Chapter 3 - The Locket In The Pyrex
I couldn’t move.
My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it physically hurt.
“My mother?” I whispered.
Luca held up the heavy parchment paper.
“Your mother. Clara Reed. Her signature is right here.”
The guests were staring at me.
The maid in the black uniform holding a serving tray.
“That’s impossible,” I said, my voice shaking.
“My mother has been in a nursing home for six years. She can’t even hold a pen.”
Vanessa stood up.
Her red silk dress rustled loudly in the silent room.
“She didn’t sign it in the nursing home,” Vanessa sneered.
“She signed it twenty-five years ago. It’s a post-dated authorization.”
Luca turned on his fiancée.
“How do you know that?”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“Because I hired a private investigator to look into your sweet little maid when I realized she was always listening to our conversations.”
I felt sick.
“I clean the rooms. I’m not listening to you.”
“You’re a parasite,” Vanessa spat.
“Enough!” Luca’s voice cracked like a whip.
He looked at June.
“Explain this. Right now. Why did my father leave four million dollars to my housekeeper’s mother?”
June Whitaker didn’t flinch.
She reached out and pulled the old blue Pyrex dish toward her.
“I told you, Luca. Your father lost his job when you were ten.”
June slowly lifted the glass lid.
“But I didn’t tell you why he lost it.”
The smell of baked ziti filled the air.
But June didn’t reach for a serving spoon.
She reached her fingers deep into the hot cheese at the very edge of the casserole.
She pulled out a tiny, silver object wrapped tightly in aluminum foil.
Vanessa gasped.
June wiped the foil clean with her napkin.
Then she peeled it back.
It was a silver locket.
Tarnished. Dented.
June held it out to Luca.
“Your father didn’t lose his job, sweetheart. He quit.”
Luca took the locket.
The metal was still warm.
“He was an accountant for the Bellini family,” June said softly, looking at Vanessa’s father.
“He quit the day he found out what they were doing to the factory workers in the South Side.”
Vanessa’s father pushed his chair back.
“This is slander.”
“Sit down, Richard,” Luca commanded without looking at him.
Luca popped the latch on the silver locket.
It clicked open.
Inside was a tiny, faded photograph.
Not of Luca’s mother.
It was a picture of a young woman holding a newborn baby.
Luca stared at the photo.
Then he looked at me.
“Emma,” he said softly.
“Is this your mother?”
I slowly walked over to the table.
I looked down at the locket.
The woman in the picture was young, beautiful, and smiling.
It was my mother. Clara.
But my eyes moved to the baby in her arms.
The baby was wrapped in a distinct, hand-knit green blanket.
“Yes,” I whispered, tears suddenly burning my eyes.
“That’s her.”
Luca looked at the picture again.
“Who is the baby?”
I swallowed hard.
“That’s me.”
June Whitaker sighed.
“No, Emma.”
I looked at the old woman.
“Your mother couldn’t have children,” June said gently.
The room started to spin.
June looked at Luca.
“Your father didn’t just quit his job that night. He stole something from the Bellini family. Something they were going to get rid of.”
June pointed at the picture in the locket.
“He stole that baby. And he gave it to Clara Reed to hide.”
Luca dropped the locket onto the table.
He looked at Vanessa’s father.
Then he looked at me.
“Emma,” Luca breathed out.
“You’re a Bellini.”
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TITLE: The Secret In The Blood
