Chapter 5 - THE CHILD IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Luca didn't sleep.
At four in the morning, he sat in his study with the ledger open before him while Sophie searched through Dominic's old correspondence. Thomas had sent men to every railway station in the city, but none had found a trace of Gabriel.
Vanessa had been confined to the guest wing under guard.
She insisted Isabella was Gabriel's daughter and that the child had been hidden from the Morettis for years.
Luca struggled to understand how an entire child could have existed without his knowledge.
“Isabella was born after Gabriel disappeared,” he said. “Why would he hide her?”
“Maybe he wanted to protect her,” Sophie replied.
“From whom?”
Sophie looked at the ledger.
“From the same people who wanted your family destroyed.”
She had found a series of payments made to a private clinic outside Boston. Each payment carried the initials E.M.
Eleanor Moretti.
Luca frowned.
“My mother never handled the family finances.”
“Perhaps someone used her name.”
Or perhaps she knew more than she'd admitted.
They went upstairs to Eleanor's room.
She sat beside the window, fingers resting on a knitted blanket.
“Mom,” Luca said gently, “who is Isabella?”
Eleanor's expression changed.
“Oh, that poor child.”
“You know her?”
“I held her once. She was so small. Gabriel brought her to me in the middle of the night.”
Luca pulled up a chair.
“When?”
“Five years ago, a few days before the yacht explosion.”
His chest tightened.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Gabriel begged me not to. He said someone wanted to use the child against him.”
“Who?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I never saw the person. But I heard them arguing in the hall. Your father was alive then, Luca. He was furious with Gabriel.”
“About Isabella?”
“About a woman.”
Sophie leaned forward.
“What woman?”
Eleanor rubbed her fingers together, searching her memory.
“Her name was Claire. Gabriel said she had been murdered. Your father said the family couldn't survive another scandal.”
Luca opened the ledger and searched the entries.
There it was: a payment made to a company registered under the name Claire Whitmore, dated six days before Dominic's death.
Beneath it was another entry.
Emergency transfer. Child protection. E.M.
Luca looked at his mother.
“Did Father know Isabella was alive?”
“Yes,” Eleanor whispered. “And he wanted Gabriel to bring her home.”
“Then why did Gabriel disappear?”
“Because he discovered who had killed Claire.”
Eleanor reached for Luca's hand.
“He came to me the night before the yacht explosion. He said he had proof. He told me that if anything happened to him, I should trust Margaret's daughter.”
Sophie went rigid.
“Your mother knew Claire?”
“She helped her,” Eleanor said. “Margaret helped Claire escape from the people who were threatening her.”
Sophie felt the room tilt.
Her mother had never spoken of Claire Whitmore. But she had left behind a box of old photographs, and one had always puzzled Sophie: Margaret standing beside a young woman holding a baby.
The woman wore a small silver pendant shaped like a star.
Sophie had seen the same pendant in the photograph of Isabella.
She ran to her room and returned with the photograph from her suitcase.
Eleanor touched the paper carefully.
“That's Claire.”
Luca studied the baby.
“Isabella?”
“Yes.”
Sophie turned the photograph over.
In her mother's handwriting were five words:
If anything happens, protect her.
A terrible possibility settled over her.
“What if my mother wasn't just protecting Eleanor?” Sophie whispered. “What if she was protecting Isabella, too?”
Luca looked at the date.
“Your mother died eleven months ago.”
“She'd been ill for years. But before she died, she told me someone had been watching our apartment. She made me promise never to open a letter she'd left in her old sewing box unless Eleanor asked me to.”
Eleanor squeezed Sophie's hand.
“I asked you to protect me because I knew your mother would have wanted you to finish what she started.”
Sophie returned to her room and opened the small wooden box she'd brought from home.
Beneath spools of thread and a broken pair of scissors lay a second envelope.
It contained a hospital bracelet, a birth certificate, and a handwritten statement.
The birth certificate named Claire Whitmore as Isabella's mother.
The father's name had been left blank.
But the statement contained a line that made Sophie's hands tremble.
I, Margaret Bennett, confirm that Gabriel Moretti is the biological father of Isabella Whitmore, and that Dominic Moretti paid me to conceal the child's identity until it was safe.
Luca read it in silence.
Then he looked at Sophie.
“Your mother helped my father hide his granddaughter.”
“Maybe she helped protect her from him,” Sophie replied.
A knock sounded at the door.
Thomas entered, carrying a small tablet.
“Boss, we found the child.”
On the screen was footage from a highway camera. A black SUV had been recorded leaving the city the previous night.
In the passenger seat sat Gabriel.
In the back was a little girl with dark curls.
Isabella.
Thomas zoomed in.
The girl was holding something in her lap.
A photograph.
Luca stared at the image.
The photograph showed Dominic Moretti standing beside a woman Luca had never seen before.
On the back, written in red ink, were the words:
May you like
THE WOMAN WHO KILLED YOUR FATHER IS STILL IN THIS HOUSE.
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