Chapter 7 - THE GIRL WHO GREW UP WITHOUT A NAME
The first real lead came from a school photograph.
Gabriel Russo found it in a private investigator's archived files.
The photograph had been taken in 2018 at a small boarding school in northern Wisconsin.
A teenage girl stood in the second row.
Dark curls.
Crooked smile.
A faint scar beside her eyebrow.
The school listed her name as Lucy Vescari.
Roman stared at the image.
He was looking at Lucia.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakably his sister.
Teresa began crying when she saw the photograph.
“My baby.”
Roman gripped the edge of the desk.
The investigator's records showed that Lucy had been enrolled by a guardian named Charles Vescari.
Charles.
Carlo.
A name changed by one letter.
The trail continued to a small town in Michigan.
There, a young woman named Lucy Vale had worked at a veterinary clinic until six months earlier.
Roman wanted to leave immediately.
Norah stopped him.
“Roman.”
He turned.
“What?”
“If she is Lucia, she may not know who you are.”
“I know.”
“She may have been told terrible things about your family.”
“I know.”
Norah stepped closer.
“Then don't arrive with six armed men and expect her to trust you.”
Roman looked at her.
For a moment, he seemed offended.
Then he exhaled.
“You're right.”
Norah nodded.
“Find her carefully.”
Roman studied her.
“Will you come?”
She hesitated.
The thought of seeing Lucia alive made her chest ache.
But another thought frightened her more.
What if the girl remembered the fire?
What if she remembered Norah letting go?
“I don't know,” she whispered.
Roman nodded.
“You don't have to decide now.”
That evening, Teresa sat beside Norah in the kitchen.
The older woman had been unusually quiet.
Finally, she said:
“I used to imagine what Lucia would look like at twenty.”
Norah looked at her.
“Did you?”
Teresa nodded.
“I imagined her graduating. Falling in love. Fighting with me about something ridiculous.”
She smiled through tears.
“I imagined her coming home.”
Norah took her hand.
“She might.”
Teresa looked at her.
“And if she doesn't?”
May you like
Norah swallowed.
“Then we'll still tell her she was loved.”
