Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN IN THE BASEMENT HAD TOUCHED THE NECKLACE
Vivian Moretti had worked two benches away from Norah for eight months.
Quiet.
Precise.
Never late.
Never social.
Norah had assumed she was private.
Now she wondered what else she had mistaken for ordinary.
Sebastian wanted Vivian brought to his residence.
Norah refused.
Again.
“She talks to me first.”
“Why?”
“Because she knows me.”
“She also may be involved in my mother’s murder.”
“She was probably a child seventeen years ago.”
Vivian was thirty-two.
Fifteen when Elena died.
Sebastian hated logic when it slowed him down.
Good.
At Laurent & Vale, Vivian’s station was empty.
Julian had not seen her since yesterday.
Her locker contained almost nothing.
Except one photograph.
Norah recognized Sebastian immediately.
Age twenty-one.
Standing beside Elena at a summer event.
Vivian had drawn a small circle around the necklace.
On the back:
NOT THE ORIGINAL AFTER JULY.
Norah’s pulse quickened.
If true, the necklace was replaced months before Elena died.
That changed everything.
Sebastian’s accusation timeline was wrong.
The swap did not occur after the murder.
Elena herself may have worn the replica knowingly.
Then Vivian called Norah.
Private number.
“Don’t tell Sebastian where I am.”
Too late.
He was standing three feet away.
Norah said:
“Why?”
“Because my father knows he’s looking.”
“Adrian?”
“Yes.”
“Did your father kill Elena?”
Silence.
Then Vivian whispered:
“He thinks he did.”
Sebastian heard.
Norah turned on speaker.
Vivian continued.
“My father changed the medication.”
Sebastian’s face became stone.
“But Salvatore ordered it.”
“Where are you?”
“No.”
“Vivian.”
Her breathing shook.
“I found something in his records after my mother died.”
“What?”
“Confession letters.”
“To who?”
“Isabella.”
Sebastian stepped closer to the phone.
“My aunt?”
“Yes.”
That made no sense.
If Adrian confessed to Isabella, Isabella survived long enough to receive letters after Elena’s death.
“When?”
“Over twelve years.”
Sebastian froze.
“You’re saying Isabella was alive twelve years after she disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Vivian started crying.
“My father mailed letters through intermediaries. I copied addresses. Most were mail drops.”
“Most?”
Norah caught it.
“One wasn’t.”
Vivian gave them an address.
Milwaukee.
A small duplex.
Registered under the name Isabel Moreno.
Luca checked.
The woman lived there for eleven years.
Then vanished five years ago.
Sebastian stared at the file.
Photograph unavailable.
Norah asked Vivian:
“Why were you in the vault?”
“I was checking the replica.”
“For what?”
“The microfilm strip.”
“You knew it was there?”
“My father told me.”
“And?”
Vivian’s voice broke.
“It was missing.”
Norah looked at the metal strip now sealed in evidence.
“Not anymore.”
Silence.
Then Vivian whispered:
“If you found that strip, Sebastian needs to read the last line.”
Norah looked.
They had focused on codes.
Names.
Dates.
At the bottom, nearly microscopic, was one sentence:
S. MUST NEVER KNOW WHO HIS FATHER IS.
Sebastian Romano stared at the words.
May you like
His mother’s hidden message was not only about murder.
It was about his birth.
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