Chapter 2 - The Name Behind the Photograph
Tessa backed away from the door.
“Salvatore.”
“What?”
“Someone is outside.”
“Do not open it.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Lock the deadbolt.”
“It is locked.”
The handle moved again.
Once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
Tessa held the phone against her ear.
Her other hand tightened around the photograph.
“Call the police,” Salvatore said.
She almost laughed.
“You're telling me to call the police?”
“Yes.”
That answer frightened her more than anything else.
Tessa dialed emergency services from another phone.
She gave her address.
The hallway remained silent.
Salvatore stayed on the line.
“You still there?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Who is in that photograph?”
“Tomorrow.”
“No. Now.”
“Your apartment hallway is not where I am going to tell you.”
“You called me.”
“Because I realized too late that someone else may have recognized you tonight.”
“Recognized me from what?”
Salvatore was silent.
“From what?”
A noise came from the hallway.
Footsteps.
Fast.
Moving toward the stairwell.
Tessa approached the peephole.
She saw only the empty corridor.
A minute later, distant sirens approached.
Whoever had been outside was gone.
Two officers searched the building.
Nothing.
No forced entry.
No suspicious person.
No useful camera footage because the building's hallway camera had apparently stopped working three days earlier.
By two thirty, Tessa was alone again.
She did not sleep.
She sat at the kitchen table with the photograph beneath the overhead light.
Her mother looked young.
Healthy.
Happy.
That was what hurt most.
Tessa remembered illness.
Hospital bracelets.
Prescription bottles.
Insurance forms.
Her mother's hair disappearing.
Her mother's hands trembling while trying to open soup cans.
She had almost forgotten that once there had been another woman inside that failing body.
The woman in the photograph was maybe twenty-five.
She had Tessa's eyes.
Beside her stood Antonio.
Much younger, but unmistakable.
He had one hand on her mother's shoulder.
Protective.
Almost paternal.
Salvatore stood several feet away.
And beside him was the unknown woman.
Tessa turned the photograph over.
THERESA MUST NEVER KNOW WHY.
Her legal name.
Theresa Elaine Mercer.
Tessa had hated Theresa since childhood.
Her mother was the only person who refused to shorten it.
“You were named for someone,” she'd once said.
“Who?”
“One day.”
That day had never come.
At seven in the morning, Tessa finally showered.
At eight, she called Richard.
“I’m taking the weekend.”
“You earned it.”
“Starting today.”
A pause.
“You okay?”
“No.”
Richard did not ask more.
At nine fourteen, the number from Salvatore's business card called.
Gabriel.
His voice was unmistakable.
“My father told me what happened.”
“Did he tell you who was outside my apartment?”
“No.”
“Then we're tied.”
“Tessa—”
“Where?”
“Where what?”
“Your father wanted to meet. Where?”
Gabriel gave her the address of a private club in Manhattan.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I'm not walking into a building owned by your family.”
“It isn't owned by us.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
She almost hung up.
Gabriel sighed.
“Pick the place.”
That surprised her.
Tessa looked across the street from her apartment.
There was a twenty-four-hour diner she had eaten at since childhood.
“Delaney's. Forty-Third and Ninth.”
Gabriel paused.
“That's your choice?”
“Too public for anyone to do something stupid.”
“You have an interesting opinion of my family.”
“I've read newspapers.”
“Twelve?”
“Ten thirty.”
“You're negotiating the time too?”
“Welcome to customer service.”
She disconnected.
At ten twenty-eight, a black sedan stopped outside Delaney's.
Tessa watched from a booth near the window.
Gabriel emerged first.
Dark coat.
Black sweater.
No tie.
Salvatore followed.
He looked almost absurdly out of place beneath the diner's neon sign.
No bodyguards entered.
Tessa noticed that.
Salvatore noticed her noticing.
“We can behave ourselves around pancakes,” he said as he sat.
Tessa pushed the photograph across the table.
“Talk.”
Gabriel picked it up.
His face changed.
“You've never seen this?” he asked.
“No.”
He looked at his father.
“You told me these were destroyed.”
“They were.”
“Apparently not.”
Tessa leaned forward.
“Who is the woman beside my mother?”
Salvatore stared at the photograph.
“My sister.”
Tessa waited.
“Her name was Caterina.”
The C.
Tessa touched her pendant.
Salvatore noticed.
“That belonged to her.”
Tessa's fingers froze.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My mother gave it to me.”
“Because Caterina gave it to your mother.”
“Why?”
Salvatore looked toward the diner window.
For a long moment, he seemed to be deciding how much truth a person could survive at once.
“Your mother, Elaine, came to Sicily when she was twenty-three.”
Tessa frowned.
“My mother never went to Sicily.”
“She lived there for nearly a year.”
“No.”
“She worked for an American legal organization handling property disputes for immigrants returning from the United States.”
“My mother was an accountant.”
“Later.”
Tessa looked at Gabriel.
He was watching his father carefully.
Salvatore continued.
“Elaine met Caterina there. They became friends.”
“And Antonio?”
“Antonio was Caterina's husband.”
Tessa stared at him.
Mr. Cosenza had been married?
In eighteen years, he had never mentioned a wife.
Not once.
“No.”
Salvatore nodded.
“They married when they were nineteen.”
“What happened to her?”
The old man's face hardened.
“She disappeared.”
“When?”
“Thirty-one years ago.”
Tessa calculated automatically.
Three years before she was born.
“And you think she's dead?”
“I thought she was.”
“Thought?”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“Dad.”
Salvatore ignored him.
“Six months ago, I received a letter.”
“From Caterina?”
“No name. But it contained a sentence only she and I knew.”
Tessa felt the diner shrinking around her.
“What sentence?”
Salvatore looked directly into her eyes.
“The same phrase I said to you last night.”
Keep the door closed until morning.
Tessa sat back.
“That proves nothing.”
“No.”
“Anyone could have heard it.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because of your accent.”
“My accent?”
“You don't merely speak Sicilian. You speak Antonio's Sicilian.”
“Because he taught me.”
“He was from a neighborhood where fewer than two thousand people spoke that way when he was young. You copied his vowels. His pauses. Even the way he insulted me when we were boys.”
Tessa frowned.
“You were friends?”
Salvatore smiled without warmth.
“Brothers, once.”
“What happened?”
“We became different men.”
“That's not an answer.”
“It is the only one you're getting today.”
Tessa's anger returned.
“You drag my mother into this, tell me the man who practically raised me had a missing wife, and then decide which answers I'm allowed to have?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You should listen to him.”
“Why?”
“Because some of these answers may put you in danger.”
Tessa laughed.
“Someone came to my apartment last night.”
“Yes.”
“So I think we're past that.”
Gabriel had no response.
A waitress approached.
Salvatore ordered coffee.
Tessa ordered nothing.
Gabriel ordered black coffee without looking at the menu.
The waitress walked away.
Tessa tapped the photograph.
“Why did someone write that I must never know why?”
Salvatore stared at her.
“I don't know.”
“Who wrote it?”
“I believe Antonio.”
“You recognize his handwriting?”
“Yes.”
Tessa did too.
She had deliberately avoided admitting it.
The capital T.
Antonio always made it with a long horizontal stroke.
The handwriting was his.
“Why would he hide this photograph in my building?”
“We don't know that he did.”
“Then who put it under my door?”
“That is what I intend to find out.”
Tessa shook her head.
“No.”
Salvatore's eyebrow lifted.
“No?”
“You don't get to ‘intend’ anything. This is my life.”
Gabriel said quietly, “She's right.”
Salvatore turned toward his son.
The tension between them returned instantly.
Tessa saw it clearly now.
Gabriel was not afraid of his father.
But neither was he free of him.
“Interesting,” Salvatore murmured. “You have known her for what? Twelve Thursdays?”
Gabriel's eyes hardened.
“That doesn't matter.”
“It appears to matter to you.”
“Stop.”
Tessa looked between them.
“Whatever weird father-son argument you're about to have, leave me out of it.”
Gabriel looked almost embarrassed.
Salvatore looked entertained.
Then the old man's expression changed.
He reached across the table.
Not toward Tessa.
Toward the photograph.
His finger touched the unknown stone building behind the four people.
“There.”
Tessa followed his finger.
A window.
Behind the glass was a fifth figure.
Barely visible.
A man.
She had not noticed him.
Gabriel took out his phone and magnified the image.
The photograph was old and grainy.
But the face became clearer.
Gabriel's expression changed.
“Who is that?”
Salvatore did not answer.
“Dad.”
Salvatore took the phone.
For the first time since Tessa had met him, the old man looked genuinely frightened.
“Impossible.”
Tessa leaned forward.
“Who?”
Salvatore put the phone down.
“That photograph was taken in 1993.”
“I can read the date.”
“The man in that window was declared dead in 1991.”
Tessa stared at him.
“Who is he?”
Salvatore looked toward the diner entrance.
His face went still.
Gabriel followed his gaze.
A man had just entered.
Gray coat.
Late sixties.
Ordinary face.
He took a booth near the counter without looking at them.
But Salvatore's hand tightened around his cane.
“We're leaving,” Gabriel said.
“Why?”
“Now.”
Tessa refused to move.
“Who is he?”
Gabriel stood.
“Tessa.”
“No.”
Salvatore leaned closer.
His voice was barely audible.
“That man at the counter isn't the one in the photograph.”
“Then what's wrong?”
“He followed us here.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he followed me yesterday.”
Gabriel pulled cash from his wallet.
Tessa stared at him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Dad, why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I wasn't sure.”
Gabriel's controlled demeanor cracked.
“You came here anyway?”
“I needed to see her.”
“Why?”
Salvatore looked at Tessa.
His answer was simple.
“Because if Elaine's daughter really had Antonio's photograph, then Caterina's letter wasn't about me.”
Tessa felt cold.
“What was it about?”
Salvatore slowly looked at the pendant around her neck.
“You.”
They left through the kitchen.
Tessa hated every second of it.
Gabriel moved quickly but without panic.
Salvatore followed.
They emerged into an alley where another car was waiting.
Tessa stopped.
“I'm not getting in.”
Gabriel turned.
“The man inside that diner followed my father.”
“That's your problem.”
“He may have followed you last night.”
That stopped her.
Gabriel opened the rear door.
“Five minutes. We'll take you somewhere public.”
Tessa stared at him.
Then at Salvatore.
Then back toward the alley entrance.
She got in.
Twenty minutes later, they were inside a private office above an old Italian bakery in Brooklyn.
It belonged to no Rossi company, according to Gabriel.
Tessa did not believe him.
Salvatore removed his coat.
Gabriel locked the door.
“Now,” Tessa said, “tell me everything.”
Salvatore sat.
“I cannot.”
She turned toward the exit.
“Then I'm leaving.”
“Tessa.”
It was Gabriel.
She stopped.
“My father can't tell you everything because he doesn't know everything.”
Salvatore glared at him.
Gabriel continued anyway.
“Antonio disappeared from our family's life thirty years ago. Caterina vanished. Your mother returned to America. And shortly afterward, several people connected to all three of them began denying they'd ever known each other.”
Tessa looked at Salvatore.
“Why?”
“That,” Gabriel said, “is the question.”
Tessa took out the photograph.
“What does this have to do with me?”
Gabriel pointed toward her pendant.
“Maybe nothing.”
“And maybe?”
Before he could answer, Salvatore spoke.
“Open it.”
Tessa frowned.
“The pendant?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn't open.”
“It does.”
She stared at him.
Salvatore extended his hand.
Tessa did not give it to him.
“Tell me how.”
He sighed.
“Press beneath the C.”
Tessa removed the necklace.
She ran her thumbnail beneath the engraved letter.
Nothing.
She pressed harder.
Click.
The pendant separated.
Tessa stopped breathing.
Inside was no photograph.
No lock of hair.
There was a tiny folded strip of paper.
Her fingers trembled as she removed it.
The paper was yellow with age.
One line had been written in faded blue ink.
Tessa recognized her mother's handwriting immediately.
She unfolded it.
Three words.
Find Antonio's book.
Tessa stared.
Gabriel read over her shoulder.
“What book?”
Tessa's heart began pounding.
She knew.
Six years earlier, after Antonio died, his landlord had asked whether she wanted anything before the apartment was cleared.
Tessa had taken one thing.
A thick leather journal she had never been able to open.
The cover had no title.
The pages appeared blank because they were glued together along the edges.
She had assumed it was damaged.
She had placed it in a storage box with photographs and forgotten it.
Until now.
“My apartment,” she whispered.
Gabriel understood immediately.
“The book is there?”
Tessa nodded.
Salvatore stood.
“We go now.”
They reached Tessa's building forty minutes later.
The hallway was empty.
Her door looked normal.
Tessa unlocked it.
Then stopped.
The medical bills were still on the counter.
Her mug was still in the sink.
Her coat from last night was still over the chair.
But the storage box beneath the bookshelf was sitting in the middle of the living room.
Open.
Tessa slowly approached.
Everything was there.
Her graduation photographs.
Her mother's letters.
Antonio's old reading glasses.
Everything except the leather journal.
Gabriel crouched beside the box.
“Someone knew exactly what they wanted.”
Tessa saw something beneath the photographs.
A white envelope.
It had not been there before.
Her name was written across the front.
THERESA.
Salvatore whispered something behind her.
Tessa looked back.
The old man's face had gone pale.
“What?”
He pointed at the handwriting.
“I know who wrote that.”
Tessa tore open the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
One sentence.
If Salvatore Rossi is standing beside you, ask him what happened to Caterina at the train station.
Tessa slowly raised her eyes.
Salvatore had already backed toward the door.
Gabriel turned to his father.
“What happened at the train station?”
Salvatore said nothing.
“Dad.”
Nothing.
Tessa stepped toward him.
“Tell me.”
The old man looked suddenly exhausted.
“Caterina was supposed to leave Sicily that night.”
“With Antonio?”
“No.”
“With my mother?”
Salvatore closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Tessa felt her pulse in her throat.
“What happened?”
Before Salvatore could answer, someone knocked.
Three slow knocks.
Exactly like the night before.
Gabriel moved toward the door.
Tessa caught his sleeve.
“Don't.”
Another knock.
Then a woman's voice came through the wood.
Old.
Unsteady.
Speaking Sicilian.
“Salvatore.”
The elderly man went completely still.
The voice spoke again.
This time it said the name nobody in that room expected.
May you like
“Antonio sent me.”
The door handle began to move...
