Chapter 4 - THE CHILD'S DRAWING
“It wasn't Anthony in the car,” I said aloud, my voice echoing in the silent dining room. Luca turned to me, his face a mask of shock. “What do you mean?” Eleanor’s hands kept moving, the ASL sharp and frantic. Anthony found out. About the money. About the betrayal. He tried to stop them. “Stop who?” Luca asked, stepping closer to his mother’s wheelchair. Before Eleanor could sign again, a loud crash came from upstairs. Glass shattering. Vanessa screamed. “Mia!” She ran for the stairs, abandoning all pretense of dignity. Luca and Marco were right behind her. I stayed with Eleanor. I crouched beside her wheelchair. “Mrs. Moretti, who was in the car twenty years ago?” She looked at me, tears spilling over her wrinkled cheeks. My husband. My heart stopped. Her husband hadn’t died of a heart attack like the family legend claimed. He was in the car that went off the bridge. Upstairs, there was shouting. Then, silence. A minute later, Luca came down the stairs. He was carrying a seven-year-old girl. Mia. Vanessa’s daughter. She was clutching a child’s drawing in her hands, her face buried in Luca’s shoulder. The window in her bedroom had been smashed from the outside. Someone had tried to take her. Luca set Mia down gently on the sofa. “Did you see who it was, sweetheart?” Luca asked softly. Mia nodded, trembling. She held out the drawing she had been clutching. It was a crayon sketch of a man. A man with a jagged scar across his cheek, wearing a very specific silver rosary around his neck. I recognized the rosary. I had seen it hanging from the rearview mirror of Marco’s security SUV just yesterday. I slowly turned my head toward the foyer. Marco was standing by the front door, his hand resting casually on his holstered weapon. And he was looking right at me.
