Chapter 4 - THE SECRET DORA’S MOTHER TOOK TO HER GRAVE
Dora’s mother had been dead for twelve years.
At least, that was what Dora had believed.
Helen Bennett had supposedly died in a highway accident outside Providence when Dora was nineteen. There had been a closed casket, an insurance settlement barely large enough to cover the funeral, and an emptiness Dora had spent years pretending did not matter.
Now her photograph sat on Dora’s bed beside Isabella Costas.
Leonardo stared at Dora.
“You’re certain?”
“That’s my mother.”
“When was the photograph taken?”
Dante zoomed in.
A newspaper box behind the women showed a date.
Nine years earlier.
One year before Isabella disappeared.
Dora’s chest tightened.
“My mother worked as a bookkeeper.”
“For whom?” Leonardo asked.
“A shipping company.”
“What company?”
“Atlantic Crown Logistics.”
Dante swore.
Leonardo went still.
Dora looked between them.
“What?”
Leonardo’s voice dropped.
“My father owned Atlantic Crown.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“No.”
“He hid ownership behind shell companies.”
Dora backed away.
“My mother had nothing to do with people like you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I knew my mother.”
Leonardo’s expression softened.
“I thought I knew my father.”
That silenced her.
They returned to Dora’s apartment just before dawn with six guards.
Nothing valuable had been taken.
The intruder had searched.
Drawers emptied.
Mattress cut.
Closet torn apart.
Dora stood among the wreckage of her ordinary life.
“What were they looking for?”
Leonardo scanned the room.
“Something your mother left.”
Dora remembered.
“The coffee tin.”
“What?”
She dropped to her knees beside the radiator.
When Dora was thirteen, Helen had shown her a loose floorboard.
“For emergencies,” she had said.
Dora pried it up.
Inside sat a rusted Maxwell House tin.
Her hands shook.
She opened it.
Photographs.
A brass key.
And a cassette tape.
Dante frowned.
“Who still had cassette tapes twelve years ago?”
“My mother, apparently.”
Leonardo lifted a folded piece of paper.
DORA — IF ANYONE EVER ASKS ABOUT ISABELLA, DO NOT TRUST A COSTAS.
Everyone looked at Leonardo.
He gave a humorless laugh.
“Well. That’s inconvenient.”
Dora unfolded another note.
The handwriting was unmistakably her mother’s.
If you are reading this, I failed to keep you away from them.
Inside locker 317 at South Station is the truth.
Do not go alone.
Dora looked at Leonardo.
Her mother had specifically warned her not to trust him.
Yet he was the only person in the room who looked as frightened for her as she felt.
South Station was crowded when they arrived.
Dora wore a baseball cap.
Leonardo walked beside her despite Dante’s objections.
Locker 317 opened with the brass key.
Inside was a battered leather ledger and an envelope.
Leonardo reached for it.
Dora stopped him.
“My mother. My envelope.”
He withdrew his hand.
She opened it.
The first document was a birth certificate.
Isabella Maria Costas.
The second was a passport under another name.
The photograph was Isabella.
Then came bank statements.
Millions moved through Atlantic Crown.
Dante scanned them.
“This is enough to show Carlo Costas was moving money without the family knowing.”
Leonardo turned a page.
His face hardened.
“There are payments to judges, police officers, politicians.”
Dora found another photograph.
Her mother.
Isabella.
And a man Dora recognized immediately.
Leonardo’s father.
Carlo Costas.
On the back, Helen had written:
ISABELLA DISCOVERED EVERYTHING.
CARLO KNOWS SHE KNOWS.
“Your father didn’t lose Isabella,” Dora whispered.
Leonardo stared at the photograph.
“He hunted her.”
A voice behind them said, “And he almost found her.”
Dora turned.
A woman stood twenty feet away.
Late thirties.
Dark hair.
Hazel eyes.
Leonardo stopped breathing.
“Isabella?”
The woman’s eyes filled.
“Hello, Leo.”
He moved toward her.
Then stopped as though eight years of guilt had formed an invisible wall.
Isabella crossed it for him.
She ran.
Leonardo caught his sister against his chest.
His composure broke.
Dora turned away, suddenly feeling she had stepped into something private.
Leonardo held Isabella like letting go might erase her.
“I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
“I killed people because I thought—”
“I know.”
His face collapsed.
“I’m sorry.”
Isabella touched his cheek.
“Dad did that. Not you.”
Then her eyes found Dora.
Her expression changed.
“You look exactly like Helen.”
Dora stepped forward.
“You knew my mother?”
“She saved my life.”
Dora could barely speak.
“How?”
Isabella looked toward Leonardo.
“Your father discovered I had evidence against him. Helen got me out before his men reached me.”
“Why didn’t you contact Leonardo?”
“Because Carlo convinced me Leo had ordered the search.”
Leonardo recoiled.
“He told me Salerno had you.”
“He wanted us to hate each other.”
Dora understood.
A family kept obedient through grief.
A son transformed into a weapon.
A daughter forced into hiding.
“And my mother?”
Isabella’s face filled with pain.
“Helen was supposed to come with me.”
Dora already knew she would hate the next sentence.
“She never made it.”
“Because she died.”
Isabella shook her head.
“No.”
Dora’s heart stopped.
“Your mother survived the crash.”
“What?”
“Carlo’s men took her from the hospital before anyone could identify her.”
Dora stared.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“That was twelve years ago.”
“I know.”
“Are you telling me my mother might still be alive?”
Isabella reached for her.
Dora stepped back.
She could not breathe.
Leonardo moved beside her without touching her.
Dante’s phone rang.
He answered.
Then looked toward the station entrance.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Someone just accessed Carlo Costas’s old private medical account.”
Leonardo frowned.
“Carlo has been dead for six years.”
“Exactly.”
Dante turned the screen around.
The account had paid one facility every month for twelve years.
St. Catherine’s Long-Term Psychiatric Center.
One patient.
May you like
Jane Bennett.
Dora whispered, “Mom.”
