Chapter 2 - THE BABY WHO DISAPPEARED TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO
I laughed.
It was either laugh or run.
“This is insane.”
Nobody argued.
That somehow made it worse.
“My mother was Laura Marshall.”
“Yes,” Dante said.
“She raised me.”
“Yes.”
“I have photographs.”
“I know.”
“She gave birth to me.”
Dante glanced at Dr. Grant.
The geneticist folded his hands.
“Do you have a birth certificate?”
“Of course.”
“Original?”
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
My mother had always kept it in a bank box.
After she died three years earlier, I found only a certified copy.
Dr. Grant continued.
“Your hospital of birth closed in 2004. Several neonatal records were destroyed in a flood.”
I stared.
“You’re telling me my entire identity is fake?”
“No,” he said. “I’m telling you there are inconsistencies.”
I stood.
“I’m leaving.”
Orion immediately stood too.
Dante remained seated.
“I won’t stop you.”
That surprised me.
“But?”
“But someone accessed your employment file fourteen hours after Orion touched you.”
I froze.
“What?”
Marco turned a laptop toward me.
“Someone searched your Social Security number, home address, restaurant schedule, and emergency contact information.”
My anger became fear.
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
Dante stood.
“Yet.”
I looked at Orion.
He sat between us, watching me.
“Why does this dog matter?”
Dante’s expression softened fractionally.
“Elena trained Nero.”
“For what?”
“Protection.”
I looked back at the photograph.
“She was involved with you?”
“My family.”
“How?”
Dante hesitated.
“Elena was my mother’s closest friend.”
That changed the room.
“My mother died when I was thirteen,” he continued. “Elena helped raise me afterward.”
I looked at the photograph again.
Young Dante looked about sixteen.
Elena’s arm rested around his shoulders.
He was smiling.
Actually smiling.
“What happened to her?”
“She discovered someone stealing from my father.”
“Money?”
“Money first.”
His jaw hardened.
“Then guns.”
My stomach tightened.
“She gathered evidence. Before she could deliver it, her apartment burned.”
“And her body?”
“Never found.”
“The baby?”
“Never found.”
I sat again.
“Then why was she declared dead?”
“Because people wanted the case closed.”
That sounded ominous enough without explanation.
Marco placed a small evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a silver pendant.
A tiny moon.
“We found this photograph in Elena’s file.”
He showed me another picture.
The missing baby wore the same moon pendant.
I touched my throat automatically.
Empty.
My mother had given me a moon pendant when I was little.
I had lost it when I was twelve.
Or thought I had.
“Where did you get that?”
Dante watched me.
“Your restaurant locker.”
I shot to my feet.
“You searched my locker?”
“Our man found it inside yesterday.”
“That pendant disappeared fourteen years ago.”
Silence.
Someone had placed it there.
Recently.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One text.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LET THE DOG BITE YOU.
A second message appeared.
ELENA MADE THE SAME MISTAKE YOU’RE MAKING.
I stared at the screen.
Then a photograph loaded.
My apartment door.
Taken from the hallway.
Ten minutes earlier.
Dante took the phone from my shaking hand.
His entire face changed.
“Marco.”
“Yes.”
“Send a team.”
I grabbed Dante’s wrist.
“My roommate is home.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“You have a roommate?”
“Yes.”
“Name?”
“Rachel.”
Marco was already calling.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then my phone rang.
Rachel.
I answered.
“Rachel?”
A man’s voice said:
“Hello, Olivia.”
May you like
My blood turned cold.
“We’ve been waiting twenty-five years for you to come back.”
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