Chapter 5 - THE PHOTOGRAPH IN MY PHONE|
I stared at the photograph until the screen went dark.
Someone had been watching my apartment.
Not just the Moretti mansion.
Not just Rosa.
Me.
“Claire?”
Luca's voice sounded distant.
I looked up and realized he was standing directly in front of me.
“What's wrong?”
I tried to answer, but my throat had closed.
He glanced at the phone clutched between my fingers.
“May I see it?”
I handed it to him.
As he read the message, the muscles in his jaw tightened.
Then he looked at Daniel.
“Find Detective Ellis.”
Within minutes, a woman with short dark hair entered Rosa's sitting room.
Detective Mara Ellis had arrived with the officers investigating the suspected fraudulent medical transfers.
She wore a plain navy jacket and carried a notebook filled with hurried handwriting.
Unlike most people who entered Luca Moretti's home, she didn't seem impressed by the marble floors or the security guards.
She looked directly at me.
“Miss Bennett, when was this photograph taken?”
“I'm not sure.”
“Maybe five or six days ago.”
“Does anyone else have access to your apartment?”
“No.”
“I live alone.”
She studied the image.
“Do you recognize the number?”
I shook my head.
Detective Ellis photographed the message and asked me to preserve the original.
Then she lowered her voice.
“Has anyone threatened you before tonight?”
I hesitated.
Vanessa had threatened to fire me dozens of times.
She'd accused me of stealing small household items whenever Rosa complained about her treatment.
Once, she'd told me that a woman with my salary should be grateful nobody had investigated her background.
At the time, I'd thought she was simply cruel.
Now I understood she'd been preparing something.
I told Detective Ellis everything.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she closed her notebook.
“You need somewhere safe to stay.”
Luca immediately spoke.
“She can remain here.”
I looked at him.
“Mr. Moretti, with respect, this is the last place Vanessa expects me to leave.”
He seemed surprised.
“I can provide security.”
“I know.”
“But she knows this house better than anyone.”
“And I need to make decisions about my own safety.”
He looked at me for a moment.
Then he nodded.
“Of course.”
That small response mattered more than he probably realized.
For weeks, I'd watched Rosa lose the right to make even the simplest choices.
I couldn't allow fear to take mine away too.
My friend Elena Alvarez, the estate's longtime cook, offered me her spare bedroom in Bridgeport.
Elena was sixty-one, stubborn, and fiercely protective of anyone she considered family.
When I called her, she didn't ask whether I had enough money.
She simply said, “Bring your toothbrush, sweetheart.”
Before leaving for the hospital, Rosa insisted on speaking with me privately.
I sat beside her bed while Luca waited in the hallway.
“Claire, I've been thinking about something.”
“What is it?”
“The first time Vanessa accused you of stealing.”
I remembered that afternoon.
A small diamond brooch had disappeared from Rosa's jewelry box.
Vanessa had searched my room in front of three other employees.
The brooch was eventually found inside Vanessa's own dressing table.
She'd claimed she borrowed it and forgotten.
I hadn't believed her.
Rosa touched my hand.
“She wanted you gone because you noticed things.”
I smiled sadly.
“I'm a housemaid, Mrs. Rosa.”
“Noticing things is part of my job.”
“No, sweetheart.”
“Kindness is part of who you are.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Promise me you won't let them make you ashamed of that.”
I promised.
At the hospital, Dr. Price arranged for Rosa to be evaluated and her medications reviewed.
The doctors needed time to determine whether she'd been given anything improperly.
They wouldn't jump to conclusions from a suspicious label alone.
But they agreed that the unexplained change in prescriptions required investigation.
Meanwhile, Detective Ellis began checking the records behind my supposed psychiatric admission.
She called me the following afternoon.
“Claire, I need to ask you something unusual.”
I stood beside Elena's kitchen window, watching rain slide down the glass.
“Okay.”
“Have you ever been admitted to a psychiatric hospital in May 2023?”
“No.”
“Have you ever received treatment at a facility called Roseland Medical Center?”
“Never.”
There was a pause.
“That's what I thought.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“Your admission packet includes a record claiming you were hospitalized there for violent behavior.”
I pressed a hand against the counter.
“That's impossible.”
“There's another problem,” she continued.
“The facility listed on that document had already closed before the alleged admission date.”
I closed my eyes.
Someone hadn't just lied about my behavior.
They'd manufactured an entire medical history.
Detective Ellis continued.
“We're examining where these records came from.”
“I also want you to understand that investigators are taking the threats seriously.”
I thanked her, but the fear remained.
That evening, Elena found me sitting at her kitchen table, staring at a cup of untouched coffee.
“You look like you're carrying the whole world,” she said.
“I keep thinking about what would have happened if Luca hadn't come into the ballroom.”
Elena sat opposite me.
“Then we're going to make sure nobody can do that to you or Rosa again.”
She placed her hand over mine.
“My mother used to say that powerful people depend on ordinary people believing they have no power at all.”
I looked at her.
“What if she was wrong?”
Elena smiled.
“Then why are they so frightened of you?”
At that moment, my phone rang.
Detective Ellis again.
Her voice was different this time.
“Claire, we've found another woman whose records were used in a similar emergency admission.”
I sat upright.
“Another patient?”
“Yes.”
“She used to work at Harbor House.”
My heart began pounding.
“Do you know her name?”
“Her name is Nina Patel.”
A pause followed.
“Claire, according to her complaint, she questioned the treatment of elderly residents shortly before someone tried to have her involuntarily admitted.”
I gripped the phone.
“How long ago?”
“Eighteen months.”
Eighteen months.
Long before Vanessa married Luca.
Long before Rosa began hiding in her bedroom.
I suddenly understood that the cruelty inside the Moretti mansion hadn't started with a spilled glass of wine.
May you like
It had begun with a plan.
And Rosa and I might not have been the first people that plan had tried to silence.
