Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE WHITE ROSEDominic had never seen his mother's body.
He had been sixteen when Anthony Moretti announced that Eleanor Moretti had died in a private clinic after a sudden illness. The funeral was closed to family friends, the casket remained sealed, and Dominic was told the doctors had advised against an open viewing.
He had grieved anyway.
For years, he had visited the cemetery and placed white roses on her grave.
Now a hotel manager was telling him that the woman he had buried might still be alive.
“Tell me where she is,” Dominic demanded.
Peter shook his head.
“I don't know her current address. She checked in under the name Eleanor Ward.”
“Show me the records.”
“I can't release guest information without—”
Dominic placed both hands on the desk.
“My mother has been missing for twelve years. If you obstruct this investigation, you'll explain it to my attorneys and the police.”
Peter hurried to the reception computer.
Five minutes later, he produced a registration form.
The photograph attached to it showed an older woman with silver-streaked brown hair and tired blue eyes.
Dominic recognized the face.
He had seen it in family photographs, in the portrait hanging above his father's desk, and in the dreams that sometimes woke him in the middle of the night.
His mother.
Alive.
Rachel stood beside him, studying the image.
“Sir, there's a date.”
Dominic looked.
The woman had checked out four days earlier.
Her destination was blank.
But beneath the registration form was a handwritten note.
Ask the girl what her mother kept in the sewing box.
Rachel froze.
“My mother's sewing box?”
She stared at the photograph.
Then her expression changed.
“Sir, I need to go home.”
Dominic took her to the mansion.
The sewing box was in Rachel's small apartment above the detached garage. She had brought it with her when she began working at the estate, unable to throw away the belongings her mother had left behind.
Inside were buttons, spools of thread, old needles, and a collection of faded photographs.
Rachel lifted the false bottom.
A thin envelope lay underneath.
Her hands trembled as she opened it.
Inside was a birth certificate.
Not hers.
A child's certificate issued in Boston on June 15, 2022.
The father's name was Gabriel Moretti.
The mother's name was Rachel Hayes.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Rachel stared at the document as if the letters might rearrange themselves.
“That's impossible.”
Dominic took the paper.
The date was real. The hospital seal was genuine. The certificate listed a baby girl named Lily Hayes.
Rachel shook her head.
“My mother never told me she had a child in Boston. I was living in Chicago in 2022. I wasn't pregnant.”
Dominic looked at her.
The surname was the same, but the first name was not.
Rachel Hayes was not the mother.
The certificate belonged to someone else named Rachel Hayes.
A second sheet slid from the envelope.
It was a letter written by Evelyn.
My dear Rachel,
If you find this, then someone has finally begun asking the questions I was too frightened to answer.
The baby was not yours. She belonged to a woman named Rachel Hayes, who died in childbirth. Gabriel asked me to protect the child because the Morettis were searching for her.
I took the baby to a family who could keep her safe. I changed the records and made sure no one could connect her to the family.
If you ever meet Gabriel, tell him his daughter is alive.
Rachel's hand flew to her mouth.
Dominic read the letter twice.
“Gabriel has a daughter.”
“And my mother helped hide her,” Rachel whispered.
“Do you know who adopted her?”
Rachel searched the envelope again.
A photograph fell out.
It showed a little girl of about three, standing beside an older woman in a garden. The child had dark hair, blue eyes, and a tiny white rose embroidered on the collar of her dress.
On the back was a name.
LILY.
Beneath it was an address in Boston.
Dominic immediately ordered a car.
Rachel went with him.
The address led to a modest house on a quiet street. A woman in her sixties opened the door, saw Dominic, and tried to close it again.
He caught the edge.
“My name is Dominic Moretti. I'm looking for a little girl named Lily.”
The woman's face crumpled.
“You're too late.”
Rachel stepped forward.
“What does that mean?”
The woman looked from Rachel to Dominic.
“Gabriel came for her three weeks ago.”
Dominic's heart pounded.
“Where did he take her?”
“I don't know. He said she was in danger.”
“Who was threatening her?”
The woman hesitated.
Then she whispered, “The people who killed her mother.”
Dominic's voice dropped.
“Who killed her mother?”
The woman looked at Rachel.
“Your father did.”
Rachel went perfectly still.
“My father is dead.”
The woman shook her head.
“No, dear. I'm talking about Lily's mother.”
She stepped aside, allowing them into the house.
On a table lay a photograph of Gabriel holding a baby.
Beside it was a newspaper clipping about a fatal highway collision in Boston.
The article named the victim as Rachel Hayes, a hospital records clerk who had died four years earlier.
The police had ruled it an accident.
But someone had written across the clipping in red ink:
SHE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE THE FIRST HIT.
Dominic stared at the words.
Gabriel had not disappeared because he wanted to escape the family.
He had been trying to protect his child.
And the woman who had died giving birth to that child had been murdered.
Rachel stepped toward the window, her face pale.
“Sir, if Gabriel is alive, why hasn't he come home?”
Dominic looked at the photograph.
Then he noticed something in the background.
A man standing near the hospital entrance, his face partly obscured by a newspaper.
The man wore Dominic's family crest on his cuff.
Dominic knew that crest.
It belonged to Marcus Bell.
His most trusted security chief.
His closest friend.
The man who had accompanied him to Boston.
The man who had promised to protect him.
Dominic slowly turned toward the door.
Marcus stood there, holding his phone.
May you like
He had followed them.
And he was pointing a gun at Rachel.
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