Chapter 4 - The Woman in the Photograph.
Lorenzo read the threat twice.
Then he handed the phone to his security chief, Gabriel Stone, and ordered the mansion sealed.
Hunter hated the sudden movement around her.
Men appeared at doors.
Locks clicked.
Radios whispered.
Leo remained asleep against her shoulder, unaware that a single message had turned the mansion into a fortress inside a fortress.
“I should leave,” Hunter said.
Lorenzo looked at her as if she had suggested throwing Leo into the ocean.
“No.”
“The message says—”
“I can read.”
“Then you understand whoever sent it is targeting him because I’m here.”
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“They were targeting him before you arrived.”
That silenced her.
He pointed toward the nursery.
“You did not create this danger.”
“You exposed it.”
Marco appeared at the end of the hall.
“Or she brought it through the front door.”
Lorenzo turned sharply.
“Enough.”
Marco’s gaze dropped to Hunter’s phone in Gabriel’s hand.
“You have known her for three days.”
“I have known you for thirty-two years, and I still verify what you tell me.”
Marco’s smile disappeared.
Hunter carried Leo back into the nursery while the brothers continued arguing.
She placed him in the crib and noticed something beneath the rocking chair.
A corner of thick paper protruded from the rug.
Hunter bent down.
It was an old photograph.
Sophia Rossi stood in the nursery while heavily pregnant, one hand on the crib and the other resting against her stomach.
Hunter had seen pictures of her in the hall, but this image felt different.
Sophia was not posing.
She looked worried.
On the back, someone had written four words in blue ink.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, JULIA.
Hunter turned the photograph over again.
A woman stood partly visible in the mirror behind Sophia.
Dark hair.
White medical coat.
Hunter carried the photograph into the hallway.
“Lorenzo.”
He stopped talking.
She handed it to him.
The moment he saw the writing, color left his face.
“Who is Julia?” Hunter asked.
Lorenzo stared at the photograph.
“Sophia’s older sister.”
Marco shifted behind him.
“I thought they stopped speaking.”
“They did.”
Lorenzo’s thumb moved over the blue ink.
“Six months before Sophia died.”
Hunter pointed toward the reflection.
“What about the woman in the mirror?”
Lorenzo looked closer.
Dr. Halloran entered from the stairs carrying a sealed lab envelope.
He saw the photograph and froze.
Hunter noticed before Lorenzo did.
“You know her,” Hunter said.
Halloran’s face tightened.
“No.”
“You looked at her like you did.”
Lorenzo turned the photograph toward him.
“Answer her.”
Halloran took one step back.
“That woman worked at St. Gabriel’s.”
“What was her name?” Lorenzo asked.
Halloran hesitated.
“Dr. Julia Bennett.”
Lorenzo’s head snapped up.
Hunter looked from the doctor to the handwritten message.
Sophia’s estranged sister had been using another last name.
Lorenzo searched the photograph again and noticed a hospital visitor badge clipped to the woman’s coat.
The date printed beneath the name was only three weeks before the bombing.
Marco leaned closer and said Sophia had never mentioned seeing Julia again.
That made Hunter wonder whether the photograph had been hidden because Sophia wanted Lorenzo to find it later, or because someone else wanted him to find it now.
The difference mattered.
One possibility was a warning.
May you like
The other was bait.
And she had been standing inside Leo’s nursery before Sophia was killed.
