Chapter 4 - What Anna Knew Before the Bridge
Dominic wanted the truth immediately.
Eleanor refused.
For the first time since I had met him, Dominic Moretti lost control.
“What did my daughter know?”
His voice shook the room.
Eleanor didn’t flinch.
“She knew enough to get herself killed.”
“We don’t know she’s dead.”
“She believed she would be.”
“Answer me.”
I stepped between them.
“Stop.”
Dominic looked at me.
“So much for not using the daughter card,” I said.
His anger cracked.
He turned away.
I looked at Eleanor.
“You owe me everything now.”
She nodded.
Then she began.
Anna had come to Eleanor four years earlier after finding old documents in storage at the Moretti family estate.
Not business documents.
Personal ones.
Letters written by Claire Bennett.
Letters addressed to Dominic.
One contained a photograph of baby me.
Another said:
She has your eyes.
Eleanor had preserved copies.
Anna tracked her through an old address.
When she knocked on Eleanor’s door, she already knew I existed.
“She asked to see you,” Eleanor said.
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
I stared.
“When?”
“You were working at a diner in Bay Ridge.”
My stomach tightened.
I remembered a dark-haired woman who used to come in every Thursday.
Always alone.
Always ordered coffee.
Sometimes watched me when she thought I wasn’t looking.
I had assumed she was lonely.
“Anna came to the diner?”
Eleanor nodded.
“She didn’t tell you who she was.”
“Why?”
“She wanted proof first.”
“Proof of what?”
“That Dominic was your father.”
I looked toward him.
He stood by the window, motionless.
“Anna had spent her whole life believing her mother was Dominic’s only serious relationship,” Eleanor continued. “Finding Claire’s letters changed that.”
Dominic turned.
“Anna’s mother knew about Claire.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She helped Claire leave.”
The room went quiet.
Dominic stared.
“What?”
“Maria knew Claire was pregnant.”
Dominic’s face went pale.
Maria Moretti had died twelve years earlier.
The mother of the daughter Dominic thought he had lost.
Eleanor explained.
Maria had discovered Claire was pregnant.
Not out of jealousy.
Out of fear.
Dominic’s father, Salvatore Moretti, had still controlled the family then.
Salvatore believed illegitimate children were vulnerabilities.
Maria helped Claire disappear before Salvatore could discover the pregnancy.
Dominic sat down heavily.
“My wife knew I had another daughter?”
“She knew Claire was pregnant,” Eleanor said. “I don’t know if she knew Lily survived.”
I could barely process any of it.
Dominic looked twenty years older.
Then Gabriel entered.
“We found something.”
He placed a folder on the table.
Martin Vale’s financial records.
Moretti Holdings had paid millions over eight years to construction companies that existed only on paper.
Fake contractors.
Fake invoices.
Real money.
Anna had discovered the same accounts.
“Why would Martin kidnap you?” I asked.
“Because I ordered an audit.”
“When?”
“Four days before Warehouse 19.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Martin probably assumed Dominic had discovered what Anna found.”
“And the bridge?”
“We checked Anna’s maintenance records.”
He opened another file.
“Her brake system was serviced two days before the crash.”
“By who?”
“A garage owned by one of Martin’s shell companies.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“It wasn’t an accident.”
“No.”
For three years, he had blamed weather.
Himself.
Fate.
Now someone had a name.
Martin Vale.
But something still bothered me.
“If Martin wanted Anna dead, why didn’t they find her body?”
Gabriel looked at Dominic.
“That question just got more interesting.”
He handed over a police report.
A witness had called 911 the night of the crash.
A truck driver named Steven Morrow.
He reported seeing two vehicles stopped on the bridge before Anna’s car went over.
The official report only mentioned one.
Anna’s.
Someone had removed part of his statement from the final file.
“Where is Morrow?” Dominic asked.
“Vermont.”
We left the next morning.
I didn’t want to go.
Then again, I did.
The truth had become a hook under my ribs.
Eleanor stayed behind under protection.
Dominic and I sat in the back of an SUV for four hours and barely spoke.
Finally he said, “You can hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“That’s generous.”
“I don’t know you well enough to hate you.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
I looked out the window.
“Did you love my mother?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
That hurt.
“Then why didn’t you find her?”
“I tried.”
“She lived forty minutes away.”
“She changed her name.”
“You have people.”
“I didn’t twenty-two years ago.”
“You were still a Moretti.”
“That name opened doors and closed others.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“She told me she lost the baby. Then she disappeared. I believed her because I thought believing her was respecting the pain she wanted private.”
His voice lowered.
“I should have looked harder.”
I didn’t answer.
At a diner outside Rutland, we met Steven Morrow.
He was seventy now.
Thin.
Suspicious.
Dominic didn’t threaten him.
He showed Anna’s photograph.
Morrow’s expression softened.
“I remember her.”
“What did you see?”
“A black sedan pushed her car toward the rail.”
Dominic’s breathing changed.
“Pushed?”
“Not hard at first. Bumped it. Then again.”
“Did you see who was driving?”
“No.”
“What happened after the car went over?”
Morrow looked uncomfortable.
“There was a man on the bridge.”
“What man?”
“He got out of the sedan.”
“Then?”
“He climbed down the embankment.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“Toward the water?”
“Yes.”
“Did he come back?”
Morrow swallowed.
“Not alone.”
My skin prickled.
“With who?”
“A woman.”
Dominic’s face drained.
“Anna?”
“I couldn’t see her face. She was hurt. He carried her into the sedan.”
The room disappeared around us.
Anna had survived the crash.
At least initially.
“Why wasn’t this in the report?” Dominic asked.
“I told police. A detective came back the next day and said I must have been confused.”
“Name?”
Morrow thought.
“Ruiz. No. Russo.”
Gabriel went rigid.
Dominic slowly turned.
“What?”
Gabriel’s face had gone white.
“My brother was a detective.”
Dominic stood.
“Gabriel.”
“He died two years ago.”
“What was his name?”
“Michael Russo.”
Morrow pointed.
“That’s it.”
Silence.
Gabriel looked devastated.
“I didn’t know.”
Dominic’s eyes were ice.
“Did your brother work for Martin?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Outside, Gabriel made calls.
Dominic and I waited by the SUV.
He looked toward the mountains.
“She survived.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t assume—”
“I buried an empty coffin.”
His voice broke.
Just once.
Then he looked at me.
“I won’t bury her twice without proof.”
Back in Brooklyn, Eleanor received a package.
Security scanned it.
No explosives.
Inside was an old digital recorder.
One file.
The voice belonged to Anna.
“If Eleanor is hearing this, I probably failed.”
Eleanor nearly dropped it.
Anna continued.
“Martin isn’t working alone.”
A pause.
Then:
“The person helping him has been inside our family longer than he has.”
Eleanor called Dominic immediately.
But before she could tell him, the lights in the townhouse went out.
Security alarms died.
A window shattered downstairs.
Eleanor backed toward the hallway.
Footsteps entered the house.
Then a familiar voice called from the darkness.
“Eleanor?”
She froze.
She knew that voice.
Everyone in the Moretti family did.
The person helping Martin Vale wasn’t a stranger.
May you like
It was Dominic’s older brother.
Anthony Moretti.
