Chapter 5
Rachel’s voice returned quieter.
“I left because Lucia told me exactly how Claire would die if I stayed.”
Claire’s entire body went still.
Sofia leaned against her.
I looked at Lucia.
She showed no surprise.
Only irritation that the dead had been allowed to speak.
Rachel continued.
“Lucia already knew I had copied the names. Marco followed me to the cafe. I hid half the moon here because I knew the Bellini table would survive even if I didn’t.”
Marco shook his head.
“She’s lying.”
“You were nineteen,” Lucia snapped. “Stop acting frightened by a dead woman.”
Marco turned toward her.
Not me.
Interesting.
Rachel explained that Evelyn Hart had taken newborn Claire away under another surname. Rachel intended to follow once the family stopped watching.
She never did.
“Why?” Claire whispered.
The recording answered.
“Because Lucia found me first.”
Static crackled.
Then another voice entered the tape.
Lucia.
Younger.
Colder.
“If you go near that baby again, I’ll bury Evelyn beside her.”
Nobody moved.
Claire stared at Lucia as though seeing her for the first time.
Rachel’s voice returned.
“So I made a bargain. Claire stays outside the Bellini world. Evelyn raises her. I disappear.”
The cassette clicked again.
End.
Claire’s face crumpled.
“She gave me up to keep me alive.”
Lucia rolled her eyes.
“Oh, spare me.”
I turned.
She continued because contempt had finally outrun caution.
“Rachel always needed to make suffering romantic. She could have stayed. She could have obeyed. She could have raised the girl quietly.”
Claire looked at her.
“You threatened my mother with me.”
Lucia shrugged.
“She made choices.”
“No.”
My voice stopped her.
“You made the choice, then punished Rachel for surviving it.”
Lucia smiled faintly.
“You sound like Sofia.”
I looked toward my daughter.
“Good.”
That irritated her.
Rafe studied the tokens again.
“There are seven.”
I counted.
Moretti.
Calder.
Bennett.
Hale.
Russo.
Bellini.
Cross.
Claire noticed one immediately.
“Bennett.”
Her surname.
Not Hart.
Bennett had been the name she took after Evelyn died and another family raised her.
I looked at Rafe.
He understood.
“Rachel didn’t choose Claire’s later surname by accident.”
Someone connected to the Bennett family had known where Claire was.
For twenty-four years.
Claire looked frightened.
“Who?”
Lucia finally smiled.
That smile told me we had opened the wrong secret first.
Rachel had not disappeared alone.
May you like
Someone inside the Bellini family had been protecting Claire all this time.
And Lucia did not know which one.
