Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
“Someone knows she escaped.”
Gabriel remained beside the nursery window, watching the black sedan disappear beyond the gates.
“Who?”
Luca shook his head.
“I don't know.”
“You recognized the car.”
“No.”
“You recognized the driver?”
“No.”
“Then why are you afraid?”
Luca looked at him.
“Because that photograph shouldn't exist.”
Gabriel held up the old picture.
“My father knew Norah's mother.”
“Your father knew a lot of people.”
“Not like this.”
Luca said nothing.
Gabriel turned the photograph over again.
The handwriting remained unmistakable.
Ask why they were watching her.
“Take me to the old family office.”
Luca frowned.
“That room has been sealed for years.”
“Open it.”
They crossed the mansion.
Gabriel had not entered his father's office since the funeral.
Dust covered the dark wooden shelves.
The old desk remained exactly where it had been.
His father's chair.
His father's books.
His father's brass ashtray.
Even the old wall clock still ticked unevenly.
Gabriel walked to the desk.
He remembered being twenty-two years old and standing here while his father told him that loyalty mattered more than love.
At the time, Gabriel had thought it was advice about business.
Now he wasn't sure.
He opened the desk drawers.
Nothing.
The second drawer contained old financial ledgers.
The third held a silver rosary.
Gabriel stopped.
His mother had owned it.
She had given it to his father before she died.
Gabriel lifted it carefully.
A small photograph was tucked beneath the beads.
He pulled it free.
Norah's mother.
His father.
And another man.
Victor Vale.
All three stood outside a hospital.
On the back was a date.
October 14, 1998.
Gabriel stared.
Norah had been born in 1996.
She had been two years old.
“What happened in 1998?”
Luca's face had gone hard.
“Your father never talked about it.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“You're lying.”
“I was told not to.”
“By whom?”
Luca didn't answer.
Gabriel placed the photograph on the desk.
“Then I'll ask someone who will.”
He reached for his phone.
Before he could dial, Luca stopped him.
“Gabriel.”
“What?”
“Your father left instructions about Norah.”
Gabriel froze.
“What instructions?”
Luca walked toward the old bookshelf.
He pulled out a heavy volume.
Behind it was a narrow metal compartment.
Inside was a sealed envelope.
Gabriel recognized the handwriting immediately.
His father's.
The envelope was addressed to Luca.
Not Gabriel.
Luca stared at it.
“I was supposed to destroy this if Norah ever disappeared.”
Gabriel's voice became dangerously quiet.
“You didn't.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because your father also told me that if you ever became cruel enough to make her afraid, I was to protect her.”
Gabriel flinched.
Luca handed him the envelope.
Inside was a single photograph.
Norah stood beside her mother.
A younger Gabriel stood several feet away.
They had never met.
But in the background was Victor Vale.
And next to him was Gabriel's father.
On the back, his father had written:
The girl is not the danger. What was done to her family is.
Gabriel stared at the words.
Then another realization hit.
Norah's mother hadn't simply known his father.
She had been afraid of him.
“Find her mother,” Gabriel said.
“She died.”
“I know.”
“Then who?”
“Someone who knew her.”
Luca looked at the photograph.
“There is one person.”
“Who?”
“Her older sister.”
Gabriel's head snapped up.
“Norah has a sister?”
“She did.”
“Did?”
“She disappeared years ago.”
Gabriel's chest tightened.
“Everybody around this woman disappears.”
Luca's expression was grim.
“Not everybody.”
He pointed at the photograph.
“Somebody stays behind to remember.”
Three hours later, Gabriel stood outside a small apartment in Evanston.
It was nothing like the Costa estate.
No gates.
No guards.
No marble.
Just an old brick building and a narrow staircase.
A woman named Elise Marlowe opened the door.
She was in her early fifties.
Her eyes went immediately to Gabriel.
Then to Luca.
Then back to Gabriel.
“You're him.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I'm looking for Norah.”
Elise laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
“You're always looking for something after you've already destroyed it.”
Gabriel accepted the insult.
“She's my wife.”
“She was your wife before she became the mother of your children.”
That sentence cut deeper than he expected.
“Where is she?”
Elise stepped aside.
“Come in.”
The apartment smelled of coffee and old paper.
Photographs covered one wall.
Norah at six.
Norah at ten.
Norah at sixteen.
Norah on her wedding day.
Gabriel stopped at the last one.
Norah was smiling.
He remembered that day.
He had thought she was happy.
Elise stood beside him.
“She loved you.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Loved?”
“She did.”
“What changed?”
Elise's eyes hardened.
“You did.”
Gabriel swallowed.
“Bianca?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Elise walked to a cabinet.
She removed a small wooden box.
Inside was an old hospital bracelet.
BABY NORA MARLOWE.
Gabriel stared.
“You said she had been watched.”
“She was.”
“By my father?”
“By several people.”
“Why?”
Elise looked at him.
“Because your father believed Norah's mother had stolen something from him.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Gabriel frowned.
“A business ledger?”
“No.”
Elise removed an old photograph.
“This.”
It showed a newborn baby wrapped in a white blanket.
Gabriel stared.
“I don't understand.”
“That baby was not Norah.”
His heart stopped.
Elise continued.
“Norah's mother gave birth to another child before Norah. A boy.”
Gabriel looked at the photograph.
“Where is he?”
Elise's voice became quiet.
“He disappeared.”
Gabriel's mind raced.
“What does this have to do with my wife?”
“Everything.”
She opened the wooden box.
Inside was a tiny brass key.
And a folded card.
Gabriel read it.
ROOM 417 — ST. AGNES
He looked up.
“What is Room 417?”
Elise shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“You gave me the key.”
“I said I don't know what it opens.”
Gabriel turned the card over.
A second message had been written on the back.
If Norah has twins, the past has come back for them.
Gabriel's blood ran cold.
“How would anyone know she had twins?”
Elise looked toward the window.
“I don't know.”
Then her expression changed.
She had noticed something outside.
A black sedan was parked across the street.
The same model Gabriel had seen leaving his estate.
Elise whispered:
“They found us.”
Gabriel moved toward the window.
The sedan's engine started.
But before it pulled away, the rear window lowered.
A man's hand appeared.
A black leather watch glinted beneath the gray morning light.
Gabriel recognized it instantly.
May you like
Victor Vale.
And then the car disappeared.
