Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Detective Maria Santos pushed the second photograph across the table.
For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.
The woman in the picture stood beneath a streetlight outside a coffee shop, her face turned partly toward the camera. Her hair was shorter now. Gray touched the temples. She wore dark glasses and a beige coat.
But I knew that face.
I had spent thirteen years trying to forget it.
“That’s impossible.”
Santos watched me carefully.
“You recognize her?”
My fingers began to shake.
“My mother.”
The words barely came out.
“Elena Alvarez.”
Santos said nothing.
“My mother is dead.”
“I know what the records say.”
“She died in a car accident when I was seventeen.”
“That’s what the death certificate says.”
I looked at the photograph again.
The woman was older.
Thinner.
But the small scar above her left eyebrow was still there.
I remembered touching it when I was a child.
I remembered asking how she got it.
I fought a dragon, she used to tell me.
My stomach turned.
“Where was this taken?”
“Two nights before Emma Valente was found in the dumpster.”
Santos pulled another photograph from the file.
This one showed my mother standing beside a black sedan.
She wasn’t alone.
Karen Mitchell was beside her.
The nanny who had accused me of trying to murder Emma.
I stared at Santos.
“No.”
“They met for approximately twelve minutes.”
“No. My mother is dead.”
“Isabella—”
“I buried her.”
My voice cracked.
“I stood beside Lucia at the cemetery. I watched them lower her coffin into the ground.”
Santos leaned back.
“Did you see her body?”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
The accident had been terrible.
That was what everyone said.
The funeral director told us the damage was too severe.
The coffin remained closed.
My father had died years earlier, so Lucia and I had been alone.
I was seventeen.
Lucia was eleven.
We had believed what adults told us.
Santos folded her hands.
“The woman in that photograph has been using the name Evelyn Russo for at least eight years.”
“Who is she?”
“We’re still trying to determine that.”
“She’s my mother.”
“I believe you.”
“Then arrest her.”
Santos’s expression changed.
“For what?”
“For disappearing. For lying. For leaving two daughters alone.”
My anger broke through before the tears did.
“Lucia was eleven years old. She was already sick. Do you know what it was like trying to keep her alive while I worked two jobs and finished school?”
Santos let me speak.
I couldn’t stop.
“I learned how to stretch a bag of rice for a week. I learned which pharmacies would let me pay three days late. I learned how to smile at Lucia when I was terrified we’d lose our apartment.”
My fist tightened around the photograph.
“And she was alive?”
“I don’t know why she disappeared.”
“I don’t care why.”
But that was a lie.
I cared desperately.
Santos closed the file.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“Karen Mitchell disappeared six hours after Emma was hospitalized.”
My anger chilled.
“She ran?”
“Maybe.”
“Or somebody made her disappear.”
Santos didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
The interrogation-room door opened.
A uniformed officer entered and whispered something into Santos’s ear.
She nodded.
Then she looked at me.
“The district attorney is withdrawing the attempted-murder charge pending further investigation.”
I stared.
“What?”
“You’re being released.”
The relief should have been overwhelming.
Instead, all I felt was fear.
“What changed?”
“Emma’s toxicology report. Karen’s timeline. Hospital evidence. And the photographs.”
Santos stood.
“Someone wanted you blamed, Isabella.”
I swallowed.
“Why me?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Two hours later, I walked out of Cook County Jail wearing the same clothes I had entered in.
My uniform had been returned to me.
The tear near the shoulder was still there.
So was the faint brown stain where Emma’s wet hair had pressed against my chest.
Reporters waited beyond the barricades.
The moment I appeared, cameras flashed.
“ISABELLA!”
“DID YOU TRY TO KILL THE VALENTE BABY?”
“ARE YOU WORKING FOR A RIVAL FAMILY?”
“IS ADRIAN VALENTE PAYING YOU?”
I stopped.
Paying me?
Then I saw the black SUV.
Adrian stood beside it.
Everything around me seemed to go quiet.
He wore a charcoal coat over a black suit.
Two guards stood behind him.
No gun was visible.
He didn’t need one.
The reporters gave him space.
Adrian Valente looked at me for a long moment.
Then his eyes moved to the bruise on my cheek.
The bruise he had put there.
“I came to take you somewhere safe.”
I almost laughed.
“Safe?”
“Someone framed you for trying to murder my daughter.”
“And you helped them.”
His jaw tightened.
“I was wrong.”
“You slapped me.”
“I know.”
“You dragged me into your basement.”
“I know.”
“You had me arrested after your own doctor said I saved Emma.”
His voice lowered.
“I know.”
“Then stop saying you know like that fixes anything.”
One of his guards glanced away.
Adrian didn’t.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
“I’m telling you that whoever put Emma in that dumpster may believe you know something.”
“I don’t.”
“They may not care.”
I started walking toward the street.
Adrian followed.
“Isabella.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Your sister is at St. Catherine’s.”
I stopped so quickly my shoes slid against the wet pavement.
I turned.
“What did you say?”
“Lucia was admitted twenty minutes ago.”
Everything inside me dropped.
“What happened?”
“She collapsed during a cardiology appointment.”
I ran toward his SUV before pride could stop me.
Adrian opened the door.
The ride to the hospital felt endless.
I called Lucia repeatedly.
No answer.
When we arrived, I rushed through the emergency entrance.
A nurse intercepted me.
“Isabella Alvarez?”
“Yes.”
“Your sister is stable.”
I almost fell against the desk.
“Can I see her?”
“The cardiologist is with her.”
A familiar doctor emerged moments later.
Dr. Peter Lang had treated Lucia for three years.
His expression told me everything before he spoke.
“Her heart is deteriorating faster than we expected.”
“How long?”
He hesitated.
“Without corrective surgery, weeks. Maybe less.”
My knees weakened.
“We were saving.”
“I know.”
“I almost had enough.”
Dr. Lang touched my arm.
“There’s another issue. Her condition has become more complicated. She needs a specialist.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Benjamin Cole.”
I knew the name.
Everyone with a heart condition in Chicago knew it.
“He works at Lakeshore.”
“And the procedure costs more.”
Dr. Lang didn’t answer.
I understood.
Adrian stood several feet away.
Quiet.
Watching.
“I’ll pay for it,” he said.
I turned sharply.
“No.”
“Isabella—”
“No.”
“This isn’t charity.”
“Then what is it?”
“A debt.”
“You don’t get to buy forgiveness.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“Then stop trying to buy my sister.”
His eyes hardened, but his voice stayed controlled.
“I’m trying to keep her alive.”
Before I could answer, Lucia’s hospital-room door opened.
A nurse stepped into the hallway.
Her face had gone pale.
“Where is she?”
Dr. Lang frowned.
“Who?”
“Lucia.”
Every sound around me disappeared.
“What do you mean, where is she?”
“She was here five minutes ago.”
I shoved past her.
The bed was empty.
The IV line lay across the blanket.
Lucia’s shoes were gone.
Her coat was gone.
The window was locked.
I ran into the hallway.
“LUCIA!”
Security arrived.
Doctors started talking over one another.
Adrian pulled out his phone.
“Lock every exit.”
A nurse shook her head.
“We can’t just—”
“Do it.”
Something white on the pillow caught my eye.
A folded piece of paper.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Four words were written inside.
SHE CAME FOR ME.
My heart stopped.
There was a smaller line underneath.
Please don’t call the police.
“Lucia wrote this,” I whispered.
Santos arrived fifteen minutes later.
Hospital security footage showed Lucia walking calmly through the east entrance at 2:14 p.m.
Beside her walked a woman in a beige coat.
My mother.
Lucia had gone willingly.
That frightened me more than if she had been dragged away.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Santos lifted a hand.
“Speaker.”
I answered.
“Lucia?”
For three seconds, there was only breathing.
Then my sister’s voice.
“Isa?”
“Oh my God. Where are you?”
“I’m okay.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I can’t.”
“Lucia, listen to me.”
My voice broke.
“The woman with you—”
“I know.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“She told me who she is.”
“Get away from her.”
“Isa…”
“Get away from her now.”
Lucia started crying.
Then another voice came through the phone.
A voice I hadn’t heard since I was seventeen.
A voice that had once sung me to sleep.
“Isabella.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Adrian caught my elbow.
I pulled away.
My mother continued.
“I never wanted you involved in this.”
“Where is Lucia?”
“She’s safe.”
“You don’t get to use that word.”
“I can explain everything.”
“Then explain why you abandoned us.”
Silence.
“Explain why my sister is dying while you’ve apparently been alive for thirteen years.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
My voice rose.
“You weren’t there when she stopped breathing in our kitchen. You weren’t there when I sold Dad’s watch to pay for medication. You weren’t there when she asked me why our mother didn’t love us enough to stay.”
Lucia sobbed softly in the background.
My mother’s voice cracked.
“I stayed away because I loved you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Then you have a very strange definition of love.”
“There are things you don’t understand.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I can’t yet.”
Santos motioned for technicians to trace the call.
My mother seemed to sense it.
“You have to listen carefully.”
I gripped the phone.
“Karen didn’t put Emma in that dumpster because she wanted the baby dead.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“Then why?”
My mother heard him.
Her voice changed immediately.
“Adrian Valente is with you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Get away from him.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
My mother ignored him.
“Isabella, someone inside his house planned this.”
“We know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Her breathing grew faster.
“Karen was supposed to sedate Emma and bring her to someone waiting in the alley.”
“Who?”
“She panicked.”
“Who was waiting?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know any of this?”
“Because Karen came to me for help.”
Adrian stepped toward the phone.
“Where is Karen?”
My mother went silent.
“Elena,” he said. “Where is my daughter’s nanny?”
A sound came through the line.
A door slamming.
Lucia gasped.
Then my mother whispered something I barely heard.
“They found us.”
My blood froze.
“Who?”
The line erupted with movement.
Lucia screamed.
“Mom!”
A crash.
Then a man’s voice sounded somewhere in the background.
“Take the girl alive.”
“LUCIA!”
The call disconnected.
I stared at the dead screen.
Santos shouted at the technician.
“Location?”
“South Side. We have a radius.”
Adrian was already heading toward the door.
I grabbed his arm.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“That’s my sister.”
“And someone just ordered her taken alive.”
“You think that makes me want to stay here?”
“It makes me unwilling to put another person in danger.”
I stepped directly in front of him.
“You lost the right to decide what happens to me the moment you accused me of trying to kill your daughter.”
His face went still.
Then he nodded once.
“Fine.”
Santos pointed at both of us.
“Nobody goes anywhere without me.”
We reached the address twenty-three minutes later.
An abandoned church stood at the end of a narrow street.
The front doors were open.
Adrian’s men entered first.
Santos followed with her weapon drawn.
I heard crying before I saw anyone.
“Lucia?”
I ran toward the sanctuary.
“ISA!”
My sister stumbled from behind a pew.
I caught her.
She was trembling but alive.
I held her so tightly she gasped.
“Where’s Mom?”
Lucia looked behind her.
“She pushed me under the pew when they came in.”
Adrian’s voice came from near the altar.
“Isabella.”
Something about his tone made me turn slowly.
A woman lay beside the first row of pews.
Beige coat.
Gray-streaked hair.
Blood spreading beneath her shoulder.
I dropped beside her.
My mother’s eyes opened.
For the first time in thirteen years, Elena Alvarez looked directly at me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I stared at the woman who had died when I was seventeen.
The woman who had somehow returned to life.
“Who did this?”
Her hand closed around my wrist.
Her eyes moved toward Adrian.
Then back to me.
“You need to understand something.”
“What?”
Her grip tightened.
“Emma wasn’t the first Valente child they tried to kill.”
Adrian went completely still.
My mother coughed and forced out the next words.
“Twenty-eight years ago…”
May you like
Her eyes locked on mine.
“…they tried to kill you too.”
