Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Photograph
The woman behind the door was dead.
Not recently.
For twenty-seven years.
At least according to the framed obituary hanging on the wall.
Marin stared at the name.
Evelyn Moretti.
Dante's mother.
The same woman from the photograph.
The same maid uniform.
And, impossibly, the same eyes Marin saw every morning in her own mirror.
Dante closed the door behind them.
Only Marin, Dante, Bruno, and his security chief Luca remained inside.
Marin pointed at the obituary.
“Tell me that's a coincidence.”
Dante didn't.
“Tell me.”
“I can't.”
Her stomach tightened.
Dante placed the broken photograph on a desk.
“My mother died when I was fourteen.”
“How?”
“A car accident.”
“Then why does somebody have my initials written beside tomorrow's date?”
“That's what I'm trying to understand.”
Marin shook her head.
“No. You knew something before tonight.”
Dante looked at her.
She held up the ring.
“You didn't announce an engagement to a woman you've barely spoken to because she made you laugh.”
Luca shifted uncomfortably.
Dante said nothing.
“That was protection,” Marin realized.
“Yes.”
“From whom?”
“I don't know yet.”
She laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You're supposed to be the man who knows everything.”
“Usually.”
“And now?”
“Now somebody has been moving inside my house without permission.”
That answer frightened her more than she expected.
Dante Moretti was not afraid of many things.
But he was afraid now.
Not for himself.
For her.
He opened a drawer.
Inside were letters tied with a faded blue ribbon.
“My mother wrote these.”
Marin didn't touch them.
“What does your mother have to do with me?”
“I don't know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I won't lie to you.”
She studied him.
For the first time, she saw something behind the intimidating reputation.
A son.
A boy who had lost his mother.
Dante selected one letter.
“The final letter was written two days before she died.”
He handed it to Marin.
The paper trembled in her fingers.
If anything happens to me, protect Rose.
Marin looked up.
“Who's Rose?”
“We never found out.”
A memory surfaced.
Her adoptive mother humming while cooking.
A little wooden jewelry box.
A rose carved into its lid.
Marin's chest tightened.
“My mother had a box with a rose on it.”
Dante stared at her.
“Your mother?”
“Patricia Holloway. She raised me.”
“Where is she?”
“She died six years ago.”
“Did she ever work here?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Then Marin hesitated.
Patricia had rarely discussed the years before Marin's adoption.
She claimed the records had been sealed.
Marin had never cared.
Patricia and Harold Holloway were her parents.
Blood didn't change that.
But now blood might be trying to kill her.
Luca's phone vibrated.
He read the screen.
“Boss, we have a problem.”
“What?”
“The duplicate badge was printed from the staff office.”
“Who accessed it?”
“Mrs. Voss.”
Marin frowned.
The head housekeeper?
The woman who had hired her?
Dante headed for the door.
Marin followed.
“No.”
He stopped.
“You stay here.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Marin.”
“You just told a ballroom full of people I'm your future wife. I think I've earned the right to hear why my boss printed a duplicate badge with a threat written on it.”
For half a second, Dante almost smiled.
“Fine.”
They found Mrs. Voss in the laundry room.
She was packing.
Dante blocked the exit.
“Going somewhere?”
The older woman's face collapsed.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Why did you duplicate Marin's badge?”
“I was told to.”
“By whom?”
Mrs. Voss looked at Marin.
Tears filled her eyes.
“I am so sorry.”
Marin stepped closer.
“Who?”
“They said they'd hurt my grandson.”
“Who said that?”
“I never saw his face.”
Dante's voice lowered.
“What were your instructions?”
“Hire Marin Holloway.”
Marin froze.
Mrs. Voss continued.
“Eleven months ago, I received an envelope. It had her application, references, everything. I was told to make sure she got the job.”
Marin's skin went cold.
She had thought she had found the position through an employment website.
She hadn't chosen the Moretti mansion.
Someone had chosen it for her.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“The badge?”
“This morning they told me to make the duplicate.”
“And the writing?”
“I didn't write it.”
Dante asked, “Why fire the other maids?”
Mrs. Voss began crying.
“They wanted Marin working the gala.”
Marin stepped back.
Everything about her employment suddenly felt manufactured.
The application.
The interview.
The promotion to evening service.
Even Bruno escaping.
She looked down.
The puppy wasn't there.
“Where's Bruno?”
Dante turned.
The laundry-room door was open.
“Bruno?”
A bark echoed upstairs.
Marin ran.
Dante cursed and followed.
The puppy led them to Marin's small staff bedroom.
The door was open.
Her mattress had been overturned.
Drawers emptied.
Clothes scattered.
Someone had searched everything.
Marin rushed to her nightstand.
The wooden box.
Gone.
“No.”
Dante entered.
“What?”
“My mother's jewelry box.”
“The one with the rose?”
“Yes.”
She searched frantically.
Nothing.
Then she saw something on the floor.
A photograph.
She picked it up.
Patricia Holloway stood outside a hospital.
Young.
Beside her was Evelyn Moretti.
Dante's mother.
Marin sat down hard.
“You said they never knew each other,” Dante whispered.
“I thought they didn't.”
On the photograph's back was a handwritten sentence.
Evelyn trusted me with the baby.
Dante read it twice.
“What baby?”
Marin's phone rang.
Unknown number.
Dante held out his hand.
“Don't answer.”
She did anyway.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man's voice.
“You should have stayed a maid, Marin.”
Her blood chilled.
“Who is this?”
“You wearing that ring changed everything.”
Dante moved closer, listening.
“What do you want?”
The man laughed.
“The truth.”
“About what?”
“Your mother.”
“Patricia?”
“No.”
Marin stopped breathing.
The caller continued.
“The woman who gave birth to you.”
The line disconnected.
Dante stared at her.
Marin slowly looked toward the old photograph again.
Evelyn Moretti.
Dante's mother.
“No,” she whispered.
Dante's phone vibrated.
Luca had sent him the first recovered security image.
A woman was entering Marin's bedroom twenty minutes earlier.
Dante enlarged the frame.
Marin recognized her.
Celeste Romano.
And in Celeste's hand was the missing wooden box.
Dante reached for the door.
But another image loaded.
This one showed Celeste handing the box to a man outside.
Marin stared at his face.
She knew him.
She had seen that man every Christmas until she was eighteen.
Her dead mother's brother.
Uncle Raymond.
The man who had supposedly died twelve years ago.
And beneath the photograph, the security system identified his visitor credentials.
RAYMOND MORETTI.
Dante's uncle.
Marin's phone rang again.
May you like
This time, the caller ID displayed a name she had never seen before.
FATHER.
