Chapter 3 - THE MEN WHO CAME FOR THE NECKLACE
The third impact against the cottage door cracked the frame.
Emma screamed.
I pulled her from the bed and dragged the mattress sideways.
“Get behind it.”
She was crying too hard to understand.
“Emma.”
I grabbed her face.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes found mine.
“Behind the mattress. Stay low.”
“Mommy—”
“Now.”
She crawled.
Another gunshot shattered the kitchen window.
I dropped.
Glass rained across the floor.
The security guard outside shouted something.
A second voice answered.
Then tires.
I could not tell who was winning.
My phone was in the living room.
Of course it was.
The one night I needed every terrible movie lesson ever made, my phone was twenty feet away beside Lucia Caruso’s diary page.
The door shook again.
I looked around the bedroom.
Window.
Too high.
Too exposed.
Closet.
No.
Bathroom.
Small window near the ceiling.
Possible.
I pulled Emma toward it.
“Climb.”
She stared.
“Where?”
“Up.”
I stood on the toilet lid and pushed the window open.
Cold air hit my face.
The opening was barely wide enough for Emma.
Good.
I lifted her.
“Go through.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know.”
“Come too.”
“I will.”
Lie.
Maybe.
She grabbed the frame.
Outside was a narrow strip of grass between the cottage and the stone wall surrounding the service garden.
No men visible.
“Drop.”
“It’s high.”
“Three feet.”
“It looks ten.”
“Emma.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and slid.
I heard her land.
“Ow.”
“You okay?”
“My butt hurts.”
A ridiculous wave of relief hit me.
“Run to the hedge. Stay down.”
“What about you?”
“I’m coming.”
The bedroom door moved behind me.
Not the cottage entrance.
Our bedroom.
Someone was already inside.
I froze.
A shadow crossed the hallway.
I looked back at the bathroom window.
Too small for me.
The door handle turned.
I grabbed the first thing available.
Toilet brush.
Fantastic.
I was about to fight armed criminals with household sanitation.
The door opened.
I swung.
A hand caught my wrist.
“Rachel.”
Vincent.
I stopped breathing.
He stood there wearing no jacket, white shirt half-buttoned at the collar, gun in one hand.
I had never seen him armed.
Seeing it made every newspaper headline suddenly physical.
“Emma?”
“Outside.”
His face changed.
“Where?”
“Bathroom window.”
Vincent moved past me.
He looked out.
“Emma.”
No answer.
My heart stopped.
“Emma!”
A small voice from the hedge.
“Here!”
Vincent closed his eyes briefly.
Then looked at me.
“Come.”
He pulled me into the hall.
Two Caruso security men stood near the broken front door.
One had blood on his sleeve.
Not his, apparently.
The attackers were gone.
“Where is the guard?”
Vincent asked.
“Alive. Shoulder wound.”
“Vehicle?”
“Black sedan. Plates covered.”
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
“Dominic?”
The guard hesitated.
“No confirmation.”
My stomach dropped.
Vincent looked at me.
“What did they ask for?”
“The necklace.”
His expression went cold.
“Exactly?”
“They said, ‘Give us the necklace.’”
Vincent turned toward the kitchen.
The pendant lay on the table where I left it.
Or had.
The table was empty.
My breath stopped.
“No.”
I crossed the room.
Diary page.
Birth certificate.
Photographs.
Gone.
The necklace too.
I searched under papers.
Nothing.
“They took it.”
Vincent stood beside me.
“Did you see who entered?”
“No.”
“Did Emma?”
I looked toward the bathroom.
“She was outside.”
Vincent’s face changed again.
“Get her.”
We went through the back door.
Emma crouched under the hedge.
Pink pajamas covered in mud.
When she saw me, she ran.
I caught her.
“You okay?”
She nodded against my neck.
Then whispered:
“The mean man took your shiny thing.”
I froze.
Vincent crouched.
“What mean man?”
Emma pointed toward the far garden path.
“The one from dinner.”
My stomach dropped.
“Dominic?”
She nodded.
Vincent went completely still.
“Did he see you?”
Emma shook her head.
“I hid.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He was mad.”
“What did he say?”
Emma looked at me.
“He said, ‘Lucia should have stayed dead.’”
Vincent’s face emptied.
I had never seen a person become dangerous so quietly.
No shouting.
No curse.
Just absence.
He stood.
One of his men stepped back without being told.
“Find Dominic.”
The order was soft.
The guard nodded and disappeared.
I held Emma tighter.
Vincent looked at us.
“You are coming into the main house.”
I almost argued.
Then looked at the broken cottage.
“No argument?”
“Not tonight.”
“Good.”
He picked up Emma.
I stared.
She stared too.
“What?”
Vincent looked awkward.
“I can carry you.”
Emma considered.
Then wrapped her arms around his neck.
I watched the most feared man in New York carry my muddy six-year-old daughter across the lawn while armed guards surrounded us.
Life had stopped asking my permission.
Inside the mansion, Mrs. Morales met us with blankets.
Emma refused to release Vincent.
This seemed to confuse him more than gunfire.
“You can let go now,” he said.
“No.”
He looked at me.
I shrugged.
“You are the boss.”
His eyes narrowed.
Emma put her head on his shoulder.
Vincent stopped moving.
Something in his face broke open.
Lucia.
Again.
Maybe the memory of carrying his sister when they were children.
Maybe something else.
I did not ask.
We settled Emma in a guest bedroom beside mine.
Mrs. Morales stayed with her.
Vincent took me to the library.
This time, I did not object.
His men searched the property.
Security footage showed Dominic entering the cottage thirty seconds after the first shots.
Not as an attacker.
As someone who knew exactly when security would be distracted.
He took the necklace and Lucia’s diary copy.
Then left through the service path.
“He planned it,” I said.
Vincent nodded.
“Or someone did with him.”
“Why would Dominic want Lucia’s necklace?”
Vincent looked toward the old photograph on his desk.
“The pendant was not only jewelry.”
Of course.
I laughed bitterly.
“Nothing is ever only jewelry in this family.”
“No.”
“What is it?”
Vincent opened a drawer.
Removed another photograph.
Close-up of Lucia’s pendant.
On the back was a small groove.
“The pendant opens.”
I stared.
“My mother wore it for decades.”
“She may never have known.”
“What is inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“Vincent.”
“I don’t.”
I hated that.
He continued.
“Our father gave Lucia and me matching pendants when we were children. Mine was plain inside. Hers had a removable insert.”
“Why?”
“My mother made them.”
“What did she put inside?”
“I was told a prayer.”
“Was it?”
“I never saw.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“Dominic knew.”
“His father may have.”
“Who was his father?”
“Salvatore Falcone.”
The surname explained Dominic.
“Your father’s man?”
“More than that. He kept records. Enforced orders. Managed problems.”
I looked at Vincent.
“Problems meaning people.”
“Yes.”
The honesty made me colder.
“Was Salvatore there when Lucia disappeared?”
Vincent did not answer.
That was answer enough.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“For how long?”
“Twenty years.”
I stared.
“And you kept Dominic at your table?”
“Dominic was seventeen when Lucia vanished.”
“So?”
“So I did not punish a son for his father.”
“That is almost noble.”
His face hardened.
“Do not mistake it for nobility.”
“Then what?”
“Dominic was useful.”
There it was.
Vincent Caruso.
Not redeemed because a child shouted at him.
A man who kept dangerous people close because power preferred usefulness over comfort.
I crossed my arms.
“And tonight that usefulness broke into my home.”
“Yes.”
“Then Emma was right.”
His eyes lifted.
“About what?”
“You sat there.”
The words hit him.
I continued.
“You saw Dominic grab me and only acted when Emma forced you to look.”
Vincent did not defend himself.
“That is true.”
I was too angry to appreciate the admission.
“The men downstairs.”
His face changed.
“What about them?”
“Emma said they were sad. She said Dominic takes too much.”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“I knew he managed collections.”
“Collections?”
“Debts.”
“Extortion.”
“Sometimes.”
I stared.
“Sometimes?”
He looked tired.
“Rachel, I am not going to become a different man because your daughter embarrassed me at dinner.”
“Good.”
That surprised him.
“I don’t want a fairy tale.”
He watched me.
“I want you to stop pretending you do not see what your power pays for.”
Silence.
I had never spoken to an employer that way.
I had never spoken to anyone like Vincent that way.
Maybe Emma had infected me.
He looked down at his hands.
Still now.
No tremor.
“I saw.”
The answer came quietly.
“I stopped looking.”
That was worse.
I sat.
For the first time, I understood the difference.
Ignorance is one thing.
Choosing not to look is another.
Vincent opened another folder.
“Salvatore Falcone’s records from the year Lucia disappeared were incomplete.”
“Missing?”
“Yes.”
“Dominic’s family?”
“Possibly.”
“Lucia’s pendant?”
“Could contain whatever she took before leaving.”
I thought of the diary.
Lucia confronting her father.
Thomas Bell.
A new name.
Elaine.
“What if she didn’t run?”
Vincent looked at me.
“What if your father tried to kill her, and Thomas helped her escape?”
He stared at the photograph.
“I have asked myself that for thirty-two years.”
“Then why never find her?”
“I tried.”
“How?”
“Private investigators. Hospital records. marriage registries.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
I thought of my mother.
Small apartment.
Library job.
No family.
Few photographs before age eighteen.
“She knew how to disappear.”
“Yes.”
A knock.
One of Vincent’s men entered.
“Dominic’s car found.”
“Where?”
“Brooklyn waterfront.”
“Dominic?”
“No.”
“Blood?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
The man hesitated.
“A phone.”
He handed it to Vincent.
One message was open.
Vincent read.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
A photograph.
Dominic stood beside an elderly woman in a wheelchair.
The woman’s face was thin.
Her hair white.
But I knew the eyes.
My mother’s eyes.
My eyes.
Emma’s.
The image had been taken that night.
Timestamp twenty minutes earlier.
Beneath it:
SHE WAS NEVER DEAD.
My knees weakened.
I whispered, “That is not possible.”
Vincent stared at the woman he had believed lost for thirty-two years.
May you like
Then at me.
“Lucia.”
