Chapter 11 - The Woman Who Knew My Mother.
I did not go to the address at midnight.
That was the first smart decision I made without somebody older standing beside me.
The second was taking a photograph of the note and calling Detective Torres.
She answered on the fourth ring.
"Tell me you're still inside."
"I'm still inside."
"Good."
"You sound surprised."
"I've met you."
"That's rude."
"Stay where you are."
I heard her moving.
"I'm coming."
The note led to an all-night diner in Hell's Kitchen.
Torres sent officers instead.
Nobody matching Dominic, Peter, or Marcus appeared.
But a woman sat alone in the last booth for nearly an hour.
She left before police approached her.
The diner camera caught her face.
Torres showed me the image the next morning.
The woman looked about sixty.
Short silver-blond hair.
Thin face.
Dark glasses.
I had never seen her before.
"Any idea who she is?"
"No."
Torres slid the photograph into a folder.
"We'll find out."
"Does Vincent know?"
"Yes."
"How angry is he?"
"On a scale from one to ten?"
"Sure."
"Moretti."
That made me smile.
Then the door opened and Dana entered with a woman carrying a leather briefcase.
She was in her late sixties, with gray hair cut to her jaw and a navy suit that looked older than I was but perfectly maintained.
She looked at me for a long moment.
"Lily Hart."
I immediately disliked hearing strangers say my full name.
"Who are you?"
"Grace Brennan."
She held out a business card.
"Attorney."
I read it.
Brennan Legal Trusts and Estates.
"I didn't call a lawyer."
"Your mother did."
Everything inside me stopped.
"What?"
Grace sat across from me.
"Seven years ago."
"She retained me to create documents protecting certain property if she became unavailable."
"The trust?"
"Partly."
"You knew about the eight percent?"
"Yes."
"Did Vincent?"
"No."
"Dominic?"
Grace's mouth tightened.
"He suspected."
I leaned forward.
"Why didn't you find me?"
The question came out louder than I expected.
Dana moved toward the door, giving us privacy.
Grace did not look away.
"I tried."
"Not very hard."
"Harder than you know."
"I was in foster care under my own name."
"For the first eighteen months."
I froze.
Grace continued.
"Then one placement recorded your middle name as your surname."
"A second entered your birth date incorrectly."
"You moved through multiple counties."
"By the time we found the right file, you had run from your last placement."
I felt anger and shame twist together.
"So everybody just gave up."
"I didn't."
She opened her briefcase.
Inside were copies of letters.
Search requests.
Private investigator invoices.
Court petitions.
Years of them.
My anger had nowhere easy to go.
"Why now?"
"Because your name appeared in a news report connected to Ethan Moretti's rescue."
I stared at her.
"What news report?"
Grace looked at Torres.
Torres cursed softly.
"Someone leaked the story."
My stomach sank.
Grace showed me her phone.
A headline filled the screen.
HOMELESS GIRL AT CENTER OF MORETTI FAMILY MYSTERY.
My picture appeared underneath.
It had been taken outside Saint Agnes.
"They called me homeless girl."
"They don't know much else," Torres said.
"Yet."
Grace put the phone away.
"The leak is why we need to move quickly."
"On what?"
"Your trust."
"I don't care about the money."
"Good."
I stared at her.
"Why does everybody keep saying that?"
"Because the trust was designed for a child who should never be forced to make decisions based on money."
She slid a document toward me.
"Your mother also signed a nomination of guardian."
My chest tightened.
"Who?"
Grace looked at me carefully.
"Her first choice was her sister, Claire Hart."
"I don't have an aunt Claire."
"She died nine years ago."
I swallowed.
"Second choice?"
"Isabella Moretti."
My heart started pounding.
"She's dead too."
"Yes."
"Third?"
Grace paused.
"No one."
I almost laughed.
"Great."
"Your mother deliberately left the third line blank."
"Why?"
"She wrote a note."
Grace handed it to me.
If Isabella cannot care for Lily, then I want Lily old enough to have a voice before anyone else claims the right to raise her.
Do not hand my daughter to a powerful person simply because he asks.
I read the last sentence twice.
Vincent would hate it.
I loved it.
Grace continued.
"That means the court should give substantial weight to your preference now."
"Can I choose Vincent?"
"You can ask the court to consider him as a temporary guardian."
"Will they?"
Grace's expression became cautious.
"His background will make the court look very carefully."
"Because people call him a mafia boss."
"Because courts care about facts, not nicknames."
"And the facts?"
"Complicated."
That sounded like every adult answer in my life.
"Has he been convicted of anything?"
"No."
"Arrested?"
"Years ago, charges were dismissed."
"Does he own legal businesses?"
"Many."
"Does he also scare people for a living?"
Grace almost smiled.
"That is not a question I can answer from a corporate filing."
The emergency hearing was scheduled for that afternoon.
Vincent arrived with two attorneys and no entourage.
That was probably difficult for him.
Ethan came with Rosa and Sofia.
When he saw me outside the courtroom, he moved as fast as his crutches allowed.
"Lily."
I hugged him.
"You're supposed to be resting."
"Everybody says that."
Vincent stopped several feet away.
He did not touch me.
He did not act like I belonged to him.
"You all right?"
"Somebody left me another note."
His face darkened.
"Torres told me."
"And there's a newspaper picture of me."
"My lawyers are working on privacy requests."
"Of course they are."
He looked almost offended.
"Would you prefer I ignore it?"
"No."
"Then stop making that face."
"What face?"
Ethan whispered loudly.
"The Vincent-is-annoying face."
Rosa laughed.
Vincent looked at the ceiling.
The hearing lasted two hours.
The judge asked me questions without Vincent in the room.
She asked whether I felt pressured.
No.
Whether anyone had offered me money to stay.
No.
Whether I understood Vincent was not my father.
Yes.
Whether I wanted temporary placement in his home.
I hesitated.
Then I answered.
"I want to stay where Ethan is."
The judge studied me.
"Why?"
"Because he trusts me."
"And because I trust him."
"And because Vincent asked me what I wanted before he told me what he wanted."
That mattered to her.
I could tell.
The judge approved a seven-day emergency placement pending investigation.
Vincent agreed to home visits, background reviews, restrictions on unsupervised security personnel, and more rules than I could count.
He said yes to every one.
Outside the courtroom, I looked at him.
"That was a lot of rules."
"I've had worse contracts."
"You didn't argue."
"It wasn't about winning."
He looked at me.
"It was about getting you somewhere safe without taking your choice away."
I did not know what to say to that.
Grace approached us.
"There is one more thing."
She handed me a sealed envelope.
"Your mother instructed me not to give you this until you personally chose to ask for the Moretti records."
"I already asked."
"Exactly."
My name was written on the envelope.
Below it was another sentence in my mother's handwriting.
WHEN YOU ARE READY TO KNOW WHO BETRAYED ISABELLA, OPEN THIS.
I tore it open.
Inside was not a letter.
It was a photograph.
A security photograph from the Moretti lake house.
The date was three weeks before Isabella's death.
A man was climbing through a broken side window.
His face was visible.
May you like
It was not Dominic.
It was Julian Kane.
