Chapter 4 - The Dead Wife's Secret
Matteo did not answer Vittorio's call.
He let the phone ring until it stopped.
Then he looked at Dr. Hale.
"How long have you been reporting to him?"
The doctor sat down as if his knees had given out.
"Years."
Mara's skin crawled.
"You were Nico's mother's doctor too?"
He looked at the floor.
Matteo's voice sharpened.
"Answer her."
"Yes."
The word landed like a blow.
Matteo moved.
Enzo caught his shoulder.
Not to restrain him exactly.
To remind him.
Answers first.
Matteo stopped.
Dr. Hale began talking too fast.
"Vittorio paid me for information. Appointments. Schedules. Nothing medical. I swear to God, I never hurt Alessia."
"Did you tell him where she was the day she died?"
The doctor closed his eyes.
Matteo's face emptied.
Mara knew the answer before he said it.
"Yes."
Matteo turned away.
For a few seconds, no one breathed.
Nico whimpered from the crib.
Mara crossed the room and lifted him.
His fever had already begun to ease.
He tucked himself against her as though he trusted the rhythm of her heartbeat more than the room.
Matteo looked at his son.
That kept him standing.
Dr. Hale whispered, "I didn't know what he would do."
Matteo turned back.
"You knew enough to take his money."
"I was afraid."
Mara said, "So was my mother."
The doctor looked at her.
Mara's voice hardened.
"Fear explains choices. It does not erase them."
Matteo glanced at her.
Dr. Hale sagged.
"What do you want?"
"The truth," Matteo said.
For the next hour, they got pieces of it.
Vittorio had maintained informants inside the DeLuca organization for decades.
Doctors.
Drivers.
Accountants.
One priest.
Two police officers.
He had fed Matteo selective threats while creating others himself.
Every crisis made Vittorio more necessary.
Every death made Matteo more isolated.
And Alessia had discovered it.
Dr. Hale admitted that three weeks before the crash, Alessia had asked him to run a blood test under another name.
"For who?" Matteo demanded.
"I don't know."
"Was it Nico?"
"No."
Mara felt something shift.
"Then who?"
The doctor rubbed both hands over his face.
"She brought in a scarf. Said there might be blood on it."
Matteo went still.
"What did she test?"
"DNA."
"For what comparison?"
"I don't know."
"You're lying."
"I don't know."
Matteo leaned closer.
Dr. Hale flinched.
"She asked whether two samples could show if people were related."
Mara looked at Matteo.
"Two samples?"
Dr. Hale nodded.
"One from the scarf. One from an old hairbrush."
Matteo's eyes narrowed.
"Whose hairbrush?"
"She wouldn't say."
Rosa spoke from the doorway.
"I know."
Everyone turned.
She held an old wooden box.
Her hands shook.
"Alessia gave this to me the morning before the crash."
Matteo stared at it.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"She made me promise."
"My wife died."
Rosa flinched.
"I know."
"You let me bury her without telling me she was investigating Vittorio?"
"I was afraid you would do exactly what your father did."
Matteo's face darkened.
"Trust him."
Rosa nodded.
Tears filled her eyes.
"Alessia said she needed proof before she told you. She said Vittorio had spent years teaching you that suspicion was betrayal."
Mara looked at Matteo.
He did not deny it.
Rosa placed the wooden box on the table.
Inside was a small digital recorder.
A key.
And an envelope addressed to MATTEO.
His fingers shook as he opened it.
The letter was short.
If you're reading this, I was right to be afraid.
Vittorio killed your mother. He killed Thomas Bennett. I believe he also killed your father by making his death look natural.
And there is one more thing.
Evelyn Bennett is alive.
Mara made a sound.
The world stopped.
"No."
Matteo read the line again.
Mara grabbed the letter.
Her mother's name blurred.
Alive.
No.
Impossible.
She had been there when Evelyn died.
She had held her hand.
She had watched the monitors go quiet.
She had signed forms.
She had chosen flowers.
"That's not possible."
Rosa looked at her.
"Mara."
"No."
She backed away.
"My mother died four years ago."
"Alessia may have been wrong."
"I buried her."
Matteo stepped toward her.
Mara held up one hand.
"Don't."
He stopped.
She forced herself to keep reading.
Alessia had written that a nurse at St. Anne's discovered irregularities in Evelyn Bennett's death record.
The body released to the funeral home had been identified by paperwork, not by Mara after death. Mara had been taken out of the room before the hospital completed the transfer because Evelyn had requested that her daughter not see her body.
Mara remembered.
The nurse.
The closed casket.
Her mother's insistence.
Remember me alive.
The letter continued.
I think Vittorio found Evelyn and forced her to disappear again. I don't know why he kept her alive. I only know a woman matching her description has been living for three years under the name Helen Burke at St. Catherine's Residence outside Rockford.
Mara could not feel her hands.
Matteo said, "We're going."
She looked up.
"What?"
"Rockford."
"Now?"
"Now."
Enzo objected.
"Matteo, that's exactly what Vittorio expects."
"Then he can expect it."
Mara shook her head.
"No convoy."
Matteo looked at her.
"No fifteen black SUVs. No men with rifles frightening an old woman in a residence."
"This may be a trap."
"Then we go quietly."
He stared at her.
"You're not going alone."
"I didn't ask to."
Something passed between them.
An agreement.
Two hours later, Mara sat beside Matteo in an unmarked SUV with Enzo driving and one security car far behind them.
Nico remained at the house with Rosa and two trusted guards.
Mara had hated leaving him.
That realization bothered her.
She had known the child less than twenty-four hours.
Yet the image of his small feverish face had attached itself to something deep inside her.
The drive to Rockford took ninety minutes.
Mara barely spoke.
Neither did Matteo.
At one point, he said, "If it isn't her—"
"Don't."
He nodded.
When they reached St. Catherine's Residence, it looked nothing like a prison or safe house.
It was a modest assisted-living community surrounded by bare November trees.
A woman at the desk checked the name Helen Burke.
"Room 214."
Mara's legs almost failed in the hallway.
Matteo stayed half a step behind her.
Not touching.
Close enough to catch her.
She knocked.
No answer.
Again.
A woman's voice said, "Come in."
Mara opened the door.
The room was small.
A bed.
A lamp.
A window overlooking a frozen garden.
And a woman sitting in a chair with a blanket over her knees.
Her hair was white now.
Her face thinner.
But Mara knew her before the woman turned.
The mug slipped from Evelyn's hand.
It hit the carpet without breaking.
"Mara."
Mara could not breathe.
Her mother stood too quickly and nearly fell.
Mara crossed the room.
Then stopped three feet away.
Four years of grief became something too large to name.
"You died."
Evelyn covered her mouth.
"I'm sorry."
"You died."
"Mara—"
"I buried you."
"I know."
"You let me."
Evelyn was crying.
"I had to."
"No."
Mara's voice rose.
"No. You do not get to say that. You do not get to decide I had to grieve you."
Matteo quietly closed the door behind them.
Evelyn saw him.
All color left her face.
For one terrified second, she looked nine years old herself.
"Matteo."
He stared at the woman who had saved his life.
"Evelyn."
She looked at his hands.
At the dragons.
Then at the scar on his cheek.
"You became one of them."
His jaw tightened.
"I became what survived."
Evelyn flinched.
Mara looked between them.
"Why are you alive?"
Her mother lowered herself back into the chair.
"Because Vittorio needed something I never gave him."
"What?"
Evelyn's eyes went to Mara's necklace.
"The second half of the pendant."
Mara frowned.
"There is no second half."
Evelyn gave a broken smile.
"Yes, sweetheart."
She reached beneath her sweater and pulled out an identical silver chain.
Hanging from it was the back half of the locket.
Matteo whispered, "What does it open?"
Evelyn looked at him.
"Not a box."
She snapped the two pieces together.
A tiny metal shape slid from the joined edges.
A key.
Evelyn held it in her palm.
"It opens Cecilia's safe."
Matteo's face changed.
"My mother's safe was empty."
"The one you found was."
Evelyn looked toward the window.
"The real one is still inside Bellini House."
Mara stared.
"The house burned."
"Most of it."
Evelyn shook her head.
"The basement survived."
Matteo's voice dropped.
"What's in the safe?"
Evelyn looked at him.
"Enough to destroy Vittorio."
May you like
Then she looked at Mara.
"And enough to destroy your father too."
