Chapter 2 - THE LITTLE GIRL NOBODY WAS SUPPOSED TO FIND
“Where is my daughter, Aunt Eleanor?”
Gabriel Romano's voice came through the phone like a knife cutting through eight years of silence.
Nicholas stood motionless beside his aunt's bed.
His older brother was alive.
The man whose disappearance had broken their family was speaking as though he had never left.
And he was accusing the woman who had raised them both of stealing his child.
“Gabriel,” Nicholas whispered. “Where the hell have you been?”
“There's no time for that.”
“You let me bury an empty coffin!”
“I know.”
“You let me believe you were dead!”
Gabriel's voice cracked.
“And somebody made sure my daughter believed she didn't have a father.”
Eleanor covered her mouth.
Celeste stood in the doorway, her white dress trembling against her knees.
Nicholas turned toward her.
“You knew he was alive.”
Celeste shook her head.
“Not until recently.”
“Don't lie to me again.”
“I haven't seen him in six years!”
Nicholas looked back at the marriage certificate.
Six years.
Two years after Gabriel's disappearance.
“Then you married my brother while the rest of us thought he was dead?”
Celeste's eyes filled.
“Yes.”
The answer struck harder than any excuse could have.
Gabriel spoke again.
“Nicholas, listen carefully. The girl was eight months old when I disappeared. Her name is June.”
Eleanor began crying.
“I thought I was protecting her.”
“Protecting her from whom?” Nicholas demanded.
Eleanor looked at Celeste.
“From everyone who knew who her father was.”
Nicholas felt something cold settle in his chest.
His family had enemies.
Real enemies.
But Eleanor had never been a frightened woman. She had raised two boys in a dangerous household without allowing either of them to believe cruelty was strength.
For her to hide a child, something terrible must have happened.
“Tell him about the yellow coat,” Gabriel said.
Eleanor's shoulders collapsed.
“I bought it for her.”
“Tell him where you took her.”
“Gabriel, please.”
“Eight years, Aunt Eleanor. Please don't make it nine.”
Eleanor looked at Nicholas.
“The night Gabriel disappeared, a woman came to the house carrying his baby. June was crying. She had a little yellow coat with white buttons.”
Celeste suddenly pressed both hands against her mouth.
“I remember that coat.”
Eleanor continued.
“Gabriel had sent word that someone was coming for the child. He told me not to trust anybody, not even family.”
Nicholas frowned.
“Then why didn't you tell me?”
“Because someone had already told me Gabriel was responsible for what happened at the docks.”
The room fell silent.
Eight years earlier, a fire had destroyed a Romano shipping warehouse outside Boston.
Two workers died.
Thousands of dollars in company records disappeared.
And Gabriel vanished the same night.
Their father had spent a fortune searching for him.
Nicholas remembered the funeral.
He remembered Eleanor holding his hand beside an empty coffin.
And he remembered promising himself that no one would ever make his family suffer that way again.
“I received documents saying Gabriel had sold shipping information to the people who started that fire,” Eleanor whispered.
Gabriel made a bitter sound.
“Those documents were manufactured.”
“By whom?” Nicholas asked.
“That's what I've been trying to prove.”
Nicholas tightened his grip on the phone.
“Where is June?”
Eleanor stared at her bandaged hand.
“I placed her with Margaret Bell. She was a nurse who had cared for your mother years ago.”
“Where?”
“She lived outside Worcester then. We arranged legal guardianship under the Bell name.”
Celeste stepped forward.
“You told me my baby was dead.”
Nicholas turned.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“I know.”
For a moment, Celeste looked nothing like the arrogant woman who had humiliated Claire downstairs.
She looked like a mother hearing that someone had stolen eight years of birthdays.
“You watched me put flowers beside an empty grave,” Celeste whispered.
Eleanor wept openly.
“I believed your father was involved in Gabriel's disappearance. I thought if he knew June was alive, he'd use her to finish what happened that night.”
“My father?”
Nicholas looked sharply at Celeste.
Charles Whitmore.
The respected financial adviser who had managed the Romano family's investment trusts for nearly twenty years.
The same man who had encouraged Nicholas to marry Celeste.
Gabriel spoke.
“Charles knows more about the warehouse fire than he's ever admitted.”
Celeste shook her head.
“No. My father helped search for Gabriel.”
“He helped organize the search,” Gabriel replied. “That's different.”
Nicholas wanted to demand everything at once.
But Gabriel's voice suddenly changed.
“Is Claire Dawson still there?”
Claire looked up from beside the bedroom door.
Nicholas stared at the phone.
“How do you know Claire?”
“I don't know her personally. I know someone requested her employment records three days ago.”
“Who?”
“Someone with access to the Romano trust office.”
Nicholas looked at Celeste.
She stepped backward.
“I never requested her records.”
“Then why did you accuse her of stealing jewelry?” Nicholas asked.
Celeste said nothing.
“Why did you try to have her arrested?”
Her expression hardened.
“Because your aunt wouldn't tell me where my daughter was! I thought Claire was helping her hide the truth.”
Claire finally spoke.
“So you decided to destroy my reputation?”
Celeste's gaze dropped.
“I needed Eleanor frightened enough to cooperate.”
“You threatened my father's medical care,” Claire replied quietly. “You knew I couldn't afford to lose this job.”
Nicholas felt ashamed.
He had allowed Celeste to mistreat his employees for months because he believed her explanations.
Today, he had watched Claire stand trembling before forty guests.
And he had almost mistaken her silence for guilt.
He turned toward her.
“Claire, I'm sorry.”
She looked surprised.
He continued.
“You deserved protection before I found evidence you were innocent.”
Celeste looked away.
Nicholas then addressed her.
“Our engagement is over.”
Her face crumpled.
“Nicholas—”
“You knew you were married to my brother. You lied to me, threatened my aunt, and tried to destroy an innocent woman's livelihood.”
“I was trying to find my child!”
“And you hurt people who had nothing to do with losing her.”
Celeste lowered herself into a chair.
For once, she had no answer.
Nicholas returned his attention to Gabriel.
“Where are you?”
“I can't tell you yet.”
“Then you're still running.”
“Yes.”
“From Charles?”
A pause.
“From what Charles can do if he finds June first.”
The connection ended.
Nicholas stared at the phone.
He wanted to throw it across the room.
Instead, he gently placed it on Eleanor's nightstand.
“Do you still have Margaret's address?”
Eleanor nodded.
“In the box beneath the certificate.”
She opened the velvet jewelry box.
Under the antique wedding ring lay a faded photograph.
It showed a woman with silver hair sitting in a garden.
Beside her stood a little girl wearing a pink sweater.
The child had dark curls, enormous brown eyes, and a missing front tooth.
On her wrist was a blue butterfly bracelet.
“This was taken last spring,” Eleanor whispered. “Margaret sent it to me.”
Nicholas examined the picture.
“She looks like Gabriel.”
Eleanor nodded.
“The same eyes.”
Claire, who had remained near the door, suddenly took a step forward.
“May I see that photograph?”
Nicholas handed it to her.
The moment she looked down, the color disappeared from her face.
“Claire?”
Her fingers tightened around the frame.
“I know this little girl.”
Celeste stood so quickly her chair scraped against the floor.
“What?”
Claire looked between them.
“Her name is June Bell. She visits St. Anne's Rehabilitation Center every Tuesday.”
Nicholas went still.
“My father's receiving therapy there,” Claire continued. “June brings him drawings because he can't always speak after his stroke.”
Celeste moved toward her.
“Where is she?”
Claire's eyes filled with concern.
“She usually comes with her grandmother, Margaret.”
Nicholas reached for his jacket.
“Then we're going to St. Anne's.”
But Claire didn't move.
She was staring at something written on the back of the photograph.
In small, careful handwriting, Margaret had written:
June, age eight. Still asking why the man with the silver watch knows her real name.
Claire looked up.
“Mr. Romano, there's something else.”
“What?”
“Yesterday, June told my father she was frightened.”
“Of whom?”
Claire swallowed.
“She said a man had been waiting outside the rehabilitation center.”
Nicholas felt his heartbeat change.
“And what did she tell you?”
May you like
Claire's voice dropped.
“She said he told her that her grandmother would disappear unless she agreed to go away with him.”
