Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE SNOW
Carlo Vitale’s hand stopped inside his jacket.
He was sixty-two, silver-haired, broad-shouldered, and still carried himself like the kind of man who expected doors to open before he reached them. People called him a developer. A philanthropist. A shipping magnate.
I knew what he was when nobody was taking pictures.
A survivor.
And survivors like Carlo survived by deciding early which people were expendable.
“Take your hand out,” I said.
Two hundred guests watched us.
The quartet had stopped playing.
Carlo smiled as if I had made a joke.
“Dominic, this is your engagement party.”
“Take your hand out of your jacket.”
He did.
Slowly.
Empty.
Isabella stood between us, breathing too fast.
Her champagne glass lay broken at her feet.
“Dom,” Enzo said quietly behind me.
I looked at him.
He tilted his head toward the service hallway.
Find Sophia first.
He was right.
I hated that he was right.
I looked back at Carlo.
“If she’s hurt—”
“You should choose your next words carefully,” he said.
“No. You should.”
My mother stepped forward.
“Not here.”
I turned on her.
“Where would you prefer? Somewhere without witnesses?”
Victoria flinched.
Good.
For once, I wanted the truth to hurt in public.
But Lily was still in the breakfast room, and somewhere outside in the snow was the woman I had spent four years thinking had abandoned me.
I looked at Enzo.
“Lock the gates.”
Several guests reacted immediately.
Carlo’s smile disappeared.
“You cannot detain people in your house.”
“I’m not detaining anyone.”
I glanced toward the front windows, where snow had thickened beyond the glass.
“I’m having a security problem.”
Enzo almost smiled.
“Understood.”
I pointed to Isabella.
“You’re coming with me.”
Carlo stepped forward.
“She’s not going anywhere with you.”
Isabella turned on him.
“For once in your life, stop speaking for me.”
That shut him up.
She followed me toward the rear corridor.
Enzo came with us. Two security men fell in behind him.
The instant the ballroom doors closed, I grabbed Isabella’s arm.
“Tell me everything.”
She pulled free.
“I told you. I didn’t send the letter.”
“What letter?”
“She called me three days ago.”
“Sophia called you?”
“Yes.”
“How did she get your number?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at her.
She looked furious, frightened, and something else.
Ashamed.
“What did she say?”
“That she had received a letter telling her to come here tonight if she wanted the truth about why you never found her.”
My pulse pounded in my ears.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I thought it was a trap.”
“So you let her walk into it?”
“No. I told her not to come.”
“But she came anyway.”
“Yes.”
“And when you saw her?”
“I tried to get her out.”
“Then your father appeared.”
Isabella stopped walking.
The hall behind us glowed gold from the Christmas lights. Ahead, the rear windows were black mirrors.
“He knew her,” she said.
“I gathered that.”
“No, Dominic. I mean he knew exactly who she was before I said her name.”
I felt a coldness that had nothing to do with the weather.
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘You should have stayed in Connecticut.’”
Enzo muttered a curse.
“And then?”
“Sophia asked him why he had her mother’s records.”
I turned.
“What records?”
“I don’t know. He told her they could talk outside. I tried to stop her. She told me Lily was waiting inside and that she’d be back in five minutes.”
Isabella’s voice broke.
“She thought having two hundred people here made her safe.”
I looked toward the rear door.
Snow pressed white against the glass.
“Which way did they go?”
“Toward the east lawn.”
I shoved open the door.
The cold hit like a slap.
Snow had already covered most of the footprints, but not all of them.
Enzo pointed toward the hedge line.
“There.”
Three sets of tracks.
Sophia’s smaller prints.
Carlo’s polished dress shoes.
And another set.
Heavy boots.
We followed them across the lawn.
The music from the house disappeared behind the wind.
The Moretti estate covered eleven acres between the main road and the Sound. My father had bought it when I was twelve and immediately installed walls tall enough to make neighbors curious.
Beyond the formal garden stood an old stone boathouse near the private dock.
The tracks led toward it.
I began to run.
“Dominic,” Enzo called.
I didn’t slow down.
The boathouse door was open four inches.
A yellow strip of light cut across the snow.
I reached it first.
“Sophia?”
No answer.
I pushed inside.
The smell of salt, oil, and old wood hit me.
A small electric heater glowed near the workbench.
One chair had been knocked over.
A woman’s black scarf lay on the floor.
I knew it immediately.
Sophia had worn one almost exactly like it the last winter we were together.
Then I heard a sound outside.
A cough.
Weak.
From behind the boathouse.
I ran around the corner.
She was lying in the snow beside the seawall.
For one terrible second, I thought she was dead.
Then her hand moved.
“Sophia.”
I dropped to my knees.
Her coat was open. Snow covered her hair. Blood darkened the skin near her temple.
Her eyes fluttered.
“Dominic?”
Hearing my name in her voice after four years nearly undid me.
“I’m here.”
She tried to sit up.
I stopped her.
“Don’t move.”
“Lily.”
“She’s safe.”
Her eyes opened fully.
“You found her?”
“Yes.”
“She’s inside?”
“Yes.”
Sophia shut her eyes.
Relief crossed her face so powerfully I felt it in my chest.
Then she grabbed my coat.
“We have to leave.”
“What happened?”
“Not here.”
“Who did this?”
She looked behind me.
Isabella had reached us.
The moment Sophia saw her, her body tensed.
Isabella stopped several feet away.
“I didn’t hurt you.”
Sophia’s gaze shifted to me.
“Her father knows.”
“Knows what?”
Sophia looked toward Enzo and the security men.
“About the ledger.”
Enzo went still.
I did not recognize the word, but he did.
I looked at him.
“What ledger?”
“Get her inside first,” he said.
“No.”
Sophia shivered violently.
That ended the argument.
I took off my coat, wrapped it around her, and lifted her from the snow.
She was lighter than I remembered.
Too light.
Her head fell against my shoulder.
For one second, I was twenty-nine again, carrying her laughing across the beach in Montauk because she had refused to ruin her shoes in the tide.
Then she whispered something against my collar.
“I didn’t leave you.”
I nearly stopped walking.
“What?”
Her fingers tightened around the front of my shirt.
“I didn’t leave you, Dominic.”
The words I had waited four years to hear came when I was least prepared to survive them.
“I know,” I said.
It was the only answer I could manage.
We took her into the old guest wing instead of the main house. Mrs. Alvarez brought blankets. Enzo called Dr. Patel, a physician who had treated three generations of Morettis and understood that discretion was sometimes part of the job description.
Lily was brought upstairs once Sophia was awake enough to sit.
The little girl ran into the room so fast her shoes slipped on the polished floor.
“Mommy!”
Sophia opened her arms.
Lily climbed into them.
I stood in the doorway.
Nobody noticed me.
And for once, I was grateful.
Sophia kissed Lily’s hair over and over.
“I told you I’d come back.”
“You took a long time.”
“I know, baby.”
“You’re wet.”
Sophia laughed through tears.
“Yeah. I’m very wet.”
Lily touched the bandage Dr. Patel had placed near her temple.
“Did you fall?”
Sophia looked at me.
“Yes,” she said. “Something like that.”
Lily turned and finally noticed me.
For several seconds, she stared.
Then she held out the photograph.
“You know my mommy.”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Were you friends?”
Sophia closed her eyes.
I crouched beside the bed.
“We were.”
“Good friends?”
I looked at Sophia.
She looked back.
“The best,” I said.
Lily seemed satisfied with that.
She curled beside her mother under the blanket.
Ten minutes later, she was asleep.
Sophia waited until Mrs. Alvarez carried Lily into the adjoining room.
Then she looked at me.
All softness disappeared from her face.
“You opened the file.”
“Yes.”
“You know about Lily.”
“Yes.”
“You believe it?”
I stared at her.
“Shouldn’t I?”
Her eyes flashed.
“I spent four years learning not to assume what you believe.”
I deserved that.
Maybe not because of what I had done.
Because of what my name had done.
“I didn’t write that letter.”
Sophia looked away.
“I know.”
The answer caught me off guard.
“When did you find out?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“How?”
“My mother died when I was nineteen. She left documents with an attorney in Queens. He retired last year. His office started clearing old files. Something had been mislabeled under her maiden name.”
“What was in it?”
“A copy of the letter your mother gave me four years ago.”
I waited.
“And?”
“And a handwriting analysis commissioned by your father’s attorney.”
My stomach tightened.
“It was forged?”
“Yes.”
“By my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked toward the hall.
“Then why come here tonight?”
Sophia reached into the pocket of my coat, which still lay across her lap.
She pulled out a folded envelope.
Cream paper.
No return address.
My name was written across the front.
She handed it to me.
Inside was a single page.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY DOMINIC NEVER FOUND YOU, COME TO THE MORETTI HOUSE CHRISTMAS EVE AT TEN.
BRING THE CARTER LEDGER.
COME ALONE.
I read it twice.
“You brought it?”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
Sophia’s eyes moved to the door.
“Somewhere nobody in your family can reach.”
“What is it?”
She took a long breath.
“My mother worked as a bookkeeper for Moretti Maritime before she died.”
I felt the room contract around us.
“She kept records.”
“What kind of records?”
“Payments. Dock numbers. Companies that didn’t exist. Names that disappeared from payroll after people disappeared in real life.”
I said nothing.
Sophia watched my face carefully.
“She believed someone was moving millions through redevelopment projects and using your legitimate companies to hide it.”
“Who?”
“She only wrote one name in full.”
I already knew before she said it.
“Carlo Vitale.”
The door behind me opened.
Enzo stood there.
His face was pale.
“We have a bigger problem.”
I rose.
“What now?”
“The gates are still locked.”
“So?”
“Carlo’s gone.”
I looked toward the window.
“That’s impossible.”
“He didn’t leave through the gate.”
Enzo held up his phone.
A security image filled the screen.
A dark sedan was moving across the frozen service road near the old marina entrance.
The driver’s face was invisible.
The passenger was not.
Carlo Vitale.
Enzo swiped to the next image.
I stopped breathing.
In the back seat was a small red mitten.
The same kind Lily had been wearing when I found her beneath the staircase.
I turned toward the adjoining room.
The door was open.
May you like
The bed inside was empty.
Lily was gone.
