Chapter 4 - THE PHOTOGRAPH WITHOUT A FACE
Dante had three cars outside my mother’s apartment within twelve minutes.
I objected to all three.
No one cared.
By the time we reached Bridgeport, I had gone from angry to frightened to something beyond both.
My mother never turned off her phone.
She complained about technology constantly, but she kept the volume high enough to wake neighbors because she believed missed calls were “how families become tragedies.”
Now every call went straight to voicemail.
Arthur had sent two men ahead.
They met us outside the brick building where I grew up.
“She’s not inside,” one said.
My legs weakened.
Dante caught my elbow.
I pulled away.
“Don’t.”
His hand dropped.
The apartment door was unlocked.
That scared me more than damage would have.
My mother locked everything.
Door.
Chain.
Window latches.
She once locked me out while I was taking garbage downstairs because “Chicago has people.”
Inside, nothing looked disturbed.
Coffee mug on the table.
Half a crossword.
Reading glasses beside the couch.
Her purse was gone.
Coat too.
“She left,” Dante said.
“Or someone made her.”
He looked around.
“No sign of force.”
“That means nothing.”
“I know.”
I went directly to the bedroom closet.
The sewing tin.
My mother kept it on the top shelf behind spare blankets.
Blue metal.
White flowers.
I reached up.
Empty space.
“Gone.”
Dante stood behind me.
“What?”
“My grandmother’s jewelry.”
“The bird necklace?”
“Yes.”
“And anything else?”
“I don’t know.”
I pulled down boxes.
Shoes.
Old tax files.
A plastic bag containing my high school graduation gown because apparently fabric needed a twenty-year retirement plan.
No sewing tin.
Then I saw dust marks.
A rectangle on the shelf.
Someone had taken it recently.
I turned.
“Mom knew we would come.”
“What makes you think that?”
“She took the tin.”
“Could be coincidence.”
“She hasn’t opened that thing in five years.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when I asked to borrow Grandma’s earrings for a wedding, she said the box stayed closed until she was dead or brave.”
Dante frowned.
“Which wedding?”
I stared.
“That is what you got from the sentence?”
He ignored me.
“What did she mean by brave?”
“I thought she was being dramatic.”
My phone buzzed.
Toby.
I answered immediately.
“You with Aunt June?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“Of course you’re not.”
“I’m downstairs.”
I ran to the window.
My brother stood on the sidewalk beside an ancient Honda.
Two of Dante’s men had already surrounded him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Mom called me.”
“When?”
“Thirty minutes ago.”
Dante held out a hand.
I put the call on speaker.
“What did she say?” he asked.
Toby went quiet.
“Who’s that?”
“Dante Moretti.”
Longer silence.
Then:
“Oh.”
Dante’s face suggested he was used to that reaction.
“What did your mother say?” he repeated.
“That she needed me to pick something up.”
“What?”
“A package.”
“Where?”
“From St. Anthony’s.”
I grabbed my coat.
Dante shook his head.
“I’m going.”
“Yes.”
I paused.
That was too easy.
“You agree?”
“I would prefer knowing where your mother went.”
Fair.
Again.
I was beginning to resent reality.
St. Anthony’s Church sat five blocks from our apartment.
My grandmother had attended mass there until arthritis made the steps impossible.
The priest who answered the rectory door knew me.
Father Michael had baptized Toby, buried my father, and spent twenty years pretending not to notice when Grandma Rosa stole extra votive candles.
He saw Dante behind me.
His expression changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
“You,” he said.
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“You know me?”
“I know the face.”
Everybody knew the face.
But Father Michael looked at him differently.
“Your wife came here once.”
Dante froze.
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Before she died?”
The priest frowned.
“That is usually how visits work.”
I almost laughed despite everything.
Dante did not.
Father Michael led us into a small office.
Toby arrived two minutes later.
Arthur stayed outside.
“You said my mother left something,” I said.
Father Michael nodded.
“She came this morning.”
Relief struck so hard I gripped the desk.
“She’s alive.”
“She was when I saw her.”
“Where did she go?”
“She did not say.”
“What did she leave?”
The priest opened a drawer.
A brown envelope.
My name on the front.
NORA.
I tore it open.
Inside were three photographs, a key, and a handwritten letter from my mother.
Nora,
If you are reading this, then you found the Morettis before I found the courage to tell you what Rosa made me promise.
I am safe. Do not look for me yet.
That sentence made me furious.
I am not being kidnapped. I am not hurt. I need one day to speak with someone who has waited longer than you have for the truth.
The key opens your grandmother’s box at Union Station.
Do not trust the story you were told about Rosa’s sister.
And whatever Dante Moretti says, remember Isabella was trying to protect her children, not his empire.
Love,
Mom
I handed the letter to Dante.
His eyes stopped at one line.
“Not his empire.”
“I saw it.”
“What did Isabella know?”
“That is becoming everyone’s favorite question.”
Toby picked up one photograph.
“Who are these people?”
We looked.
Three women stood outside a small house.
One was Grandma Rosa at maybe twenty-five.
I recognized her immediately.
Beside her stood another young woman with the same dark eyes.
Sister.
Probably.
The third woman’s face had been scratched away with something sharp.
On the back was a date.
1974.
And three names.
ROSA.
CATERINA.
SOFIA.
My stomach dropped.
“Caterina was Isabella’s grandmother,” Dante said.
I looked at the photograph again.
Grandma Rosa.
Caterina.
Sofia.
But Isabella’s mother had been named Sofia.
“She would have been a child in 1974.”
Dante took the photo.
“Exactly.”
The woman in the picture was at least twenty.
“So this is another Sofia.”
Toby examined the second photograph.
This one showed Grandma Rosa holding a baby.
Caterina stood beside her.
A man stood behind them.
His face had been cut away.
On the back:
CHICAGO — 1976.
NO MORE SECRETS.
The third picture was different.
A hospital room.
My grandmother.
A newborn.
A younger Father Michael.
And a woman I recognized.
My mother.
Except that made no sense.
The date printed on the border was 1973.
My mother was born in 1973.
I looked closer.
Rosa held the baby.
Caterina stood beside her.
Father Michael was barely twenty.
The baby had to be Ava.
My mother.
Then I saw something written on the lower corner in blue ink.
AVA VASSALLO.
Not Bennett.
Toby frowned.
“So Mom was born before Grandpa?”
“No.”
I turned the photo over.
A sentence.
GIVE HER DANIEL’S NAME. NEVER TELL MICHELE.
Dante took the picture.
“Who is Michele?”
Father Michael sat down.
We all looked at him.
His face had gone pale.
“Father?”
He stared at the photograph like it could accuse him.
“I promised Rosa.”
“So did my mother,” I snapped. “Apparently promises are ruining my week.”
The priest sighed.
“Michele Kowalski.”
Nobody spoke.
Toby laughed nervously.
“That doesn’t sound Sicilian.”
“He was born Michele Kowalski because his father was Polish and his mother Sicilian,” Father Michael said. “He later used Michael Kowal in business. Marek’s uncle.”
My knees weakened.
I sat.
“What does he have to do with my mother?”
Father Michael closed his eyes.
“He was her father.”
The room went silent.
Toby whispered, “What?”
“Our grandfather was a Kowalski?”
“Biologically,” the priest said.
I thought of Stan’s warning.
Ask the girl why Rosa Vassallo left Palermo.
Dante’s face had gone cold.
“Did Marek know?”
“I don’t know.”
Father Michael looked at me.
“Rosa married Daniel Bennett when Ava was two. Daniel knew the truth and raised her as his own. Michele had no legal claim.”
“Why hide it?”
“Because Michele’s family had already become involved in organized crime.”
I almost laughed.
I looked at Dante.
“Apparently we have standards.”
He did not smile.
Father Michael continued.
“Rosa wanted her daughter away from them.”
“And Isabella?”
Dante asked.
The priest looked down.
“Caterina was Rosa’s older sister.”
Dante froze.
“Then Sofia DeMarco—Isabella’s mother—”
“Was Caterina’s daughter.”
I did the family tree in my head.
Rosa and Caterina were sisters.
Ava was Rosa’s daughter.
Sofia was Caterina’s daughter.
That made my mother and Isabella’s mother first cousins.
And Isabella—
“My second cousin.”
Father Michael nodded.
“By blood.”
My lungs finally remembered air.
That explained the lullaby.
The necklace.
The note.
It did not explain the Kowalskis.
Dante asked the next question.
“Why would Isabella write Rosa’s name if Rosa was only extended family?”
Father Michael looked toward the door.
Then quietly locked it.
“Because Rosa knew what happened to Caterina.”
“What happened?”
The priest looked at me.
“She disappeared in 1988.”
“Dead?”
“We thought so.”
“You thought?”
He pulled a thin file from a cabinet.
Inside was one photograph.
A woman standing on a dock.
Older.
Caterina.
Beside her was a man.
Michele Kowalski.
And between them stood a teenage girl.
Sofia.
Isabella’s mother.
On the back:
MILWAUKEE, 1991.
Dante’s face hardened.
“Sofia told Isabella her mother died when she was a child.”
“She lied,” Father Michael said.
“Why?”
“Because Caterina did not disappear.”
He looked at me.
“She joined Michele.”
The room felt smaller.
“Joined him how?”
The priest answered carefully.
“She helped build the Kowalski network.”
Toby muttered, “This family reunion is terrible.”
No one corrected him.
I thought about my grandmother spending decades refusing to say her sister’s name.
Old places make old trouble.
Now I understood.
She had not been hiding a shameful marriage.
She had been hiding a war inside her own family.
Dante stared at the photograph.
“Where is Caterina now?”
Father Michael shook his head.
“Rosa believed she died around 2005.”
“Believed.”
“Yes.”
“Not knew.”
“No.”
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph arrived.
My mother sat at a kitchen table.
Alive.
Beside her sat an elderly woman with white hair.
Around the woman’s neck hung a gold necklace shaped like a red bird.
The same design my grandmother wore.
Beneath the photograph was one sentence.
YOU WANTED TO KNOW WHERE AVA WENT.
A second message arrived.
ASK DANTE WHAT HIS FATHER DID TO CATERINA.
I looked at him.
Dante stared at the screen.
“My father died twelve years ago.”
Father Michael whispered, “That does not mean his debts did.”
Then a third message appeared.
MIDNIGHT.
COME TO THE OLD VASSALLO BAKERY.
BRING DANTE.
NO GUNS.
Toby looked at me.
“Are we going?”
“No,” Dante said.
I turned.
“Yes.”
His expression hardened.
“Nora.”
“That is my mother.”
“It is a trap.”
“I know.”
“Then stop behaving like that makes it acceptable.”
I stepped closer.
“You hired me because I was desperate enough to enter your house.”
He stared.
“You told me I was under your protection.”
“Yes.”
“Then protect me while I go get my mother.”
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then the door opened.
Arthur entered without knocking.
His face was grave.
“Sir.”
Dante turned.
“What?”
“We checked the nursery transmitter purchases.”
“And?”
Arthur looked directly at him.
“The payment authorization came from Moretti Holdings.”
Dante went still.
“Whose signature?”
Arthur hesitated.
“Your father’s account code.”
Dante stared.
“That account was closed when he died.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So who reopened it?”
Arthur swallowed.
May you like
“Enzo.”
And for the first time, I saw fear enter Dante Moretti’s eyes for a reason that had nothing to do with a lullaby.
