Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
Nora Whitcomb had died six years earlier.
At least, that was what Victor told me.
She had been Alessandro's younger sister.
Twenty-nine when she supposedly drowned during a boating accident on Lake Michigan.
Her body had never been recovered.
The family held a funeral.
Alessandro paid for a memorial.
And Sofia, then two years old, grew up hearing stories about an aunt she barely remembered.
Now someone using Nora's name had brought Sofia to my diner.
I looked at Victor.
“Are you telling me the woman was his dead sister?”
“I don't know.”
“Then we need to find out.”
Victor studied me.
“Why are you helping?”
I stared at him.
“Because there's an eight-year-old girl missing.”
He looked away.
For a moment, he seemed ashamed.
Then he said:
“Will you come with me?”
I thought of my mother.
Her oxygen concentrator humming beside the sofa.
The medication organizer on the kitchen table.
The bills.
The rent.
Everything waiting for me at home.
“I can't just disappear.”
Victor nodded.
“I understand.”
I called Rosa.
She had gone upstairs to her apartment above the diner.
When I explained, she listened quietly.
Then said:
“Go.”
“Rosa—”
“I'll check on your mother.”
I swallowed.
“You already do too much.”
She snorted.
“Girl, I've been doing too much since 1973.”
I almost laughed.
Then she added:
“Just be careful.”
I promised.
And twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the back of a black SUV heading toward the Romano estate.
Alessandro met us in the entrance hall.
His face was pale.
His coat was gone.
His sleeves were rolled up.
For the first time, he looked less like a feared Mafia boss and more like a father who had been awake too long.
Victor handed him the receipt.
Alessandro stared.
Then looked at me.
“You saw her?”
“I saw a woman using that name.”
He swallowed.
“Describe her.”
I did.
Brown hair.
Blue raincoat.
Small gold earrings.
A faint scar beneath her chin.
Alessandro went still.
Then he whispered:
“Nora.”
His voice broke on the name.
I stared at him.
“You think she's alive?”
He looked toward the staircase.
“I buried my sister six years ago.”
May you like
Then he turned back.
“But if she's alive, she knows where my daughter is.”
