Chapter 3 - THE NAME BENEATH SAINT AGNES
Luca reached Anne’s house before the police did.
That fact would have annoyed me under ordinary circumstances. Nothing about that night was ordinary.
By the time Daniel and I arrived, the gray sedan was gone, a patrol car blocked the driveway, and Luca stood on the front walk arguing with an officer who looked too young to understand why half the block had suddenly developed an interest in their curtains.
Rose opened the door before I could knock.
At nineteen, she had Derek’s eyes, my stubbornness, and no patience for being treated like a fragile object. She folded her arms as I stepped inside.
“I am fine,” she said.
“That is good. You can tell me what happened while I check whether you are fine.”
“Grandma is in the kitchen making tea because apparently tea defeats surveillance.”
From the kitchen, Anne called, “Tea defeats many things.”
I put both hands on Rose’s shoulders, looked at her face, and let myself breathe. “Tell me.”
She had come over to help Anne move boxes from the attic. At 9:17, she noticed a man photographing the house. When she raised her phone, he turned away. When she texted me, he stepped out of the car and walked toward the mailbox.
Then Anne appeared behind Rose holding the wooden rolling pin she had used for forty years.
The man stopped, smiled, and said he had the wrong address.
“Did you see his face?” I asked.
Rose handed me her phone. “Better. I recorded him.”
The video was only eleven seconds, but the man turned toward the house long enough to be seen clearly. Mid-fifties. Narrow face. Silver hair. A small scar beside his mouth.
Luca came inside as the video played.
He froze.
“You know him,” I said.
“Martin Vale. He handled private investigations for Aldo Greco.”
“Handled?” Rose asked.
“He supposedly retired ten years ago.”
Anne placed four cups on the table with more force than necessary. “Men like that do not retire. They become consultants.”
Luca looked at her. “You remember him?”
“I remember every face that frightened me after I brought Emma home.”
The room quieted.
Anne went upstairs and returned with a metal cashbox I had seen throughout my childhood. She set it beside the tea and removed tax papers, my father’s death certificate, and a church bulletin yellowed with age.
At the bottom was a business card.
Martin Vale — Security and Recovery.
On the back, my father had written a date. I was six years old then.
“He came to the house?” I asked.
“He said he was searching for a missing inheritance beneficiary,” Anne replied. “Your father told him we did not know anyone named Moretti. Martin looked through the front window and saw you coloring at the table.”
“Why did you never tell me?”
Pain crossed her face. “Because he did not come back. Because every year that passed made silence feel safer. And because fear becomes a habit if you practice it long enough.”
I wanted to be angry. Part of me was. But Anne had not been protecting a corporate reputation or preserving a man’s promise. She had been an ordinary mother facing a powerful family with a six-year-old behind her.
I took her hand.
“No more secrets,” I said.
She nodded. “No more.”
Luca remained near the doorway. He understood the statement included him.
We moved Anne to our apartment for the night. Rose refused to leave her college dorm permanently, but accepted a security assessment after I reminded her that independence did not require pretending danger was imaginary.
At dawn, Rebecca obtained permission from the diocese for us to enter Saint Agnes. We did not tell Vincent Greco. Luca told his office he had food poisoning, a lie so unbelievable that it might have been useful.
The church stood between a tire shop and a row of brick houses in Queens. Fire had taken the roof over the old sanctuary, but the stone lower level survived behind a welded steel door. A diocesan archivist named Mr. Pritchard met us with keys, dust masks, and visible regret about every choice that had led him there.
“Nothing is to be removed,” he said. “Nothing is to be damaged. If you see rats, remember this building belongs to God and so do they.”
“That is not reassuring,” Daniel muttered.
We descended narrow steps into air that smelled of wet stone and ash. Broken plaster saints stood in rows along one wall, many turned backward to protect their damaged faces. Luca moved toward a statue of Saint Christopher with half an arm missing.
“Sofia used to leave notes behind this one,” he said.
It was not a dramatic hiding place. No secret mechanism opened. No ancient vault appeared. Behind the wooden shelving was a loose stone marked by a faded blue line.
Rebecca photographed it before Luca touched anything.
Inside the shallow space rested a ledger wrapped in waxed cloth.
The book was smaller than I expected. Black leather. Water-stained edges. A blue thread had been sewn through one page near the center.
We left it where it was and photographed each marked page, exactly as Sofia instructed.
Most entries were coded transfers from companies that no longer existed. Rebecca recognized several as construction entities Antonio had controlled. Beside each payment were initials, dates, and short descriptions.
One line ended the fiction of Thomas Bell’s accident.
T.B. — collision arranged — A.G. confirmed — $40,000.
Aldo Greco.
Another entry, six weeks later, read:
S.M. located Newark. Infant transferred. V.G. witnessed. Hold unless A.M. orders recovery.
Vincent Greco had been twenty-six then, already working under his father.
He had known about me before Luca ever saw me through the nursery glass.
My stomach turned.
“Hold unless Antonio orders recovery,” Daniel read. “Why didn’t he?”
Luca’s face was hard. “Perhaps he never knew they found her. Or Aldo decided a hidden child was more valuable than a recovered one.”
Rebecca photographed the next page.
It contained regular payments stretching across fourteen years. Every six months, money went to M.V. for what the ledger called Carter observation.
Martin Vale had not found us once.
He had watched us throughout my childhood.
“They knew where I was,” I whispered.
Anne had spent twenty-nine years afraid the Morettis might discover me. Aldo and Vincent had apparently known almost from the beginning. They had allowed me to grow up because doing so served some private calculation.
Luca gripped the stone shelf until dust broke beneath his fingers. “I will kill him.”
I turned on him. “No.”
“Emma.”
“If you mean Vincent, no. If you mean Martin, also no.”
“They watched you as a child.”
“And violence would make you feel powerful for five minutes while destroying the evidence we need.”
He stared at me.
“Your sister stayed hidden because she believed men in this family answered fear with force. Do not prove her right in the room where she left us the truth.”
The anger in Luca’s face did not disappear. It changed shape.
He released the shelf.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Copies secured with Rebecca. The original stays here. We identify every company, every payment, and every living witness. Then we find Sofia before Vincent does.”
Rebecca glanced toward the stairwell. “We should leave. Now.”
“Why?” Daniel asked.
She held up her phone. “Because someone just tried to access the cloud folder where my technician stored the package photographs.”
The church door slammed above us.
Mr. Pritchard shouted.
Then came the sound of running footsteps.
Luca moved in front of me, but I grabbed the back of his coat.
“Together,” I said.
For once, he did not argue.
We climbed the stairs and found the archivist on the floor, conscious but bleeding from his forehead. The outer door stood open. A figure disappeared through the alley beside the church.
Daniel knelt to help Mr. Pritchard. Rebecca called emergency services. Luca started toward the door, then stopped himself.
On the dusty floor lay a torn photograph.
It showed Sofia older, silver beginning at her temples, standing outside a desert-colored building beneath a sign that read:
SAGUARO HOUSE — TUCSON, ARIZONA.
Across her face, someone had drawn a black line.
May you like
On the back were five words.
YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES.
