Part 3 – The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
I stared at Dominic because there was no sensible response to what he had just said.
“Your aunt is dead.”
“Yes.”
“But that woman is your aunt.”
“She looks exactly like her.”
“You see the problem.”
“I do.”
Marco took the photograph from Dominic and studied it.
For perhaps the first time since I had met him, the large bodyguard looked genuinely unsettled.
“I remember Evelyn,” he said.
“So do I,” Dominic replied.
Marco looked at me.
“Are you certain this is the woman from the restaurant?”
“I served her nearly every Thursday.”
“For how long?”
“Almost two years.”
Dominic walked to my kitchen window.
“Did she ever talk about me?”
“No.”
“Anything about the Romano family?”
“Never.”
“What did she ask you?”
Mostly ordinary things, I explained.
How my mother was feeling.
Whether I had managed to sleep.
Whether the doctors were helping.
Whether I had eaten.
Questions that felt almost maternal rather than intrusive.
She sometimes brought novels she had finished reading and left them with me.
Once, when I mentioned that my mother could no longer concentrate on long chapters, the woman appeared the following week with a collection of short stories.
I had assumed she was lonely.
Now every memory felt different.
“Where are those books?” Dominic asked.
“Somewhere in my bedroom.”
We found them in a cardboard box beneath my bed.
There were fourteen.
Mysteries, historical novels, biographies, and several collections of essays.
Dominic picked up each one carefully.
Inside every cover was the same elegant handwriting.
For Chloe.
Nothing else.
Until Marco opened the final book.
A folded piece of paper slipped onto the floor.
I picked it up.
It contained three words.
ASK ABOUT HELENA.
Dominic became very still.
“Who is Helena?”
“My mother.”
The answer seemed to surprise him.
I looked from him to the paper.
“Why would your supposedly dead aunt know my mother’s name?”
Dominic did not respond.
“Dominic?”
“I don’t know.”
It was the first time I heard true uncertainty in his voice.
We spent the afternoon trying to understand a connection that seemed impossible.
My mother had never mentioned anyone named Romano.
Her life had been modest and predictable.
She taught elementary school for twenty-eight years.
She loved gardening, old movies, cinnamon tea, and terrible crossword puzzles.
She considered returning an overdue library book a serious moral failure.
Nothing about her suggested secret connections to powerful families.
Yet Evelyn had apparently known her.
“Did your mother ever work somewhere before teaching?” Dominic asked.
“She worked at a hotel while attending college.”
“What hotel?”
I frowned.
“The Commonwealth.”
Dominic and Marco exchanged another look.
“What?”
“The Commonwealth was owned by my grandfather.”
My skin prickled.
“When?”
“Until twenty-eight years ago.”
My mother would have been twenty-two.
Suddenly the simple story I believed I knew about her early life developed a shadow.
We drove to the storage facility where I had placed the remainder of her belongings after losing her apartment.
The unit smelled like cardboard, dust, and lavender detergent.
Opening those boxes hurt more than I expected.
Grief had strange timing.
I had survived hospital rooms, funeral arrangements, and countless condolences.
Yet seeing my mother’s yellow kitchen gloves folded inside a plastic container nearly broke me.
Dominic noticed.
He stood several feet away, giving me space.
“I can do this another day,” I said.
“No.”
“You don’t have to prove anything.”
“I’m not.”
I held the gloves against my chest.
“I spent months wanting everything to be over because she was suffering.”
My voice trembled.
“Then it ended, and I wanted one more day.”
Dominic lowered his gaze.
“There is nothing strange about that.”
I looked at him.
“You sound like you know.”
“My father was ill for a long time.”
I knew almost nothing about Dominic’s family.
Boston gossip portrayed the Romanos as a dynasty rather than human beings.
“What happened?”
“Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
The simplicity of his answer carried years inside it.
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For a moment the mystery disappeared.
We were simply two people standing among cardboard boxes remembering parents we could not call anymore.
Then I found the photograph.
It was tucked inside an old photo album beneath pictures of school picnics and birthdays.
My mother stood outside a grand hotel entrance.
She was young, perhaps twenty-two, with long brown hair and the same smile I remembered.
Beside her stood another young woman.
Silver-haired Evelyn was younger too, but unmistakable.
On the back, my mother had written a date.
May 14, 1989.
Beneath it were four words.
Evelyn and me, Commonwealth.
Dominic stared at it.
“They knew each other.”
I sat on the floor.
“Why would my mother never tell me?”
“Perhaps there was nothing to tell.”
I gave him a look.
He conceded the point.
“Or perhaps there was.”
Another box held letters.
Most were ordinary correspondence.
Birthday cards.
School notices.
Notes from old friends.
Near the bottom was a sealed envelope with no stamp.
My name was written on the front.
Chloe.
My hands shook.
“I’ve never seen this.”
Dominic stepped back.
“You should read it alone.”
I surprised myself by saying, “Stay.”
He did.
I opened the envelope carefully.
Inside was a letter written by my mother.
My dearest Chloe,
If you are reading this, then I was not brave enough to tell you something while I was alive.
I stopped.
The words blurred.
Dominic silently handed me a handkerchief.
“You carry a handkerchief?”
“My father considered tissues uncivilized.”
A laugh escaped me through tears.
It was exactly the kind of absurd detail I needed.
I kept reading.
Before you were born, I worked at the Commonwealth Hotel and became friends with a woman named Evelyn Romano.
She was kind to me during a difficult period of my life, and I tried to return that kindness when her own family faced trouble.
There are things I promised never to reveal unless circumstances required it.
I hope those circumstances never come.
If they do, find Evelyn.
Do not judge her by the Romano name.
And whatever you hear, remember that fear makes ordinary people keep extraordinary secrets.
Love always,
Mom.
I read the letter three times.
Dominic remained silent.
“Your aunt was alive when my mother wrote this.”
“Apparently.”
“When did you say Evelyn died?”
“Eleven years ago.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
“Did you see her body?”
Dominic’s silence answered me.
“You didn’t.”
“I was overseas when it happened.”
“Who identified her?”
“My uncle.”
“Her husband?”
“Brother.”
Something in his tone changed.
“Is he still alive?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Victor.”
Marco looked uncomfortable.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
Marco hesitated.
“Victor called this morning.”
“About what?”
“He asked whether you had spoken with Arthur Bell.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
The accountant.
The man supposedly watching my apartment.
The person who had disappeared before Marco reached the street.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You had just learned about Evelyn.”
“Tell me everything.”
Marco exhaled.
“Victor said Arthur had been moving money between several old holding accounts.”
“What kind of accounts?” I asked.
“Accounts established by Dominic’s grandfather.”
Dominic looked back at my mother’s letter.
“What did Victor want?”
“He said Arthur might be responsible for what happened at the restaurant.”
The conclusion sounded convenient.
Too convenient.
“You don’t believe him,” I said.
Dominic looked at me.
“I believe convenient answers deserve inconvenient questions.”
We returned to the city before sunset.
Dominic invited me to stay at the Beacon Hill residence again.
This time I accepted.
Not because I suddenly trusted him completely.
But because the world I thought I understood had changed.
My mother had hidden something from me.
A woman declared dead had spent two years quietly watching over me.
And someone had tried to harm Dominic using knowledge that only a trusted person should possess.
The Beacon Hill house was nothing like I expected.
There were no marble statues or absurd fountains.
It was elegant but comfortable, filled with books and old photographs.
A piano stood in one corner of the sitting room.
“You play?”
“My mother did.”
“Did?”
“She lives in Italy now.”
That was another surprise.
I imagined the mother of Dominic Romano as some formidable matriarch overseeing family business from a throne.
Instead, Dominic showed me a photograph of a smiling woman holding paintbrushes beside a vineyard.
“She teaches watercolor classes.”
I laughed.
“What?”
“I’m discovering that everything I assumed about your family is wrong.”
“That is probably healthy.”
Dinner arrived from a small neighborhood restaurant.
Dominic insisted I eat because I had barely touched food all day.
We sat at the kitchen counter rather than the enormous dining table.
It felt strangely normal.
He asked about my mother.
I asked about his father.
The conversation wandered through memories until I almost forgot why I was there.
Then Dominic’s phone rang.
Victor Romano was downstairs.
I expected Dominic to refuse him entry.
Instead, he said, “Let him in.”
Victor entered several minutes later.
He was older than Dominic, perhaps in his early sixties, with silver hair and a carefully composed face.
He greeted his nephew, then looked at me.
Recognition flashed across his features.
“You’re Helena’s daughter.”
Dominic and I both froze.
I stood.
“You knew my mother?”
Victor closed his eyes briefly.
“Yes.”
“Then tell me what’s happening.”
He looked toward Dominic.
“Not here.”
Dominic’s voice became cool.
“Anything you have to say can be said in front of Chloe.”
Victor studied him.
“You always were stubborn.”
“You always disliked being questioned.”
A painful history passed silently between them.
Victor finally sat down.
“Helena worked at the Commonwealth while your grandfather was dealing with an internal financial investigation.”
He looked at Dominic.
“Money was disappearing.”
“Who was taking it?”
“We never proved it.”
“But Evelyn knew?”
Victor’s face tightened.
“Evelyn discovered evidence.”
“What kind?”
“Accounts.”
My pulse quickened.
“The same accounts Arthur is moving money through now?”
Victor looked startled.
“How do you know about Arthur?”
Dominic ignored the question.
“What happened to Evelyn?”
Victor stood abruptly.
“I came here to warn you.”
“About what?”
“Arthur isn’t acting alone.”
“Who is he working with?”
Victor glanced at me.
“That is exactly what Helena tried to discover thirty-seven years ago.”
Before anyone could say more, the front door opened.
Marco appeared.
Behind him stood another man.
Middle-aged.
Gray coat.
Expensive shoes.
Nervous eyes.
Arthur Bell.
His face was pale.
“I’m sorry,” he said breathlessly.
Dominic stood.
“Arthur.”
Arthur looked directly at Victor.
Then at me.
Finally, he placed a small brass key on the table.
“I didn’t poison you.”
His hands were shaking.
“But I know who changed the bottle.”
Victor went white.
Arthur pointed at him.
And whispered, “Ask Victor why Evelyn had to pretend she died.”
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