Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Raised MeI tried calling Teresa back fourteen times.
It looked like a command center.
Men came and went through hidden doors.
Security footage filled monitors.
Phones rang behind closed doors.
And I sat at a mahogany table wearing borrowed clothes while people I had never met dissected my life.
Marcus Vale.
Thirty-one.
Marketing consultant.
No criminal record.
Two previous girlfriends.
Both had filed temporary restraining orders.
Neither pursued charges.
His mother, Diana Bellini, had died eight years earlier.
His uncle, Raymond Bellini, still owned shipping companies in New Jersey.
And Victor Sorel—the man Adrien claimed had hunted my mother—had supposedly died in France fifteen years ago.
“Supposedly?” I asked.
Adrien’s security chief, Dominic Russo, looked toward him.
Adrien nodded.
Dominic answered.
“Sorel’s body was never independently identified.”
“Of course it wasn’t.”
Nobody laughed.
I rubbed my forehead.
“This sounds insane.”
Adrien stood near the windows.
“Insane does not mean false.”
“No. But convenient does.”
He turned.
“Explain.”
“You know my mother. You have a photograph nobody else has ever shown me. You’re telling me my entire childhood was fabricated, my boyfriend may have targeted me because of some criminal conspiracy, and now I’m trapped inside your private club surrounded by armed men.”
“You aren’t trapped.”
“Can I leave?”
“Yes.”
“Will you stop me?”
“No.”
I stood.
Adrien didn’t move.
Dominic looked uncomfortable.
I walked toward the door.
My hand reached the knob.
Then I pictured Marcus waiting outside my apartment.
I pictured the shattered ceramic bowl.
His hand in my hair.
You’ll regret this.
I let go of the knob.
“I hate that you knew I wouldn’t.”
Adrien’s voice softened.
“I hoped you wouldn’t.”
Dominic cleared his throat.
“We have something.”
He connected a small reader to a laptop.
The microfilm image appeared.
At first it looked like random numbers.
Then I noticed letters.
Coordinates.
Dates.
Names.
Bank codes.
And one phrase repeated three times.
BLUE HARBOR.
“What is it?” I asked.
Adrien leaned closer.
Dominic enlarged the lower-right corner.
There was a hand-drawn symbol resembling a compass.
Beneath it:
E.H. — AGE 28
I stared.
“My initials.”
“Yes,” Dominic said.
“I’m twenty-seven.”
Adrien looked toward the windows.
“For another three months.”
My heart stopped.
“How do you know my birthday?”
He looked at me.
“March nineteenth.”
A chill spread through me.
“That isn’t my birthday.”
Adrien frowned.
“My birthday is December second.”
“No.”
The certainty in his voice irritated me.
“You don’t get to tell me when I was born.”
“Elena, the photograph was taken in May. You were roughly two months old.”
My mind raced.
Teresa always made chocolate cake on December second.
There were photos.
Birthday candles.
School forms.
Passports.
Everything said December 2, 1998.
Adrien walked toward a cabinet and removed a folder.
“I kept copies of what Isabelle gave me.”
Inside was a birth certificate.
Not mine.
At least not the one I knew.
ELENA ISABEL MOREAU
Born March 19, 1999.
Mother: Isabelle Celeste Moreau.
Father: blank.
The paper blurred.
“Why would Teresa change my birthday?”
“To make you harder to trace,” Adrien said.
“Or because this is fake.”
“Yes.”
I looked up.
Adrien’s answer surprised me.
“Yes?”
“You should question everything I show you.”
He slid the document toward me.
“We’ll have it independently authenticated.”
That was the first thing he had said that made me trust him a little more.
Dominic tapped the screen.
“Age twenty-eight may not mean her birthday. Could be a deadline.”
“For what?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
Adrien studied the phrase BLUE HARBOR.
“What was your mother afraid of?”
I laughed bitterly.
“Apparently everything.”
“Think.”
“I was eleven when she disappeared—when I thought she died. I barely remember anything from before Teresa’s house.”
“Anything unusual?”
I closed my eyes.
Fragments surfaced.
My mother humming while washing dishes.
A red umbrella.
A little apartment with yellow curtains.
A train station.
Then something else.
A game.
“She used to draw maps.”
Adrien turned.
“What?”
“When I couldn’t sleep, she drew treasure maps. She’d hide candy or coins.”
I pointed at the compass symbol.
“That was always on them.”
Dominic enlarged it.
“Did the maps have names?”
“Yes.”
“Blue Harbor?”
I stared at the screen.
Memory flashed.
Blue crayons.
A paper boat.
My mother whispering:
Someday we’ll go there where nobody can find us.
“Yes.”
Adrien came closer.
“What was Blue Harbor?”
“I thought it was imaginary.”
“What did the maps lead to?”
“A treasure.”
“What kind?”
“I was a kid. Candy. Stickers. Once a bracelet.”
Dominic asked, “How did you find it?”
“She’d give me clues.”
“What kind of clues?”
I looked at the numbers again.
Suddenly they didn’t seem random.
“Stories.”
Adrien waited.
“My mother made clues sound like stories.”
I pulled the laptop closer.
“Read me the first line.”
Dominic did.
“Fourteen. Seven. Twenty-two. Eleven.”
I translated automatically.
“N. G. V. K.”
“Meaning?”
“Shift each one back three.”
Dominic typed.
“K D S H.”
I shook my head.
“No. Mirror alphabet.”
Adrien looked at me with surprise.
“How do you know this?”
“Because she taught me.”
We worked for nearly an hour.
Childhood games became cipher keys.
Nursery rhymes became number sequences.
Colors represented streets.
Finally, one complete sentence appeared.
WHEN ELENA IS TWENTY-EIGHT, OPEN THE BLUE ROOM BENEATH HARBOR HOUSE. TRUST ADRIEN ONLY IF HE STILL WEARS HIS FATHER’S RING.
Nobody spoke.
I looked at Adrien’s hands.
His right hand was bare.
His left wore a wedding-style black signet ring.
“You’re married?”
“No.”
I pointed.
“That ring.”
Adrien slowly removed it.
Inside was engraved:
S.V.
Salvatore Viscari.
“My father’s.”
“Why did my mother use that as proof?”
Adrien stared at the ring.
“Because I told her I would never wear it.”
“Then why are you?”
His jaw tightened.
“When my father died, I learned he had protected one person before the end.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
Before I could respond, Dominic’s phone buzzed.
He read the message.
“Security found something else in Elena’s apartment.”
“What?”
“A listening device.”
My pulse jumped.
“Marcus?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“There were fingerprints.”
“His?”
Dominic hesitated.
“No.”
“Whose?”
He looked toward Adrien again.
I slammed my hand on the table.
“Stop doing that!”
Dominic faced me.
“Teresa Hart’s.”
The room disappeared around me.
“My aunt?”
“Yes.”
I stood so quickly the chair toppled.
“No.”
“Elena—”
“No.”
My mother’s sister had raised me.
Held me when I had nightmares.
Taught me to drive.
Paid for college when scholarships weren’t enough.
Sat in the front row at graduation crying harder than anyone.
She was not part of this.
She couldn’t be.
I grabbed Adrien’s phone from the table.
“Call her.”
Adrien didn’t stop me.
I punched in Teresa’s number from memory.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Then she answered.
“Elena?”
My knees nearly collapsed.
“Aunt Teresa?”
A breath.
“Where are you?”
Not Are you okay?
Not Marcus called me.
Where are you?
I swallowed.
“At home.”
Silence.
Then:
“No, you aren’t.”
My blood turned cold.
Teresa’s voice changed.
“Elena, listen carefully. Whatever Adrien Viscari told you, you cannot trust him.”
Adrien heard.
He remained expressionless.
“Why?”
“Because his family killed your mother.”
My eyes locked onto Adrien’s.
He didn’t deny it.
May you like
Teresa whispered, “And if he found the locket, you have less than forty-eight hours before they finish what they started.”
The call ended.
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