Chapter 3 - THE LITTLE GIRL WITH DANTE'S EYES
Mia was not supposed to be in the hospital.
She was supposed to be at home with Kate, asleep beneath her purple blanket, dreaming about imaginary horses and the ranch she promised to buy when she grew up.
But when I reached the pediatric waiting area, I found Kate standing beside an empty chair, clutching Mia's pink backpack.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
Kate's face drained of color.
“She was right here.”
“What do you mean, right here?”
“I brought her because she woke up crying for you. I thought if she saw you for a minute, she might settle down. I took her to the restroom. When I came back, she was gone.”
The world narrowed.
“Did you see anyone?”
“A nurse offered to take her to the family room. She said you had asked for Mia to be brought upstairs.”
“I didn't.”
Kate covered her mouth.
I forced myself to breathe. Panic would not help my daughter. I called hospital security, then the police. I gave them Mia's description, her clothing, her age, and every detail I could remember.
A six-year-old girl in yellow pajamas with tiny white stars.
A purple backpack.
Brown eyes.
A small crescent-shaped birthmark beneath her left ear.
The last detail caught in my throat.
Dante's family had a similar mark. I had noticed it on his shoulder once, years before he disappeared. At the time, I had thought it was a coincidence.
Now coincidence felt like a cruel joke.
Security locked down the pediatric elevators and reviewed the cameras. The footage showed a woman in pale blue scrubs leading Mia through a service corridor.
The woman was not hospital staff.
I knew because I recognized every nurse assigned to that floor.
“Where does that corridor lead?” I asked.
“Loading dock,” the security supervisor replied. “Then the underground garage.”
I was already moving.
“Doctor, wait for the police.”
“My daughter is missing.”
“I understand, but—”
“No, you don't.”
I reached the service stairs and descended two flights before a hand caught my arm.
Dante.
He stood leaning heavily against the railing, one hand pressed to his bandaged chest. Vincent followed behind him, furious.
“What the hell are you doing out of bed?” I shouted.
Dante ignored the question.
“Where is Mia?”
I went still.
He had seen the photograph on the hospital security screen. Her school picture had been pulled up for the search.
He looked at it again.
“Her name is Mia?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Six.”
His face changed.
Not dramatically. There was no theatrical gasp, no sudden declaration. Just a small, devastating shift in his eyes, as though a door had opened onto a room he had spent years refusing to enter.
“Claire.”
“Don't.”
“She's mine?”
I could barely hear him over the pounding of my heart.
“She is my daughter.”
His fingers tightened around the railing.
“And mine.”
“You don't get to claim her because you finally did the math.”
He flinched.
I hated that part of me noticed.
Vincent stepped forward. “Dante, we need to move. Now.”
Dante turned on him.
“Get every available man to the garage. No one leaves the building without being checked.”
“Your condition—”
“I said now.”
Vincent hurried away.
I stared at Dante. “How did you know about her?”
“I didn't. Not until I saw her picture.”
“You asked me if I had children.”
“I suspected.”
“Based on what?”
He looked at me with something like shame.
“When I saw you tonight, I noticed the resemblance. Your eyes when you were angry. The way you held your jaw. Then you said my name while I was losing consciousness.”
“That doesn't prove anything.”
“No. It doesn't.”
For the first time since his arrival, he wasn't trying to control the conversation.
He was waiting.
I wanted to tell him everything. The pregnancy test. The nights I cried into a pillow so I wouldn't wake the baby. The years I worked double shifts while studying for my emergency medicine certification. The day Mia asked why everyone else's fathers came to school events.
Instead, I said, “If you want to help, find her.”
We reached the underground garage as police officers began checking vehicles. A security guard waved us toward a row of parked cars.
“I found something,” he said.
On the concrete beside a pillar lay Mia's purple backpack.
The zipper was open.
Inside was her stuffed horse, Moonlight, and a folded piece of paper.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
The message was written in black ink.
STOP ASKING ABOUT THE NIGHT DANTE MORETTI DISAPPEARED.
Beneath it was a photograph.
Dante stood beside a younger Vincent outside a warehouse. Between them was a woman with long dark hair.
I knew her face.
I had seen it once, six years ago, on the night Dante vanished.
His former fiancée.
Isabella Rourke.
The woman Dante had always insisted was nothing more than a business acquaintance.
Dante stared at the picture.
“That's impossible,” he whispered.
“Why?”
May you like
He looked up, and the fear in his expression was more terrifying than any anger I had ever seen.
“Because Isabella died six years ago.”
