Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO VISITED A DYING MOTHER|
"Give me the phone, Claire."
Luca held out his hand.
I passed him Frank's cell phone, still trembling from the stranger's threat.
He stared at the number while Detective Ellis immediately requested that the call be documented.
"Did the caller identify himself?" she asked.
"No."
"What exactly did he say?"
I repeated the words.
Ellis exchanged a glance with Ruiz.
Then she looked toward Luca.
"That threat changes how we're handling this investigation."
Luca didn't respond.
He was staring at the framed photograph of his mother hanging above the hallway console.
Rosa Moretti stood in a garden, smiling beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat.
She looked like the kind of woman who would remember everybody's birthday and insist that nobody left her kitchen hungry.
I had never met her.
But I knew her through the people who still loved her.
And tonight, I began to wonder how much of her story had been hidden from them.
At the hospital, Frank was admitted for dehydration, exhaustion, and a fractured wrist.
Fortunately, his doctors expected him to recover.
Luca refused to leave his bedside.
I remained in the waiting area with Rex, whose presence had been permitted temporarily in a private family room while hospital staff helped arrange his return home.
The German Shepherd lay beside my chair, watching every person who passed.
Almost an hour later, Luca came out.
"Claire, Dad wants to talk to both of us."
I followed him into the room.
Frank looked smaller beneath the white hospital blankets.
His left wrist was immobilized.
But his eyes were clearer.
"Close the door," he said.
Luca obeyed.
Frank looked at his son.
"Three years ago, your mother was admitted to St. Catherine's after falling in the garden."
Luca nodded.
"I remember."
"She was bruised, but she was talking."
"She called me from the hospital."
Luca's voice grew quieter.
"She said she wanted to see me."
Frank swallowed.
"She wanted to warn you."
"About what?"
"Victor Bellini."
The name changed Luca's expression instantly.
Victor Bellini was Vanessa's uncle, a wealthy Chicago developer with business interests stretching across Illinois.
I knew him only from the newspapers.
He attended charity galas, donated to hospitals, and appeared in photographs beside politicians.
Luca knew him differently.
"Victor was my father's business partner years ago," he said quietly.
Frank looked away.
"That was my first mistake."
"What did he do to Mom?"
"Rosa discovered irregularities in the family's property accounts."
"She believed Victor was using charitable development projects to conceal money and take control of buildings that didn't belong to him."
Luca leaned forward.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was ashamed."
"Of Victor?"
Frank's eyes filled with tears.
"Of myself."
Before Luca could demand an explanation, Frank continued.
"Your mother collected documents."
"She wanted to show you everything."
"But somebody found out."
He gripped the blanket with his uninjured hand.
"That night at the hospital, a doctor named Adrian Vale told me Rosa had suffered a cardiac emergency."
"By the time I arrived, she was gone."
Luca lowered his head.
"I remember Dr. Vale."
Frank nodded.
"He told us nothing could have saved her."
For a moment, the hospital room was completely silent.
Then Frank whispered, "But two weeks later, a nurse called me."
"Her name was Nora Whitcomb."
"She said there were things in Rosa's medical chart that didn't match what she'd witnessed."
"What things?" Luca demanded.
"She wouldn't explain over the phone."
"She asked to meet me."
Frank covered his face.
"I never went."
I stared at him.
"Why?"
His voice cracked.
"Because Victor called the same afternoon."
"He told me that if I caused trouble, investigators would start digging into everything I'd done with him years earlier."
"He said Luca would pay for my mistakes."
Luca stepped backward.
"You're telling me you chose to believe the man threatening you instead of a nurse trying to explain Mom's death?"
Frank began crying.
"I chose fear."
"And I've regretted it every day."
Luca turned toward the window.
I could see his hands shaking.
He wasn't just learning that his mother might have been murdered.
He was learning that his father had ignored a warning that could have exposed the truth.
Then Frank reached for him.
"Son, there's something worse."
Luca didn't turn around.
"What?"
"Vanessa was at the hospital that night."
I felt the air leave my lungs.
Luca slowly faced him.
"That's impossible."
"You didn't meet Vanessa until two years later."
"I know."
Frank nodded miserably.
"I saw her outside Rosa's room."
"She was younger, but I recognized her after you introduced us."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because I convinced myself it was a coincidence."
Luca looked physically sick.
"She married me knowing my mother?"
Frank didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
The following morning, Detective Ellis accompanied Luca and Frank's attorney, Grace Park, to St. Catherine's.
As Frank's authorized representative, Park requested the records she was entitled to obtain and asked the hospital to preserve all related information.
The hospital's legal department initially resisted discussing its internal audit logs.
But Ellis had already begun seeking the necessary investigative orders.
By afternoon, a preserved visitor photograph from the night Rosa died had surfaced among records supplied to the investigation.
Luca asked me to sit beside him before he opened it.
The image showed a hospital corridor.
A woman in a cream-colored coat stood near Rosa's room.
Beside her was a physician wearing a white jacket.
The woman was Vanessa.
The physician was Adrian Vale.
And the timestamp placed them outside Rosa's door less than an hour before her death.
Luca stared at the screen.
Then he whispered, "She knew my mother before she ever knew me."
I placed my hand gently over his.
He didn't pull away.
A second image appeared.
In it, Vanessa was handing the physician a folder.
On the folder was a printed label.
ROSA MORETTI — PRIVATE AUTHORIZATION.
Luca looked toward Detective Ellis.
"What was she authorizing?"
Ellis's expression hardened.
"That's what we're going to find out."
Then Grace Park entered the room carrying a newly obtained copy of Rosa's hospital authorization form.
She laid it on the table.
There was a signature at the bottom.
Rosa Moretti's name had been written in elegant cursive.
But Frank took one look and shook his head.
"That's not my wife's signature."
Luca leaned closer.
Frank pointed toward the final letter.
"Rosa never wrote her name like that."
And suddenly, we understood why the original hospital records mattered so much.
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Someone might have been making medical decisions in Rosa Moretti's name.
Without her permission.
