Chương 4 - MY MOTHER’S NECKLACE
For most of my life, my mother’s necklace had been nothing more than a memory I could touch.
Sofia Ferrari died when I was nineteen.
An ordinary highway accident.
Rain.
A truck that crossed a center line.
A state trooper standing in our kitchen afterward because my father had already been gone for years and there was nobody else to tell me.
At least, that was the story I had lived with.
Now Viriato was staring at her necklace as though it belonged in an evidence locker.
“What did my mother have to do with your family?”
Nikolai answered carefully.
“I don’t know.”
I laughed once.
It came out bitter.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Your mother gave mine a watch.”
“We don’t know that.”
“My mother’s initials are on it.”
“That means they knew each other. It doesn’t tell me how.”
I looked at Viriato.
“You know more.”
He nodded.
“Some.”
“Then stop protecting me from information.”
His eyes shifted toward my stomach.
“I’m not trying to protect you from information.”
“Then what?”
“From what the information may mean.”
That chilled me.
Nikolai pulled a chair toward the bed.
“Start at the beginning.”
Viriato sat.
“Tomas began investigating money that moved through your father’s charitable network. One organization appeared repeatedly.”
“Heartwell Foundation,” Nikolai said.
My eyes snapped toward him.
“The people hosting tonight?”
“Yes.”
The medical suite suddenly felt colder.
Viriato continued.
“Tomas believed someone inside Heartwell was using Machado companies to clean money through construction projects, medical grants, relief funds.”
“And my mother?”
“She was an accountant.”
I stared at him.
“My mother taught middle-school art.”
“Later.”
“What?”
“Before you were born, Sofia Ferrari worked in forensic accounting.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“She did.”
“She never told me.”
“That was probably intentional.”
Anger rose so fast it almost made me dizzy.
Every answer was becoming another lie someone had decided I could live without.
I reached for the locket.
“My mother gave me this the year she died.”
Nikolai watched my fingers.
“You said you never opened it.”
“I tried.”
The hinge had always seemed decorative.
Viriato took the necklace carefully.
Instead of pulling at the seam, he pressed the broken wing engraved on the swallow.
Click.
The locket opened.
I stopped breathing.
Inside was a photograph no bigger than my thumbnail.
Two young women stood beside the ocean.
One was my mother.
I recognized her instantly.
The other woman had Nikolai’s eyes.
“Elena,” he whispered.
My mother was laughing.
Nikolai’s mother had one arm around her shoulders.
Neither looked frightened.
Neither looked like women trapped inside a criminal conspiracy.
Behind the photograph was a folded strip of thin paper.
Viriato unfolded it.
Six numbers.
47 — 18 — 32 — 06 — 11 — 04
Beneath them, one word.
LARK.
Nikolai frowned.
“I’ve seen that format.”
“Where?”
“Old transit lockers.”
Viriato nodded slowly.
“The original Heartwell terminal.”
I knew the building.
Half the downtown train station had been converted into shops years ago, but the lower concourse still contained rows of old brass rental lockers kept as historic decoration.
“You think my mother hid something there?”
“She wanted someone to find it.”
“Who?”
Viriato looked at Nikolai.
“Possibly Elena.”
That was the moment I should have listened to the doctor.
I should have gone home.
I should have put my feet up, drunk water, and remembered I was seven months pregnant.
Instead, forty minutes later, I was walking through a nearly empty train terminal with Nikolai beside me and Viriato ten steps ahead.
Nikolai was furious.
Not at me.
Which was somehow worse.
“You should not be here.”
“I’m aware.”
“You could have given me the necklace.”
“And stayed somewhere wondering what everyone else was learning about my mother?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
He looked down at me.
“You’re impossible.”
“You liked that about me.”
“I still do.”
The answer caught me off guard.
So did his hand when it reached for mine.
He stopped himself before touching me.
That hurt too.
Locker 47 was in the old concourse.
Inside was a rusted metal box.
Viriato removed it and carried it to a bench.
Nikolai checked the corridor while I used the remaining numbers on the locket paper.
The box opened.
Inside were three objects.
A blue rosary.
A faded photograph.
And a thick black sketchbook.
I reached for the photograph first.
My mother stood beside Elena Machado.
With them was Viriato.
And another man who looked almost exactly like him.
Tomas.
All four were smiling.
On the back my mother had written:
For the people our children deserve us to become.
I looked at Viriato.
“You knew her.”
His silence answered first.
“Yes.”
“You said you knew some things.”
“I did.”
“You were standing next to my mother.”
“Yes.”
Anger burned behind my eyes.
Nikolai looked equally stunned.
“You never told me this.”
Viriato rubbed a hand across his mouth.
“I promised Sofia I would not.”
“She’s dead,” I snapped.
“I know.”
“So your promise mattered more than telling me why someone is hunting my baby?”
“No.”
He looked directly at me.
“That’s why I brought you here.”
I opened the sketchbook.
Most of the pages contained shipping figures, names, dates, strange symbols.
Some entries were written in my mother’s handwriting.
Others belonged to someone else.
Elena, perhaps.
Halfway through the book I found a page titled:
EXPOSED PERSONNEL.
Four names were listed.
One had been underlined twice in red.
VIRIATO COSTA.
Beside it was one word.
COMPROMISED.
My blood went cold.
Nikolai saw it over my shoulder.
Everything inside him seemed to shut down.
“Viriato.”
Viriato looked at the page.
Then closed his eyes.
Nikolai stepped between him and me.
“Give me your weapon.”
Viriato did not move.
“Now.”
Slowly, he removed the pistol beneath his jacket.
He placed it on the bench.
Then the knife from his ankle.
Then a second smaller weapon I hadn’t even known he carried.
Nikolai stared at his oldest friend.
“Twelve years.”
Viriato nodded.
“You told me Tomas died because someone betrayed him.”
“Yes.”
“You told me you never knew who.”
“That was true.”
Nikolai pointed at the page.
“Then explain that.”
Viriato looked at me.
Not Nikolai.
Me.
“Your mother wrote that word three days before Tomas died.”
My fingers tightened around the sketchbook.
“What did it mean?”
Viriato’s eyes filled with something I had never seen there before.
Grief.
“It meant my cover had been exposed.”
Nikolai’s anger faltered.
Viriato reached toward the blue rosary in the metal box but stopped before touching it.
“And that rosary belonged to my brother.”
I looked down.
A tiny silver crucifix hung from the beads.
One side was darkened.
Almost black.
Viriato’s voice dropped.
“Tomas was carrying it the night he died.”
Nikolai went still.
“How did Sofia get it?”
Viriato looked at him for a long moment.
Then at me.
“She took it from his body.”
A chill ran through me.
“Was she there when he died?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
May you like
Viriato swallowed.
“Because Tomas died saving your mother’s life.”
