Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD|
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
The ballroom around me seemed to tilt, and the beautiful chandeliers blurred into a thousand trembling lights.
My husband had been dead for four years.
I had stood beside his coffin.
I had buried him beneath a gray Chicago sky.
And now Olivia Moretti was telling me that the man I had mourned for four years had tried to murder her eighteen months ago.
"That's impossible," I whispered.
Olivia's tear-filled eyes met mine.
"Claire, I'm so sorry."
"No."
I shook my head so violently that my hair came loose from its bun.
"Daniel died in a construction accident."
"He couldn't have been driving that car."
Luca stepped between us, his face pale beneath the golden ballroom lights.
"Olivia, are you absolutely certain?"
His sister nodded.
"I remember his face."
Vanessa suddenly laughed.
It was a sharp, unnatural sound that made several guests turn toward her.
"This is ridiculous."
"Your sister has been confused ever since the accident, Luca."
"She takes medications."
"She has nightmares."
"Are you seriously going to believe her over your own wife?"
Luca turned toward her.
"I haven't asked you to speak."
Vanessa's smile disappeared.
Across the ballroom, the man beside the champagne fountain began moving toward a side exit.
Luca noticed immediately.
"Rosa."
A tall security officer in a dark suit stepped forward.
"Sir?"
"That man near the fountain."
"Ask him to remain here until the police arrive."
The stranger glanced over his shoulder.
For one terrible second, our eyes met.
I recognized him immediately.
Three weeks earlier, I had opened the mansion's front door for him.
He had arrived carrying a black leather briefcase and a bouquet of white roses.
Vanessa had introduced him as Adrian Vale, her cousin from New York.
But I remembered something else.
When he thought nobody was watching, he had slipped an envelope into Vanessa's handbag.
And she had whispered, "You promised this was finished."
Now Adrian pushed through the crowd.
"Sir, please stop," Rosa called.
He broke into a run.
Two security guards intercepted him before he reached the service hallway.
He struggled against them, sending a silver tray crashing to the marble floor.
"Get your hands off me!"
Luca didn't move.
"Why are you running, Adrian?"
The man froze.
Vanessa stepped forward.
"He's frightened because you've turned a charity gala into a criminal investigation!"
"Then he can explain that to the police."
Luca took out his phone and called his attorney, instructing him to contact the Chicago Police Department.
Then he looked toward the guards stationed at the doors.
"Keep the exits secured until the officers arrive."
A frightened murmur passed through the guests.
Olivia tightened her grip around my wrist.
"Claire, look at me."
I couldn't.
My mind was somewhere else.
Four years earlier, I had received a phone call at 6:17 in the morning.
A construction supervisor told me Daniel had been killed when heavy equipment collapsed at a demolition site.
He said the injuries were too severe for an open-casket funeral.
I remembered kissing the cold wood of that coffin.
I remembered holding Daniel's wedding ring until its edges cut into my palm.
I remembered sleeping on our living room floor because our empty bed hurt too much.
And I remembered Luca quietly paying the overdue hospital bills Daniel had left behind.
I had never understood why my employer was so generous.
Now I wondered whether someone had been watching me all along.
"Claire."
Luca's voice brought me back.
His expression changed when he saw my face.
"You're shaking."
"My husband is dead," I whispered.
"Tell me she's wrong."
He glanced toward Olivia.
Then he looked at me with an expression I had never seen before.
Uncertainty.
"I don't know."
Those three words nearly destroyed me.
Vanessa took advantage of the silence.
"Darling, this is what Olivia does."
"She invents stories because she cannot accept what happened to her."
Olivia suddenly straightened in her wheelchair.
"I know exactly what happened to me."
Her voice was shaking, but she did not look away.
"I remember the headlights."
"I remember the black SUV pushing into my lane."
"And I remember the man behind the wheel."
Vanessa rolled her eyes.
"How convenient."
Olivia opened her handbag again.
"There's something you don't know, Vanessa."
Her sister-in-law stiffened.
Olivia pulled out a small photograph.
"Three days ago, someone left this outside my apartment."
She handed it to Luca.
I watched his expression darken.
Then he slowly turned the photograph toward me.
The world stopped.
A man was standing outside a coffee shop in Milwaukee.
He wore a brown leather jacket and held a newspaper beneath one arm.
His hair was shorter.
There was a scar near his left eyebrow.
But I knew that face.
I knew those hands.
I knew the crooked smile that had once convinced me I was the luckiest woman alive.
It was Daniel Bennett.
My husband.
Alive.
The photograph had been taken six months earlier.
I reached toward it, but my fingers wouldn't stop trembling.
"Who sent this?" I whispered.
Olivia shook her head.
"There wasn't a name."
On the back, someone had written four words.
Ask Vanessa about Daniel.
Luca turned toward his wife.
For the first time that evening, Vanessa looked genuinely afraid.
"Explain this," he said.
Vanessa swallowed.
"I have no idea who that man is."
Then Adrian Vale, still standing between the security guards, began laughing.
Everyone turned toward him.
"You're asking the wrong question, Moretti."
Luca's eyes narrowed.
"What question should I be asking?"
Adrian looked directly at me.
"Ask your little housemaid why her dead husband was worth two million dollars."
A terrible silence followed.
Then Vanessa screamed.
May you like
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH, ADRIAN!"
And I realized the photograph was only the beginning.
