Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW EVERYTHING
Vincent had never told me much about his mother.
I knew she had died when he was young. I knew he visited her grave every year on the anniversary of her death. I knew he became unusually quiet whenever anyone mentioned her.
But I'd never known she had asked questions about a missing baby.
"How did your mother die?" I asked.
"An accident."
"What kind of accident?"
"Her car went off a bridge."
"Were there witnesses?"
"One."
"Who?"
"My father."
The words hung between us.
I could hear traffic in the background on his end of the call. He was probably in his office, standing by the windows that overlooked downtown Chicago.
"Claire, I need you to promise me something."
"No."
He went quiet.
"You haven't even heard what I'm asking."
"I've spent five years promising you things. I've promised to be patient, to understand, to accept that Sophia needs you. I've promised not to make a scene when you forget our anniversary. I've promised myself that someday you'd finally choose me without being forced to."
My voice trembled, but I kept going.
"I'm not promising anything else until I know who you are."
Vincent didn't interrupt.
That alone told me he was listening.
"Find the nurse," I continued. "Find out what happened to that baby. But don't use my pregnancy as an excuse to drag me home."
"I won't."
"And don't mistake my fear for forgiveness."
"I won't do that either."
When the call ended, I sat beside Amelia and tried to understand the man I had married.
Vincent had always been frighteningly controlled. He could silence a room with a glance and make powerful men reconsider decisions they'd spent months preparing.
But he had never been able to discuss his mother.
Now I wondered whether the silence in his childhood had been the same silence he'd brought into our marriage.
The next morning, Daniel called me.
He was careful, formal, and clearly terrified that Vincent would discover he had contacted me without permission.
"Mrs. Moretti, I found a document that may interest you."
"I'm not Mrs. Moretti anymore."
"The divorce hasn't been finalized."
"That doesn't change what I want."
"Understood. I apologize."
He sent me a scanned copy of an old legal agreement.
It stated that Sophia would receive financial assistance in exchange for keeping certain family information confidential.
The agreement had been signed by Richard Vale and Vincent's father.
But the final page contained an additional signature.
My father's.
I stared at it.
My father had died when I was nineteen. He'd been a quiet accountant who rarely discussed his clients.
He had never told me he knew the Moretti family.
"Why would my father sign this?" I asked Daniel.
"I don't know."
"Did Vincent know?"
"Not until this morning."
I ended the call and searched my memory.
My father had once warned me not to confuse wealth with security.
He'd said that powerful families didn't always protect their own.
At the time, I thought he was talking about my decision to marry Vincent.
Now I wondered whether he'd known something about the man I loved.
I opened an old box of my father's belongings that Amelia had helped me bring from Chicago years earlier. Inside were photographs, tax documents, and a leather-bound notebook.
Most of it was ordinary.
Then I found an entry dated two weeks before my wedding.
Vale called again. The Moretti boy must never learn what happened at St. Catherine's. If the mother asks questions, the arrangement ends.
Below it, in different handwriting, someone had added:
Claire must never know.
I felt sick.
My father had known.
He'd known there was a secret connected to Vincent's family, and he'd apparently believed I needed to be kept away from it.
But why?
I turned the page.
A folded photograph slipped out.
It showed my father standing beside Vincent's father outside a courthouse.
Between them stood a woman I'd never seen before.
On the back was a name.
Elena Brooks.
The nurse who had vanished.
I called Daniel again.
"I have a photograph of Elena Brooks with my father and Vincent's father. Can you find out what she was doing at the courthouse?"
"I'll try."
"And Daniel?"
"Yes?"
"If Vincent asks, tell him I found nothing."
He hesitated.
"Why would you want me to lie?"
"Because if my father was involved, I need to know whether Vincent's family has been watching me all along."
I ended the call.
An hour later, Amelia returned from the grocery store and found me standing in the middle of the kitchen with the notebook open.
"What happened?"
"My father knew about the baby."
She put down the bags.
"Claire, are you sure?"
I showed her the entry.
She read it twice, then sat down.
"Maybe he was trying to protect you."
"From what?"
"That's what we need to find out."
My phone rang.
An unknown number.
I answered cautiously.
"Hello?"
A woman whispered, "Claire, it's Margaret."
I stood so quickly my chair scraped across the floor.
"Where are you? Are you safe?"
"For now."
"Who attacked you?"
"I can't explain everything. Listen to me. The child wasn't taken by a stranger. His mother gave him up because she believed he was dead."
"His mother? Sophia?"
"No."
My stomach tightened.
"Then who?"
Margaret took a shaky breath.
"Vincent's mother. She gave birth to a child before her marriage. Your father helped conceal it because he was the accountant who handled the payments."
I couldn't speak.
"That child grew up under another name," Margaret continued. "Your husband has been searching for his own son, but he's been looking in the wrong place."
"Who is the child?"
Margaret began to answer.
Then she whispered, "Oh, God."
"What?"
"He's here."
A door slammed.
Someone shouted her name.
The call went dead.
I stared at the phone.
Then Amelia grabbed my arm.
"Claire, we need to leave."
"Why?"
She pointed toward the window.
A black sedan had stopped across the street.
A man in a dark coat was watching our building.
May you like
And when he noticed us looking, he raised his hand.
In his palm was a small silver ring bearing the Moretti family crest.
