Chapter 7
“Late thirties, maybe early forties. Brown coat. Dark hair.”
Sophia gripped the crib rail.
“Was she alone?”
“As far as security could tell.”
“Did she leave?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Sophia.
“You know who it was.”
“I think so.”
“Who?”
She hesitated.
“Rachel Martin.”
Luca’s wife.
I stared at her.
“Why would she come here?”
Sophia grabbed her phone from the bedside table.
“I called her this morning.”
“Why?”
“Because she sent me a message last night.”
She opened it and handed me the screen.
It contained only one sentence.
I FOUND SOMETHING IN GABRIEL’S ROOM. CALL ME.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“What did she find?”
“She wouldn’t say over the phone. She wanted to meet.”
“At the hospital.”
Sophia nodded.
“She said she was already coming to Chicago.”
“Why didn’t she come upstairs?”
“I don’t know.”
The nurse left to check security footage.
I handed Sophia back the phone.
“When did Gabriel disappear?”
“October twenty-third.”
“And nobody called the police?”
“The Martins did.”
“Under his real name?”
“Gabriel Martin. Luca isn’t legally listed as his father.”
I paced slowly.
“What did police find?”
“Nothing. He left school normally. A neighbor saw him walking toward home. After that, nothing.”
“Was Luca there?”
“No.”
“Where was he?”
“No one knows.”
I stopped.
“So Luca disappeared around the same time as his son.”
Sophia nodded.
“And Mateo suddenly ‘finds’ you three weeks later.”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the hallway.
Too many pieces.
Not enough picture.
“Show me the three photographs from your envelope.”
Sophia retrieved them.
The first was a bank transfer record photographed from a computer screen.
The second showed Mateo leaving a storage facility.
The third showed Luca.
I held it closer.
He was standing outside a diner beside a woman and a boy.
Gabriel.
The boy had Luca’s eyes.
No question.
On the back, Sophia had written an address.
“Where was this taken?”
“Wisconsin.”
“When?”
“July.”
“Who took it?”
“Luca gave it to me.”
I studied the woman.
Rachel.
Something bothered me.
I turned the photograph back over.
“You said Luca came to you alone.”
“Yes.”
“He gave you a family photograph?”
“He said if anything happened to him, I should contact Rachel.”
“Why you?”
Sophia looked toward Elena.
“I asked him that.”
“What did he say?”
She hesitated.
“He said because you had already proven you would choose Mateo over him.”
I felt the words like a bruise.
“What does that mean?”