Chapter 7 - THE BROTHER WHO NEVER DIED
The records from Ashford Station contained more than financial evidence.
They included a series of letters Nicholas had written but never sent.
Some were addressed to Elena.
Others to Gabriel.
One was dated six months after Nicholas supposedly died.
Harper stared at it.
“He was alive.”
Gabriel nodded slowly.
“At least then.”
The letter described a failed attempt to leave Chicago.
Nicholas had discovered that Vittorio planned to eliminate several people who knew too much.
He had tried to warn Gabriel.
But someone intercepted the message.
Nicholas escaped with help from a former federal investigator.
He went into hiding.
“Why didn't he contact Elena?” Harper asked.
Gabriel looked at the documents.
“He may have believed contacting her would put her in danger.”
Harper swallowed.
“Then why didn't he come back later?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Investigators traced several references in the letters.
A rural property in Wisconsin.
A medical clinic.
A man named Peter Sloan.
Peter Sloan had been a federal investigator before retiring.
He died five years earlier.
But his daughter, Caroline, still lived in Wisconsin.
She agreed to speak with authorities.
Caroline remembered Nicholas.
She had been a teenager when he arrived.
He used another name.
Worked on the property.
Rarely spoke about his past.
Then, one winter, he disappeared again.
“Did he leave anything?” Harper asked during a supervised interview.
Caroline nodded.
“A box.”
Harper's heart raced.
“What kind of box?”
“Personal things.”
Inside were photographs.
A worn leather wallet.
A silver watch.
And a letter addressed to a child.
To my daughter, if I ever have the courage to give you this.
Harper began crying before she finished the first sentence.
Nicholas wrote about Elena.
How they met.
How she laughed.
How she wanted to become a nurse.
How they dreamed of raising a family somewhere far from Chicago.
He wrote that he hoped their child would grow up without fear.
Without violence.
Without the Moretti name hanging over her life.
At the bottom, he wrote:
If you ever find this, please know that my absence was never because I didn't want you.
Harper pressed the letter against her chest.
Then Caroline revealed something else.
Nicholas had contacted her family two years earlier.
Harper stared.
“Two years?”
Caroline nodded.
“He was alive then.”
Gabriel went completely still.
“Where?”
Caroline hesitated.
“He asked us not to tell anyone.”
Harper leaned forward.
“Please.”
Caroline looked at the investigators.
Then said:
“He was living in Montana.”
May you like
Harper felt her heart stop.
Her father might still be alive.
