Chapter 7 - The Photograph of the Missing GirlThe photograph was twenty-six years old.
The little girl in it had brown braids, frightened eyes, and a pink dress.
She looked so much like Sophie that my first thought was impossible.
Someone had traveled backward through time and taken a picture of my daughter.
My second thought was worse.
I recognized the little girl.
It was me.
I stood inside Dante's private office at the Moretti Reserve, staring at the photograph Luca had left with the hotel security guard.
My hands shook so badly that Dante took the frame before I dropped it.
“Marissa?”
I couldn't answer.
The girl in the photograph stood beside a dark-haired woman outside a brick apartment building.
The woman wore a pale blue coat.
She was smiling.
I remembered that coat.
I remembered the smell of her perfume.
And I remembered the sound of her voice singing while she washed dishes.
“My mother,” I whispered.
Dante looked at the photograph.
“Are you certain?”
I nodded.
“That's my mother. And that's me.”
He turned the frame over.
Something was written on the back.
EVELYN BENNETT — 2000
I stared at the name.
My mother's name before she married my father.
Dante looked at Vincent.
“Find everything on Evelyn Bennett.”
Vincent nodded.
I barely heard him.
My mother had died when I was twenty-three.
A stroke.
Sudden.
Unfair.
She had been a quiet woman who worked two jobs, baked birthday cakes from scratch, and never allowed Natalie or me to leave the house without breakfast.
She had never mentioned Dante Moretti.
Or Luca.
Or anyone connected to the hotel.
Why would a photograph of her be in the hands of a man suspected of helping murder my husband?
Sophie entered the office with a female security officer.
She ran straight into my arms.
“Mommy!”
I knelt and held her.
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
I kissed her forehead.
“I'm okay now.”
She looked at Dante.
“The other Mister Moretti wasn't nice.”
Dante crouched beside us.
“What did he say?”
Sophie frowned.
“He said I looked familiar.”
“Anything else?”
“He asked if my grandma had a necklace.”
My blood turned cold.
“What necklace?”
Sophie touched her own chest.
“The one with the little bird.”
I looked up.
My mother had owned a gold pendant shaped like a swallow.
She wore it every day.
After her death, Natalie inherited it.
I had never told anyone at the hotel about that necklace.
Dante stood.
“Vincent, find Luca.”
Vincent spoke into his radio.
But I grabbed Dante's sleeve.
“Wait.”
He turned.
“Why would Luca know my mother?”
“I don't know.”
“Then find out before someone else dies.”
He nodded.
“I will.”
Detective Alvarez arrived an hour later.
She examined the photograph.
Then she asked whether my mother had ever worked in finance.
“No,” I answered. “She was a bookkeeper for a small manufacturing company when I was little. Later she worked at a pharmacy.”
Alvarez looked interested.
“Do you remember the company's name?”
I shook my head.
“Not exactly. Something with Hudson.”
Dante turned toward Vincent.
“Hudson Industrial Supply?”
I stared at him.
“That sounds familiar.”
Vincent's expression changed.
“Dante, that company was connected to your father's shipping business.”
The room became silent.
Alvarez looked between them.
“Explain.”
Dante approached the window.
“My father owned several freight companies in the late nineties. Hudson Industrial Supply was one of their vendors.”
“Was it legitimate?” Alvarez asked.
“Parts of it were.”
I folded my arms.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the business had serious accounting irregularities before I took control.”
Alvarez wrote something down.
“Who handled those records?”
Dante looked at Vincent.
Vincent answered.
“Arthur Vale investigated the company in 2001.”
The same Arthur Vale whose name appeared in Marcus's documents.
The same former prosecutor who had allegedly discouraged Marcus from reporting financial crimes.
A terrible possibility began forming in my mind.
“What if my mother knew something?”
Alvarez looked at me.
“That's what we need to establish.”
I sat down.
My mother had never been wealthy.
She'd worried about grocery bills.
She'd clipped coupons.
She'd spent years paying off medical debt.
But there had been one thing I never understood.
When I was eight, we moved suddenly from Manhattan to Queens.
My mother told us the old apartment had become too expensive.
She burned several boxes of papers in a metal trash can behind our building.
I remembered watching the flames.
And I remembered her crying.
At the time, I thought she was sad about moving.
Now I wasn't so sure.
I looked at Alvarez.
“When I was little, my mother destroyed documents.”
“What kind?”
“I don't know.”
“Do you remember anything about them?”
“Yellow folders. Typed pages. Some photographs.”
Dante went still.
“Photographs of what?”
I closed my eyes.
I tried to remember.
A dark warehouse.
Men standing beside trucks.
A little girl holding a stuffed animal.
Then something clicked.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at me.
“My mother had a second photo album.”
I stood.
“She kept it inside a wooden sewing chest.”
“Where is the chest?” Alvarez asked.
“At Natalie's apartment.”
I reached for my phone.
Natalie answered immediately.
“Marissa?”
“Do you still have Mom's sewing chest?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Don't open it. Don't let anyone near it. I'm coming.”
Natalie went silent.
Then she whispered, “Marissa, someone already asked me about that chest.”
My stomach dropped.
“Who?”
“Caleb.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Caleb had been searching for something far older than Marcus's flash drive.
“Did you give it to him?”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
“At my apartment.”
“Is anyone there?”
“No.”
“Good. Stay at the hospital.”
But Natalie wasn't finished.
“Marissa?”
“Yes?”
“There's something I never told you about Mom.”
My heart began pounding.
“What?”
“Before she died, she said someone might come asking about a man named Moretti.”
I looked at Dante.
Natalie continued.
“She told me never to trust anyone who claimed they were trying to protect the family.”
My throat tightened.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I thought she was confused. She'd been sick.”
Then Natalie said something that made my blood run cold.
“She also told me that if anything happened to you, I should look for a man named Elias.”
I slowly lowered the phone.
Dante stared at me.
“Elias Voss?”
I nodded.
The gray-coat man.
The accountant who had disappeared.
The stranger Sophie had noticed.
My mother had known him.
Marcus had worked with him.
And Caleb had been desperate to find him.
The pieces were beginning to connect.
But not in a way I understood.
Alvarez turned to Dante.
“We need that sewing chest.”
Dante nodded.
“I'll arrange transportation.”
“No,” Alvarez said firmly. “Police will handle it.”
For once, he didn't argue.
Two hours later, detectives entered Natalie's apartment with her permission.
The wooden chest sat beneath a bedroom window.
Inside were sewing needles.
Old fabric.
Photographs.
And a false wooden bottom.
Beneath it lay a sealed envelope.
Alvarez opened it carefully.
Inside was a handwritten note.
A list of dates.
And a photograph of four men standing outside a warehouse.
Dante recognized three immediately.
His father.
Arthur Vale.
And a much younger Elias Voss.
The fourth man stood slightly apart.
Dark hair.
Sharp features.
A familiar smile.
I looked at Dante.
“Who is he?”
Dante stared at the photograph.
His face went pale.
“That's not possible.”
“Who?”
He swallowed.
“My uncle.”
“What's his name?”
“Salvatore Moretti.”
Alvarez looked up.
“Where is he now?”
Dante didn't answer immediately.
Then he said the words that changed the investigation again.
“Salvatore died twenty-five years ago.”
I stared at the photograph.
But on the back, written in my mother's handwriting, was a date.
MARCH 18, 2002.
Dante slowly shook his head.
“His funeral was in 2001.”
May you like
A dead man had appeared in a photograph taken a year after his burial.
And my mother had hidden the evidence for more than two decades.
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