Chapter 3 - What Harper’s Mother Had Been Hiding
Harper reread the message until the letters stopped looking like words.
And if Roman Moretti finds out, he’ll hate you.
Roman stood beside her.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is becoming inconvenient.”
Harper spun toward him.
“You think I planned this?”
“I think your mother knows something.”
“So do I.”
“Then we find her.”
Roman started toward the entryway.
Harper caught his arm.
“We?”
He looked at her hand on his sleeve.
She released him.
“This is my family.”
“And my mother’s home was entered because of it.”
His voice remained controlled.
“That makes it mine.”
Beatrice approached.
She signed one question.
Is Harper safe?
Harper stared at her.
Roman answered his mother.
I don’t know.
For some reason, that frightened Harper more than if he had lied.
Within an hour, Roman had three people searching for Denise Hayes.
Harper learned this when a man named Vincent appeared with a tablet containing addresses, credit card activity and recent phone records.
She disliked how quickly Roman could make someone’s private life appear on a screen.
She disliked even more how relieved she felt.
Denise’s apartment in Yonkers was empty.
Her car remained parked outside.
Her phone had last connected to a cell tower near Grand Central.
Then nothing.
At four in the afternoon, Harper received another message.
Come alone if you want the truth.
Below it was an address.
An old church in Queens.
Roman read over her shoulder.
“No.”
“You don’t get to decide.”
“Yes, I do.”
Harper stared.
Roman seemed genuinely confused by her objection.
She almost laughed.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I’ve been told.”
“I’m going.”
“So am I.”
“The message says alone.”
“The message can be disappointed.”
Thirty minutes later, Roman’s car stopped two blocks from St. Bartholomew’s Church.
Harper turned.
“You stay here.”
“No.”
“You’re terrible at following directions.”
“I’m excellent at following useful directions.”
“Roman.”
He leaned slightly closer.
“If your mother is frightened enough to break into Beatrice’s home and tell you to stay away from this, she is frightened of someone.”
Harper did not answer.
Roman continued.
“You walk through that door alone, I follow thirty seconds later.”
“That defeats the point.”
“It preserves the illusion.”
She hated that the plan made sense.
Inside, the church smelled like dust and candle wax.
Denise Hayes sat in the third pew.
Harper had not seen her in eight months.
Her mother looked older.
Smaller.
A cheap gray coat hung around her narrow shoulders.
“You brought him.”
Harper stopped.
Denise had not turned around.
“How did you know?”
“There’s always a Moretti car.”
Roman remained outside.
For the moment.
Harper moved closer.
“You broke into Beatrice’s house.”
“I took something that should have been destroyed years ago.”
“The envelope.”
Denise finally turned.
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“Gone.”
“What does that mean?”
“I burned it.”
Harper stared at her.
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
“From what?”
Denise laughed softly.
“From finally understanding what kind of family we were.”
Harper’s hands clenched.
“Owen died because of a medication error?”
Her mother looked away.
“That’s part of it.”
“Part?”
“The hospital made a mistake.”
“Dr. Voss?”
Denise nodded.
Harper’s chest tightened.
“Why did you hide it?”
“Because they offered money.”
The words landed like stones.
Harper stopped moving.
“What?”
Denise’s eyes filled.
“We were drowning.”
“You took money?”
“Your father was gone. Bills were everywhere. Owen needed treatment. You needed school.”
“Owen was dead.”
“Not yet.”
Harper went still.
Denise began crying.
“The first settlement happened before he died.”
Harper whispered, “What settlement?”
“They paid me to sign a confidentiality agreement after the medication error.”
Harper felt sick.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You knew their mistake hurt him.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept him there?”
“I had no choice.”
“You had every choice!”
Her voice echoed beneath the church ceiling.
Denise flinched.
“They said moving him would kill him.”
“And staying killed him.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You signed their papers.”
“I was terrified!”
Harper laughed through tears.
“Owen knew, didn’t he?”
Denise covered her face.
“He found the agreement.”
The truth rearranged Harper’s memories.
Owen becoming quiet.
Owen refusing to look at their mother.
Owen repeatedly asking Harper to stay overnight.
“He knew you took money.”
“He thought I sold him.”
“Didn’t you?”
Denise stood.
“I was trying to save both of you.”
“You didn’t save him.”
The words silenced them.
Roman entered the church.
Denise’s face changed instantly.
Fear.
Real fear.
“Roman Moretti.”
Roman stopped several feet away.
“You know me.”
“Everyone knows you.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Denise looked toward the side exit.
Roman noticed.
“So did Dr. Voss tell you my family was involved?”
Harper turned sharply.
“What?”
Denise’s face drained.
Roman stepped closer.
“The message said I’d hate Harper if I discovered the truth.”
Denise said nothing.
“What truth?”
Harper whispered.
Denise looked at her daughter.
“The medicine that Owen received by mistake was part of a private clinical program.”
Roman’s expression changed.
“What program?”
“Moretti Biomedical.”
Silence filled the church.
Harper slowly looked at Roman.
He did not appear angry.
He appeared shocked.
“I don’t own a biomedical company.”
“Your father did.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“My father died fifteen years ago.”
“The company continued under a holding group.”
Denise reached inside her coat.
Roman’s posture changed immediately.
She withdrew a folded newspaper clipping.
Roman took it.
A photograph showed Roman’s father, Lorenzo Moretti, shaking hands with executives outside St. Catherine’s Hospital.
Harper read the headline.
MORETTI FOUNDATION FUNDS PEDIATRIC RESEARCH PROGRAM.
Roman’s face became stone.
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“No,” Denise said. “But the documents I burned did.”
Harper stepped forward.
“You burned proof that Owen’s death was connected to them?”
“I burned copies.”
Roman looked up sharply.
“Copies.”
Denise swallowed.
“Owen kept originals.”
Harper’s heart jumped.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“That makes no sense.”
“He never trusted me again.”
Denise started crying.
“After he found the settlement agreement, he stopped telling me things.”
Harper remembered Owen’s tiny lockbox.
A blue metal box decorated with astronaut stickers.
After his death, she had searched for it.
It was gone.
“Did you throw away his blue box?”
Denise’s confusion appeared genuine.
“What blue box?”
Harper’s pulse accelerated.
Roman noticed.
“Owen had a metal box.”
“He kept important things inside.”
“Where is it?”
Harper closed her eyes.
She remembered the last week of Owen’s life.
He had barely spoken.
One afternoon, he had signed something strange.
Harper had thought fever made him confused.
If I go first, find the place where everything becomes quiet.
At the time she assumed he meant heaven.
Now another memory surfaced.
A place from childhood.
Their father used to take them there.
An abandoned observation platform near Rockaway Beach where planes crossed low overhead before the city built new barriers.
Owen called it the quiet place because he would remove his hearing devices and feel the vibrations instead.
Harper opened her eyes.
“I know.”
Roman stared.
“Where?”
Before she could answer, a sound came from the rear of the church.
A door shutting.
Roman turned.
Someone had been listening.
He moved quickly toward the corridor.
Harper followed.
They reached the side entrance just in time to see a dark sedan pulling away.
Roman memorized the license plate.
Denise whispered, “He found me.”
Roman turned.
“Who?”
She looked terrified now.
“Dr. Voss.”
Harper’s blood went cold.
“You said he was involved in the cover-up.”
“He didn’t create it.”
“Then who did?”
Denise stared directly at Roman.
“Your uncle.”
Roman’s face changed.
“Which uncle?”
“You only have one.”
Roman said the name as though it tasted poisonous.
“Salvatore.”
Denise nodded.
Roman stepped backward.
Salvatore Moretti was not simply Roman’s uncle.
He was the man who had raised Roman after Lorenzo’s death.
His mentor.
His adviser.
The person Roman trusted with everything his father had left behind.
Roman turned away.
His phone was already in his hand.
Harper grabbed his wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding out whether my uncle remembers your brother.”
Denise suddenly shouted.
“No!”
Roman froze.
She rushed toward them.
“If Salvatore knows Owen’s box still exists, he’ll get there before you.”
Harper looked toward Roman.
“The quiet place.”
Roman understood.
“Tell me where.”
Thirty-five minutes later, they reached the abandoned stretch near the beach.
Winter wind cut across the dark water.
Harper found the rusted observation bench.
Her hands shook as she reached underneath.
Nothing.
She dropped to her knees.
“Owen.”
Roman crouched beside her.
“There may be another location.”
“No.”
She felt along the underside again.
Her fingers struck metal.
Harper gasped.
Behind one of the support bars was a tiny magnetic key.
The key opened a rusted maintenance locker twenty feet away.
Inside sat a blue metal box covered in faded astronaut stickers.
Harper pressed both hands over her mouth.
Roman said nothing.
She carried it to the bench.
The key fit.
Inside were medical records.
A cassette recorder.
Three letters.
And a sealed envelope addressed in Owen’s childish handwriting.
FOR HARPER ONLY.
Harper opened it.
Dear Harper,
If you are reading this, I guess Mrs. Moretti found you.
Don’t hate Mom forever. She made a bad choice because she was scared.
But don’t believe the doctors either.
Mr. Salvatore came to my room.
He told Dr. Voss nobody could ever know the wrong medicine came from his trial because important people would lose everything.
I pretended I was asleep.
There’s something else.
Harper stopped.
Roman noticed her expression.
“What?”
She continued reading.
Mr. Salvatore said Roman can never know what his father discovered before he died.
Harper slowly looked up.
Roman had gone completely still.
“My father?”
May you like
She read the final line aloud.
“Roman Moretti’s father didn’t die in an accident.”
