Chapter 5 - THE BROTHER NOBODY WAS ALLOWED TO NAME
“Thomas was my brother?”
Vincent stared at the tiny strip of paper.
Emma's face drained of color.
“My Thomas?”
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Then Emma shook her head.
“No. That can't be right.”
Vincent studied the paper again.
“It's a name, Emma. We don't know what it means.”
But his voice lacked conviction.
He remembered the photograph.
Maria holding him.
Another woman's hand.
A warning about a second child.
And the name Thomas.
Emma rose from the couch.
“My husband told me he grew up in foster care. He didn't know his parents.”
Vincent looked up sharply.
“What?”
“He was placed with the Collins family when he was little. They adopted him when he was five.”
“Did he ever try finding his birth family?”
“Once. After Noah was born.”
“What happened?”
“He told me the records were sealed. Then he said it didn't matter.”
Emma swallowed.
“He said Noah was the family he'd been looking for.”
Vincent turned away.
He had met Thomas only twice.
Both times, Thomas had been delivering documents at company events.
Vincent remembered his quiet manners, his careful handshake, and an odd familiarity he couldn't explain.
Could he have stood face-to-face with his own brother without knowing?
Marco entered the room.
“Sir, there's an older woman downstairs requesting to speak with Emma.”
Emma frowned.
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
Emma hurried toward the stairs.
Her mother, Patricia Collins, stood in the entrance hall holding a faded blue coat.
She was sixty-three, thin from illness, and visibly upset.
“Mom!”
Emma embraced her.
“I thought you were going home after dialysis.”
“I did,” Patricia said. “Then I saw what happened to your apartment.”
Emma pulled back.
“Who told you?”
“The building manager.”
Patricia looked toward Vincent.
“I need to speak with both of you.”
Vincent offered her a chair.
“Mrs. Collins, I'm sorry about what happened.”
She ignored the apology.
Instead, she placed the coat on the table.
“This belonged to Thomas.”
Emma stared.
“Mom, where did you get that?”
“Your old apartment. You asked me to keep his winter clothes.”
Emma touched the sleeve.
Thomas had worn that coat the winter Noah was born.
The lining was torn near the left pocket.
She remembered teasing him that he refused to throw away anything useful.
Patricia reached inside.
“I found something after the funeral.”
She withdrew a small brass railway ticket punch.
Vincent frowned.
“Why bring this now?”
“Because Thomas told me that if anyone ever mentioned a man named Daniel Moretti, I was supposed to give it to Emma.”
Emma looked at her mother in disbelief.
“You never told me?”
Patricia's eyes filled.
“Thomas made me promise I wouldn't unless I had to.”
“Mom, he died four years ago.”
“I know.”
“And you let me believe his death was just an accident?”
Patricia wiped her cheek.
“I didn't know anything about the accident.”
“Then what did you know?”
“That Thomas was afraid somebody would come looking for Noah.”
Emma went still.
“What does Noah have to do with this?”
Patricia looked toward Vincent.
“Thomas said the boy might inherit a family history that wasn't his fault.”
Vincent felt a chill.
“Mrs. Collins, did Thomas know Elias Ward?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know Maria Moretti?”
Patricia looked down.
“He believed she was his birth mother.”
Emma sat heavily.
Her husband had known.
Or at least suspected.
And he had never told her.
“Why?” she whispered.
Patricia touched her daughter's arm.
“He was afraid his past would put you and Noah in danger.”
Emma pulled away.
“I keep hearing that excuse.”
Patricia lowered her hand.
“I understand.”
“No, Mom. You don't.”
Emma's voice trembled.
“I buried my husband. I told our little boy his daddy wasn't coming home. I sold our house because I couldn't afford the mortgage. And all this time, everybody seemed to know something except me.”
Patricia began crying.
Emma immediately regretted the sharpness of her tone.
But she couldn't take the words back.
Vincent quietly left the women together.
He found Marco examining the brass ticket punch.
A number had been stamped into its handle.
0417\.
“April seventeenth?” Marco asked.
“Or a storage number,” Vincent answered.
He turned the tool over.
There was a tiny circular impression on one side.
A train.
The same symbol engraved inside Maria's bracelet.
Vincent understood that the objects had been deliberately connected.
Maria's bracelet.
Thomas's silver locomotive.
The old ticket punch.
Someone had created a trail.
But why hide it for decades?
Marco examined the punch.
“Sir, these were used to mark tickets. Different punch shapes identified railroad employees.”
“Could this one identify a station?”
“Possibly.”
Vincent remembered the name on an old document in Antonio's office.
Lakefront Rail Depot.
A warehouse property the Morettis had owned twenty-eight years earlier.
It had closed after Maria died.
“Get the property records,” Vincent said.
Marco nodded.
A moment later, Isabella appeared.
She saw the ticket punch in Marco's hand.
Her face changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Patricia Collins brought it.”
Isabella reached for the table.
“Thomas kept it.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You knew Thomas was our brother.”
She didn't answer.
“Isabella.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
The word struck harder than Vincent expected.
“How long?”
“Since Daniel found the adoption file.”
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
Vincent stepped back.
Five years.
His sister had known for five years.
Daniel had known too.
And Thomas had died four years earlier.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Isabella was trembling.
“Because Daniel said we needed to prove what Antonio had done before we told you.”
“What did he do?”
She hesitated.
“Antonio didn't just take Thomas away from Maria.”
Vincent waited.
“He gave the baby to someone connected to Elias.”
“Who?”
Isabella stared at him.
“Elias's sister. Margaret Collins.”
Emma had returned to the doorway.
She heard the name.
“Margaret Collins was Thomas's adoptive mother.”
Isabella nodded.
Emma pressed her fingers to her mouth.
Vincent remembered Margaret Collins.
A kind-looking woman who had attended Thomas's funeral.
She had died two years later.
“She raised him,” Emma whispered.
“Yes,” Isabella said.
“Did she know who his real mother was?”
“I believe she did.”
Emma's eyes hardened.
“Then why didn't she say anything?”
“Because she was frightened of Antonio.”
Vincent turned toward the window.
His father had arranged the disappearance of a child.
His mother had spent years trying to preserve evidence.
His brother Thomas had searched for the truth.
And Daniel had nearly died pursuing it.
Or perhaps someone had made sure he would.
Marco returned holding the Lakefront Rail Depot records.
“Sir, the property wasn't abandoned.”
Vincent frowned.
“What?”
“It was transferred to a private holding company before Antonio died.”
“Owned by whom?”
Marco placed the document on the table.
The owner was listed as Edward Vale.
Elias Ward.
Beneath the transfer was a second document.
A recent access authorization.
Issued six weeks earlier.
Signed by Daniel Moretti.
Emma stared at it.
“Daniel's been going there?”
Marco nodded.
“Apparently.”
Vincent looked at his sister.
“Did you know?”
Isabella's hands shook.
“Daniel said he found something Antonio hid at the depot.”
“What?”
She looked toward Noah's backpack lying beside the kitchen door.
“A second silver box.”
Vincent frowned.
“Where is it?”
Isabella swallowed.
“He told me he was going to leave it with somebody who had never betrayed him.”
Emma looked at her.
“Who?”
Isabella's face crumpled.
“He said he trusted Thomas's son.”
At that moment, Noah appeared at the top of the staircase.
He had overheard the last sentence.
He hugged the wooden railing.
“Mommy?”
Emma looked up.
“Yes, baby?”
Noah's lower lip trembled.
“I think I know where Uncle Daniel put the box.”
Vincent stood motionless.
Noah pointed toward his backpack.
“There's a hard thing inside the bottom. I thought it was part of my schoolbag.”
Emma opened the bag.
Beneath the fabric lining was a narrow hidden pocket.
Inside lay a small silver box.
Its lid was engraved with the same little train.
Vincent lifted it carefully.
There was no lock.
Only a brass catch shaped like a railway ticket punch.
Marco placed Thomas's old tool against it.
The catch opened.
Inside was a child's hospital bracelet.
The faded label read:
BABY MORETTI — MALE — TWIN B.
Emma stared at it.
Vincent whispered, “Twin?”
May you like
Then he noticed a second label beneath the bracelet.
TWIN A: VINCENT. TWIN B: THOMAS.
