Chapter 7 - THE MOTHER ACROSS THE STREET
I did not sleep.
At seven thirteen Christmas morning, Renee walked into the kitchen wearing reindeer pajamas and announced that she had reconsidered the ice-cream issue.
“I think Uncle Nico is right.”
“He usually isn’t.”
Nico, seated at the island drinking coffee, looked offended.
“I protect this family.”
“You suggested ice cream for breakfast.”
“Morale is part of protection.”
Renee climbed onto a stool.
“I want chocolate chips and whipped cream.”
“Whipped cream is not breakfast.”
“It comes from milk.”
I looked at Nico.
He raised both hands.
“That logic is hers.”
For twenty minutes, I made pancakes.
Not a chef.
Not a housekeeper.
Me.
Renee sat on the counter swinging her legs while telling me that Sophie had received a dollhouse with working lights and that Grandma said Renee was too old for dolls anyway.
Each casual sentence revealed another small cruelty.
Each one went into a part of my mind where I stored debts.
But I did not let my anger touch her breakfast.
I burned the first pancake.
She laughed.
I flipped the second too early.
She laughed harder.
By the third, I had remembered the technique Julia once taught me.
“Wait for the bubbles,” I said.
Renee nodded seriously.
“Mommy Julia taught you?”
“Yes.”
“She was smarter than you.”
Nico choked on his coffee.
I pointed the spatula at him.
“Not one word.”
After breakfast, Renee opened the gifts she had not been allowed to enjoy at my parents’ house.
I had moved them from beneath our tree upstairs to the family room.
There were too many.
I knew that.
Julia had once accused me of using money to solve emotions.
She was right often enough to remain annoying several years after her death.
Renee opened a telescope, art supplies, books, a purple bicycle helmet, and a doll dressed like an astronaut.
Then she reached a small box wrapped in silver paper.
I did not recognize it.
“Who is that from?” I asked.
The tag read:
FOR RENEE — FROM SOMEONE WHO HAS ALWAYS LOVED YOU.
Nico was on his feet before I finished reading.
Gabriel, entering from the hall, stopped immediately.
I took the box from Renee.
“Hey.”
Her face fell.
“I’m checking it.”
“Because of bad guys?”
“Yes.”
She sighed dramatically.
“Bad guys ruin everything.”
“Frequently.”
Gabriel scanned the package. Nothing electronic. Nothing dangerous.
I opened it.
Inside lay a silver bracelet sized for a child.
A small charm hung from it.
A blue bird.
My chest tightened.
Beneath the bracelet was a note.
Six words.
I AM SORRY I WAS AFRAID.
Allison.
I knew it before anyone said it.
I looked at Gabriel.
“How did this get under the tree?”
His face hardened.
“I don’t know.”
“That is becoming a popular sentence.”
“I’ll pull every camera.”
Renee reached toward the bracelet.
“Can I wear it?”
I wanted to say no.
I wanted to lock it in a safe with every other mystery.
Instead, I looked at the little blue bird and remembered Anthony’s video.
Allison wants the baby called Renee Marie.
“She can,” Margaret Wells said from the doorway.
I turned.
She had returned with Ethan.
Renee looked suspiciously at the elderly attorney.
“Who are you?”
“Margaret.”
“Are you Daddy’s friend?”
Margaret considered me.
“We are attempting it.”
Renee accepted that.
Margaret crouched slowly.
“That bracelet belonged to someone who loved you very much.”
“Who?”
I met Margaret’s eyes.
Too soon.
She understood.
“Someone your dad will tell you about when he has all the answers.”
Renee looked at me.
“Do you have all the answers?”
“Almost never.”
“That’s not good.”
“No.”
She held out her wrist.
I fastened the bracelet.
Then Gabriel’s phone rang.
He stepped into the hall.
Thirty seconds later he returned.
“We have the person who placed it.”
“Who?”
“One of the cleaning staff. Maria Alvarez.”
I knew Maria. She had worked in the house three years.
“Bring her to the office. Gently.”
Renee was already distracted by the astronaut doll.
I left Nico with her and followed Gabriel.
Maria sat in my office wringing her hands.
She was fifty, widowed, and sent half her salary to a daughter studying nursing in Texas.
She began apologizing before I closed the door.
“Mr. DeLuca, I didn’t know it was bad. I swear.”
“Who gave you the package?”
“A woman.”
“What woman?”
“She came to the service entrance three days ago.”
“Three days?”
“Yes. She said she knew Renee’s mother.”
My pulse slowed.
“Describe her.”
“Maybe mid-thirties. Brown hair. Thin. Scar here.”
Maria touched the left side of her jaw.
Margaret took out her phone and showed an old photograph.
“Allison?”
Maria stared.
“Yes. Older, but yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell security?” Gabriel asked.
Maria looked terrified.
“She knew things.”
“What things?”
“She knew my daughter’s name. She knew my husband died last year. She knew Renee gives me drawings for my locker.”
That did not comfort me.
“What did she say?”
“She asked me to put the present under the tree Christmas morning. She said if Mr. DeLuca found it before then, he might throw it away.”
I almost objected.
Then I realized she was probably right.
“Did she give you anything else?”
Maria reached into her sweater pocket and removed a folded piece of paper.
“She said only give this if you asked about her.”
I opened it.
A phone number.
And beneath it:
Tell Michael I’m done hiding.
My heartbeat became loud.
I called immediately.
The number rang once.
Twice.
A woman answered.
“Hello?”
Her voice was ordinary.
That made the moment stranger.
“Allison?”
Silence.
Then a shaky breath.
“Michael?”
“Yes.”
She began crying.
Quietly.
Not theatrically.
Like someone whose body had reached the end of a very long road before her mind had accepted it.
“Is she okay?”
The first question was about Renee.
Whatever suspicion I carried shifted.
“Yes.”
“Is she happy?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know?”
“Not yet.”
“Good.”
The relief in that word hurt.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone.”
“You said you’re done hiding.”
“I am. That doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
Anthony had chosen well.
“Then choose a place.”
She hesitated.
“Eleanor used to take me to a diner in Evanston. Lakeview Grill. Back booth.”
“When?”
“One hour.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Michael.”
“Yes?”
“If Vincent comes, I leave.”
“He won’t.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can.”
There was a pause.
Then she said, “Anthony said you sounded exactly like that when you were about to do something reckless.”
The line went dead.
The Lakeview Grill was open on Christmas because the owner believed pancakes were more reliable than holidays.
I arrived with Ethan but left Gabriel outside.
Allison sat in the back booth wearing a black coat and no makeup.
She looked thirty-six, maybe thirty-seven.
A pale scar ran along her jaw.
Her hands were wrapped around a coffee cup she had not touched.
When she saw me, her eyes changed.
Then she stood.
For one second, I saw Renee in her face.
Not the eyes.
Anthony had been right about those.
But the mouth.
The way she pressed her lips together when trying not to cry.
Renee did the same thing.
I stopped beside the booth.
“Allison.”
She nodded.
“Michael.”
Neither of us knew whether to shake hands.
We did not.
I sat opposite her.
Ethan took the next booth, close enough to hear but far enough to pretend he wasn’t listening.
Allison looked at my hands.
“Where is she?”
“Home.”
“With people I trust.”
“Do you trust them?”
“Yes.”
She looked almost envious.
“That must be nice.”
I let that pass.
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
Her eyes flashed.
“I did.”
I stared at her.
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
“I never saw you.”
“I got as far as your office lobby.”
“What happened?”
“Sal Romano.”
The name landed heavily.
“He met me downstairs. Said you knew who I was and wanted me gone.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“What did he threaten?”
Her fingers tightened around the coffee cup.
“He showed me photographs of Renee at preschool.”
My jaw locked.
“He said if I approached you again, people who wanted Anthony’s evidence would learn she existed.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes.”
“So you disappeared again.”
“Yes.”
“Why come back now?”
“Eleanor died.”
Her eyes filled.
“She was the last person who knew the whole story and wasn’t owned by your father.”
“Frank?”
She looked sharply at me.
“You know he’s alive.”
“Yes.”
“He tried to help.”
“Did he?”
“He got Anthony off the boat. He got me out of Kenosha. He found Renee after Vincent moved her into foster care.”
“Then why didn’t he return her to you?”
Pain crossed Allison’s face.
“Because by then I was being watched. And because Vincent convinced Frank that anyone who tried to reunite us would get her killed.”
I leaned back.
“My father seems to have convinced many people he was the only man capable of keeping a baby alive.”
“He was good at fear.”
“So am I.”
Allison looked at me directly.
“I know.”
That answer contained no admiration.
Good.
I had no use for admiration from her.
Only truth.
“What happened to Anthony?”
She looked down.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You were there.”
“I escaped before he died.”
“Frank says my father was there.”
“He was.”
“Did Vincent order the attack?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he run the trafficking operation?”
Her face changed.
“No.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Anthony thought he did at first. So did Teresa.”
“Then who?”
Allison looked toward the windows.
Snow moved sideways against the glass.
“Your father covered it up,” she said. “He protected the person responsible. He threatened us. He stole Renee from me. I am not defending him.”
“But?”
“But the person running the containers wasn’t Vincent.”
“Who was it?”
She looked back at me.
“Sal Romano.”
Ethan stopped pretending not to listen.
I felt the pieces rearrange again.
“Why would my father protect Sal?”
Allison’s expression became almost pitying.
“Because Sal wasn’t acting alone.”
“Who else?”
She reached into her bag and removed a photograph.
It showed four men outside a warehouse.
Sal.
Frank.
Carlo Ventresca.
And a younger man whose face I knew better than my own.
My brother Anthony.
I stared at her.
“No.”
“Look at the date.”
I did.
Six months before Anthony supposedly discovered the operation.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Anthony was involved before he tried to stop it.”
My chest tightened.
Allison’s voice trembled.
“He helped build the route.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“He didn’t know what they were moving at first,” she said. “At least that’s what he told me.”
“At first?”
“He found out later.”
“How much later?”
Her silence told me I was not going to like the answer.
“Months.”
I pushed the photo back toward her.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them, they were full of tears.
“Anthony didn’t disappear only because Vincent was hunting him.”
“Then why?”
“Because he was ashamed.”
I waited.
Allison swallowed.
“And because before he tried to expose the operation, someone died in one of those containers.”
“Who?”
May you like
Her next answer changed the shape of my brother forever.
“Teresa Molina’s younger sister.”
