Chapter 9
|
## THE WOMAN BEHIND THE LAST DOOR
The search for Isabella lasted eleven days.
Luca barely slept. He spent his mornings coordinating with investigators, his afternoons following leads across three states, and his nights sitting beside Sophie while she asked whether her mother would be home by breakfast.
Each time, he gave her the same answer.
"I'm trying, sweetheart."
Each time, he hated himself a little more for not being able to promise anything else.
Vanessa cooperated with the investigation, turning over bank records and identifying shell companies connected to Richard. Her testimony helped investigators arrest several associates, but Richard himself remained missing.
Marco survived his surgery.
Before being transferred to federal custody, he asked to speak to Luca.
"I deserve whatever happens to me," Marco said from his hospital bed. "But there's something you need to know."
Luca stood beside the doorway.
"Talk."
"Richard never wanted the files because of the money. He wanted the original medical records."
"What medical records?"
"The ones Isabella found in your father's private archive."
Marco swallowed.
"They involved children born at a clinic your family funded. Some records had been altered. Some babies were declared dead when they weren't."
Luca felt his stomach tighten.
"Was Sophie one of them?"
"I don't know."
"Was my first child?"
Marco looked away.
"Richard told me that the child Isabella lost had been transferred to another facility. He said the records could prove it."
Luca stepped back.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Because I thought Richard was lying. Then he showed me a document with your signature."
Luca stared at him.
"What signature?"
"A consent form authorizing the transfer of medical records after the miscarriage."
"I never signed anything like that."
Marco nodded weakly.
"That's what I told him."
Luca left the hospital with a new terror growing inside him.
He returned to the estate and searched his private study. Behind a locked drawer, he found old medical bills and a photograph of Isabella taken in a hospital corridor seven years earlier.
She was smiling.
Beside her stood a nurse holding a small bundle.
Luca had never seen the photograph before.
On the back, Isabella had written:
Our first miracle. No matter what happens, we will find our way back to each other.
Beneath the sentence was a hospital name.
A private clinic in upstate New York that had closed five years earlier.
Luca contacted the former administrator, who agreed to meet him in a diner outside Albany.
The administrator was an elderly woman named Margaret Ellis. She arrived carrying a leather folder.
"I've waited a long time for someone to ask about those records," she said.
Luca placed the photograph on the table.
"Was our baby born alive?"
Margaret studied the image.
Then she closed her eyes.
"Yes."
The word seemed to knock the air from his lungs.
"Where is the child?"
"Your wife was told the baby had died because someone altered the discharge documents. I discovered the discrepancy months later, but by then the original files had been removed."
"Who removed them?"
Margaret opened the folder.
"Your uncle's company paid for the transfer. But there was another name on the authorization."
She slid a photocopy across the table.
Luca stared at the signature.
It belonged to Anthony Moretti.
His father had authorized the transfer.
"Did Isabella know?"
"She suspected it. That's why she began investigating."
Luca's hands trembled.
"Why didn't she tell me?"
"She was afraid you would confront your father before she had enough evidence. She believed the child might still be alive."
Margaret handed him a second document.
It contained a current address.
A residential home outside Boston.
The child had been placed there under a different name.
Luca drove through the night.
At sunrise, he stood outside a modest house with blue shutters and a small garden.
A woman opened the door.
She was about twenty years old, with dark hair and gray-green eyes.
Luca recognized Isabella's eyes.
The young woman looked at him with a mixture of confusion and fear.
"Can I help you?"
Luca struggled to speak.
"My name is Luca Moretti."
Her expression changed.
She slowly reached for a necklace beneath her shirt.
A silver butterfly.
Identical to the one Isabella had given Sophie.
"My mother told me you might come," she whispered.
Luca's knees nearly gave way.
"Who is your mother?"
The young woman looked over her shoulder.
Then she stepped aside.
A familiar voice came from inside the house.
"Luca?"
He turned.
Isabella stood at the end of the hallway.
Alive.
Older, thinner, and streaked with exhaustion—but alive.
For one breathless moment, neither moved.
Then Luca crossed the room.
He stopped just inches from her.
"I thought I'd lost you."
Isabella's eyes filled with tears.
"I know."
"Why didn't you come home?"
"Because Richard told me you had signed the papers."
"What papers?"
She looked toward the young woman.
"The papers that gave away our first child."
Luca shook his head.
"I never signed anything."
"I know that now."
He stared at the woman standing between them.
"What's your name?"
She answered softly.
"Grace."
Isabella reached for her hand.
"She's your daughter, Luca."
Before he could respond, Grace took a step backward.
"There's something else you need to know," she said.
"Richard didn't give me to another family."
May you like
Her eyes filled with tears.
"He raised me himself."
