spent years preparing to be disappointed.
Dominic glanced at the birth certificate again.
CHILD’S NAME: ANNA ELENA MORETTI.
Then back at her.
“You’re Anna?”
“Yes.”
Camille stepped forward.
“Dominic, don’t do this here.”
Anna’s eyes went directly to Camille.
Something passed across her face.
Recognition.
Evelyn noticed immediately.
“So you know her?” Evelyn asked.
Camille stiffened.
“I’ve never met her.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Camille’s gaze sharpened.
“You’ve forgotten your place again.”
“No,” Dominic said quietly. “She hasn’t.”
Camille turned toward him.
His eyes never left Anna.
“How did you get onto my property?”
“The guard let me through after I showed identification.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Anna swallowed.
“I’ve been trying to decide whether to come here for eleven months.”
Walter moved closer.
“Eleven months?”
Anna nodded.
“My mother died last October.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Elena died twenty-seven years ago.”
“I mean the woman who raised me.”
She reached slowly into her coat.
Both security men tensed.
Anna noticed.
“It’s just a necklace.”
She pulled out a thin gold chain.
A small oval pendant hung from it.
Walter made a sound under his breath.
Dominic looked at him.
“What?”
Walter stared at the pendant.
“Elena’s.”
Anna’s fingers closed around it.
“You recognize it?”
“I repaired the clasp once.” Walter stepped closer, eyes wet. “She wore that almost every day.”
Dominic took the pendant when Anna offered it.
One side carried a tiny engraving.
E.M.
On the back were four words.
So you remember home.
Dominic went pale.
“My mother used to say that.”
Anna’s composure cracked slightly.
“So did mine.”
Camille folded her arms.
“A necklace proves nothing.”
Anna looked at her.
“No. But apparently the certificate does.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“How did you know about the certificate?”
“I didn’t.”
That answer landed differently.
Anna looked at the box.
“The woman who raised me told me there might be something here. She never said what.”
“What was her name?”
“Rose Ellis.”
Margaret Prescott’s champagne glass shattered twenty yards away.
Everyone turned.
Camille went completely still.
At the edge of the engagement lawn stood a silver-haired woman in an elegant pale green dress.
Camille’s mother.
Margaret Prescott.
She was staring at Anna.
Not with confusion.
With horror.
Dominic saw it.
So did Anna.
For the first time since entering the garden, Anna lost control of her breathing.
“You know her,” she whispered.
Margaret didn’t answer.
Camille hurried toward her mother.
“Mom.”
Margaret looked at Dominic.
Then at the metal box.
Then at Walter.
“You dug it up.”
Walter’s shoulders sagged.
“Mrs. Prescott.”
Dominic stepped between Margaret and the party.
“You knew there was something under that rose.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Camille gripped her arm.
“Don’t.”
Dominic’s voice dropped.
“Don’t what?”
Neither woman answered.
He looked down at the envelope addressed in Elena’s handwriting.
Then he pulled out the letter.
The paper had yellowed at the folds.
His mother’s handwriting covered three pages.
Dominic unfolded the first.
Walter stood beside him.
Evelyn remained a few feet away, uncertain whether she should leave.
Dominic noticed.
“Stay.”
Camille stared at him.
“This is family.”
Dominic looked at Evelyn’s dirt-covered uniform.
“She brought Walter back when you sent him away. She stays.”
Anna’s eyes softened briefly toward Evelyn.
Dominic began reading.
His expression changed before he reached the fourth line.
“What?” Walter asked.
Dominic didn’t answer.
He read it again.
Then aloud.
“Dominic, if you are reading this, Walter kept the promise I was too afraid to explain to him.”
Walter removed his glasses.
Dominic continued.
“You are fourteen as I write this. Someday you may hate me for keeping something from you, but I hope you will understand that fear can make good people do terrible things while convincing themselves they are acts of love.”
Anna covered her mouth.
Dominic’s hand tightened around the letter.
Then he read the next sentence.
“You have a sister.”
Nobody breathed.
“Her name is Anna Elena Moretti.”
Anna’s eyes filled.
She turned away.
Dominic didn’t.
For forty-two years, he had believed himself an only child.
Now his mother’s handwriting was telling him otherwise.
He forced himself to continue.
“She was born September fourteenth. She has your father’s dark hair and the same stubborn little chin you had when you were a baby.”
Dominic stopped.
A strange expression crossed his face.
Not grief exactly.
Something younger.
Something almost lost.
Walter whispered, “Dom.”
Dominic kept reading silently.
Then his gaze lifted slowly to Margaret.
Camille shook her head.
“Dominic, whatever that letter says—”
He raised one hand.
She stopped.
“What did my mother mean by this?”
Margaret’s face had lost all color.
Dominic read the line aloud.
“If I fail to bring Anna home myself, Margaret knows where she is.”
Anna turned toward Margaret.
The older woman looked as though she might collapse.
Dominic continued.
“She promised me Anna would be safe for ninety days.”
He stared at Margaret.
“Twenty-seven years is longer than ninety days.”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
Anna took one step toward her.
“You knew Rose?”
Margaret nodded.
“She was my younger sister.”
Anna froze.
The party music seemed suddenly too loud.
“My mother never told me she had a sister named Margaret.”
“She had reasons.”
“What reasons?”
Margaret looked toward Camille.
Camille whispered, “Mom, please.”
Anna heard her.
“Why does she keep asking you not to talk?”
Camille’s expression broke.
“Because you have no idea what this can destroy.”
Anna stared at her.
Then gave a small, humorless laugh.
“That’s interesting.”
“What is?”
“You think I came here to take something.”
“Didn’t you?”
Anna reached into her coat again.
This time she removed an old white envelope.
It had been opened many times.
“I came because Rose left me this when she died.”
Dominic looked at the handwriting.
It wasn’t Elena’s.
Anna unfolded one short page.
“She wrote, ‘I’m sorry I kept my promise too long. If Dominic Moretti is still alive, he deserves to know what his mother tried to do.’”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Tried?”
Anna looked at Margaret.
“Rose said Elena came for me.”
Margaret shut her eyes.
Camille whispered, “Stop.”
Anna’s voice cracked.
“She said Elena wanted me back.”
Dominic looked at his mother’s letter.
“When?”
“February 1999.”
Walter went rigid.
Elena had died in February 1999.
Dominic stared at Margaret.
“My mother died February seventeenth.”
Margaret nodded once.
Anna’s next words barely came out.
“Rose wrote that Elena was supposed to pick me up on February seventeenth.”
Silence swallowed the garden.
Dominic looked down at the letter again.
Near the bottom of the first page was one final line.
He read it.
Then his expression emptied completely.
“What?” Evelyn asked softly.
Dominic lifted his eyes to Margaret.
“My mother wrote something else.”
Margaret seemed to know before he said it.
“She wrote, ‘If they tell Dominic I changed my mind about bringing Anna home…’”
His voice became colder.
“‘They are lying.’”
Anna stared at Margaret.
Dominic folded the page once.
“Who,” he asked, “is they?”
Margaret looked at Camille.
Then Walter.
Then Anna.
Finally, she whispered:
May you like
“Your father was one of them.”
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