Chapter 4 - The Photograph That Shouldn't ExistI took the photograph from Dante's hand.
My fingers moved over Miguel's face, tracing the scar near his cheekbone. I knew every line of that face. I'd watched it change through exhaustion, laughter, sleepless nights, and the quiet happiness of holding our daughter.
But there was something different in the photograph.
Miguel looked frightened.
Not the ordinary fear of a man being followed. His expression carried the exhausted alertness of someone who had been running for a long time and understood that stopping might be more dangerous than continuing.
Behind him stood Elias, a broad-shouldered man in a mechanic's jacket.
I recognized the workshop logo on his chest.
It belonged to the garage where Miguel had worked before he died.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Elias Mercer,” Dante answered. “Miguel's closest friend before either of them came anywhere near my organization.”
“Before?”
“They worked together at the garage. Elias was the one who introduced Miguel to my accountant. He was also the last person known to have seen your husband before the bakery incident.”
“Did you question him?”
“We couldn't find him.”
Teresa sat down heavily.
“Elias disappeared the same night Miguel died. His workshop burned a week later.”
I stared at the photograph.
Three years of grief had settled into my bones because I believed I understood what had happened. Now every memory seemed to be floating loose, separated from the truth that should have held it in place.
“Why didn't you tell me any of this?”
Teresa met my eyes.
“Because I believed the people responsible were watching you. I thought bringing you here would keep you close enough for me to protect you, but far enough from the truth that you couldn't accidentally expose it.”
“You used my daughter as bait.”
“No,” she said sharply. “Never.”
“Then why is someone coming into her bedroom?”
Teresa looked away.
Dante crossed to the desk and opened a drawer. He removed a thick folder secured by a black ribbon.
“I've been investigating the missing money since Miguel's death. I kept the records away from my own staff because I suspected someone had access to our internal reports.”
He placed several photographs on the desk.
Rourke appeared in one, standing outside a bank.
In another, he was speaking to a man in a dark coat.
In the final photograph, the man in the coat stood outside a Brooklyn bakery.
The same bakery where Miguel had supposedly died.
My knees weakened.
“That man,” I whispered.
Dante leaned closer.
“You know him?”
“No. But Sophie described his shoes.”
The photograph showed the man's left shoe.
A silver ornament was attached near the heel.
Rourke's shoes had the same ornament.
“Dominic wasn't the man visiting the cottage,” Dante said. “But he knew who it was.”
“Why would he let someone into his own security zone?”
“Because he may have been helping him.”
Dante's telephone rang. A guard reported that the east wing had been searched. No intruder had been found, but blood traces led from the wall passage to an abandoned greenhouse.
Dante ordered the area sealed.
I barely heard him.
I was staring at the photographs, trying to reconcile the possibility that Miguel might be alive with the reality that he had left us alone.
If he'd survived, why hadn't he come home?
Why hadn't he found me when Sophie was sick, when the rent was overdue, when I lay awake at night holding his old shirts because they still smelled faintly of motor oil?
Why had he let his daughter grow up believing she had no father?
A small hand slipped into mine.
“Mama, are you mad at Daddy?”
I looked down at Sophie.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Then why are you crying?”
Because the dead man might be alive.
Because if he was alive, I didn't know whether to hug him or demand to know why he'd abandoned us.
Because the world I'd built from grief might have been a lie.
I wiped my face.
“I'm not angry at you, baby.”
She nodded, satisfied enough to rest her head against my arm.
Then she looked toward the study door.
“Mr. Elias said Daddy told him to wait.”
Dante went completely still.
I turned toward her.
“When did you meet Mr. Elias?”
“Yesterday.”
“Where?”
“In the little garden behind the laundry.”
“Did he come into your room?”
She nodded.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No. He asked me to remember a song Daddy used to sing.”
“What song?”
Sophie hummed three soft notes.
Dante's face changed.
Teresa closed her eyes.
I recognized the melody immediately.
Miguel had sung it every night when Sophie was a baby, a silly little tune he made up while rocking her to sleep.
But Dante seemed to recognize it for another reason entirely.
He opened the folder and pulled out a handwritten page.
Across the top, in Miguel's handwriting, were three words.
THE WIDOW'S SONG.
Underneath them was a list of addresses.
The first belonged to our old apartment.
The second belonged to Miguel's burned-down garage.
The third was the Moretti estate.
The fourth was a location I had never heard of.
Blackthorn House.
Teresa stood so abruptly that her chair tipped backward.
“No,” she whispered.
Dante reached for the page.
“What is Blackthorn House?”
Teresa looked at him as though he'd just opened a coffin.
“The place where my husband kept his most dangerous secrets.”
May you like
She turned toward the window.
“And the place where Miguel was supposed to die.”
Related Stories
