Chapter 3 - The Maid Who Was Supposed to Betray Her|
"I never signed that document."
My voice sounded strangely distant, even to me.
Luca held the affidavit beneath the kitchen light.
The signature at the bottom looked disturbingly similar to mine.
Every curve was familiar.
Even the little loop I always made in the final letter of my last name had been copied.
Vanessa stepped closer.
"Well, Claire, this is embarrassing."
I looked at her.
"You know I didn't sign it."
"Do I?"
She tilted her head.
"Perhaps you've been telling us all one thing while doing something completely different."
Luca raised one hand.
"Vanessa, stop talking."
"But darling, the evidence is right there!"
"The evidence is that somebody has been signing documents without permission."
He turned toward me.
"Claire, have you ever seen this affidavit before?"
"No, sir."
"Have you ever discussed sending Sophia to a boarding school?"
"Never."
"Have you ever told anyone that my daughter was dangerous or mentally unstable?"
I felt tears burning behind my eyes.
"Mr. Moretti, Sophia cried for twenty minutes last week because she accidentally broke a ceramic bird that belonged to her mother."
Luca's expression softened.
"She thought you would be angry with her."
He looked confused.
"Why would I be angry about a ceramic bird?"
"Because someone told her you would stop loving her if she damaged anything important."
His gaze shifted toward Vanessa.
She immediately laughed.
"Oh, please."
But I continued.
"Your daughter has been afraid to ask for almost anything."
"That's ridiculous," Vanessa snapped.
"She asked permission to drink water after dinner."
Luca looked at me.
"Water?"
I nodded.
"And she apologizes whenever she laughs too loudly."
The silence afterward felt heavier than the marble walls surrounding us.
Then Sophia appeared in the doorway.
She had slipped out of the sitting room without anyone noticing.
"Claire didn't say bad things about me, Daddy."
Luca immediately walked toward her.
"Princess, you should be resting."
Sophia shook her head.
"Vanessa told me Claire signed the papers because she was tired of taking care of me."
My heart broke.
"Oh, sweetheart."
"She said everybody gets tired of me eventually."
Luca knelt.
"Who told you that?"
Sophia pointed toward Vanessa.
Nobody spoke.
Vanessa stared at the child.
"You're twisting my words."
Sophia began crying.
"I heard you."
For one terrible moment, I thought Luca might lose control.
His hands curled into fists.
Then he looked at his frightened daughter and deliberately relaxed them.
He drew her into his arms.
"You are not difficult to love, Sophia."
She buried her face against his chest.
"You promise?"
"I promise."
"And Claire doesn't hate me?"
I crouched beside them.
"I could never hate you."
Sophia reached for my hand.
For the first time that evening, Luca seemed to understand how much his daughter had been carrying alone.
A police car arrived shortly afterward.
The officers questioned the two transportation workers and collected copies of the disputed documents.
Both men insisted they believed they were carrying out legitimate instructions.
Their employer had apparently provided an address, a payment confirmation, and paperwork bearing a court seal.
Nora Whitcomb arrived just after eleven.
She was a sharp-eyed attorney in her early fifties who had represented the Moretti family's legitimate businesses for years.
After reviewing the documents, she made several telephone calls.
Then she entered Luca's office and closed the door.
I remained outside with Sophia.
The little girl sat beside me, holding her unopened birthday cards.
"Claire?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Do grown-ups sometimes lie because they want somebody else to disappear?"
I looked at her carefully.
"Sometimes they do terrible things because they're afraid of losing something."
"Like money?"
I hesitated.
"Sometimes."
Sophia looked toward the office.
"Vanessa said Daddy couldn't afford to keep me."
I frowned.
"What exactly did she say?"
"She said I was expensive, and Madison was easier."
Before I could respond, the office door opened.
Luca stood there with Nora.
"Claire, may we speak with you?"
I squeezed Sophia's hand.
"Stay right here, sweetheart."
Inside the office, Nora laid the affidavit on Luca's desk.
"Claire, this document states that you made your sworn declaration three weeks ago."
"That's impossible."
"Can you prove where you were that morning?"
I thought carefully.
Three weeks earlier.
A Thursday.
At nine-thirty in the morning.
Suddenly, I remembered.
"I was at Sophia's school."
Luca frowned.
"Why?"
"She had a parent-teacher conference."
"Why wasn't I informed?"
I looked at him.
"Vanessa said you were too busy to attend."
His expression changed.
"Nobody told me about a conference."
"I signed the attendance sheet and spoke with Sophia's teacher for nearly an hour."
Nora made a note.
"Good."
But the attorney's face remained serious.
"There's something else you should know."
She pointed to a paragraph in the affidavit.
"This statement claims Sophia has repeatedly expressed a desire to harm herself and that Claire personally recommended immediate residential placement."
I felt sick.
"That's not true."
Luca leaned forward.
"Who would write something like that about a nine-year-old?"
Nora's answer was quiet.
"Someone who needed an excuse to remove her quickly."
Then Marco knocked.
"Boss, we've checked the security recordings."
Luca looked up.
"What did you find?"
"Someone deleted the hallway footage from the morning these documents were supposedly signed."
Vanessa had always insisted that security cameras were unnecessary in the private family areas.
Now I understood why.
Marco continued.
"There's one more thing."
He placed a printed access report on the desk.
"The deletion was made using your personal security credentials."
Luca frowned.
"I never accessed that system."
Marco nodded grimly.
"Then someone had your password."
At that moment, I remembered something from the previous month.
Vanessa had asked me to carry a stack of papers from Luca's office to the study.
She had been standing beside his computer.
And when she noticed me watching, she quickly closed a folder.
The folder had been labeled with one word.
Sophia.
I told Luca everything.
For the first time, he looked genuinely shaken.
But the worst discovery came when Nora examined the boarding-school information.
She searched the institution's registration details and found no accredited school operating at the listed address.
Instead, the address belonged to an empty commercial property outside Chicago.
Luca stared at the screen.
"Then where were they planning to take my daughter?"
Nora did not answer.
She didn't have to.
The documents had been forged.
May you like
The school might not exist.
And the woman who had arranged everything was still living inside Sophia's home.
