Chapter 10 - THE MOTHER I BURIED SEVEN YEARS AGO
I read the sentence six times.
My mother is alive.
The words didn't make sense.
I'd attended her funeral.
I'd watched her coffin disappear into the ground.
I'd spent seven birthdays wishing she could call me.
Seven Christmases staring at the empty chair beside our tree.
Dominic sat quietly while I unfolded the rest of the letter.
Emily,
I know you have every reason to hate me.
Your mother wanted to come back. She tried more times than you can imagine.
But the people who controlled her would have killed you and Lucy if she returned.
She has spent seven years protecting both of you from a distance.
The accident was staged. The woman buried under her name was someone else.
I'm sorry I helped keep this secret.
If I disappear, find the blue house near the old lighthouse in Waukegan.
Ask for Anna.
And Emily, please remember one thing.
Your mother never stopped loving you.
I lowered the letter.
Tears blurred the page.
Dominic reached toward me, then stopped.
“May I?”
I nodded.
He took my hand.
His palm was warm.
Solid.
Real.
“Do you believe it?” I whispered.
“I believe Patricia thought it was true.”
“What if it's another trap?”
“Then we don't walk into it blindly.”
I looked at him.
“I have to go.”
“I know.”
Within an hour, Dominic's attorney had arranged for a detective named Sarah Whitmore to meet us.
She was in her forties, sharp-eyed, and unimpressed by Dominic's reputation.
“I've been investigating Vittorio Moretti's network for four years,” she told me.
“Then you knew he was alive?”
“I suspected it.”
“Why didn't you tell Dominic?”
She glanced at him.
“Because I wasn't sure which side he was on.”
Dominic didn't argue.
Sarah continued.
“Patricia contacted us two weeks ago. She wanted immunity in exchange for testimony.”
“About my mother?”
“About everything.”
My chest tightened.
“Did she say where Lucy is?”
Sarah nodded.
“She said your sister had recently discovered her identity and was trying to find you.”
I began crying again.
Dominic squeezed my hand.
Sarah waited until I could breathe.
Then she showed us a photograph of a small blue house overlooking Lake Michigan.
“Patricia mentioned this address. We have a team watching it.”
“Is anyone inside?” I asked.
“An older woman. She uses the name Anna Miller.”
My heart pounded.
“How old?”
“Fifty-eight.”
My mother would have been fifty-eight.
Dominic looked at Sarah.
“Can we go?”
She hesitated.
“Under police protection.”
“Agreed.”
The drive to Waukegan took less than an hour.
Snow covered the narrow streets.
Lake Michigan stretched beyond the houses, dark and restless beneath the winter sky.
When we arrived, two unmarked police vehicles waited nearby.
Sarah approached the blue front door.
She knocked.
Footsteps sounded inside.
The door opened.
A woman stood in the doorway wearing a gray cardigan.
Her hair was silver now.
Her face thinner.
But I knew her eyes.
I knew them before she spoke.
“Emily?”
My knees weakened.
“Mom?”
She covered her mouth.
Then she began to cry.
I moved toward her.
For one impossible second, I was twenty-three again.
A daughter who still had a mother.
She reached for me.
May you like
But before our hands touched, a gunshot cracked from across the street.
And my mother collapsed.
