Chapter 13 - THE WOMAN WHO RETURNED FROM THE DEAD|
The next morning, Gabriel received a call from Marcus.
A woman had arrived at the private gate requesting to see Catherine. She refused to provide identification but claimed to possess evidence concerning Elena Bell’s death.
Catherine was still holding her father’s letter when Gabriel told her.
“What did she look like?”
“Middle-aged. Dark hair. A scar near her left eyebrow.”
Catherine went still.
The photograph from the warehouse showed a woman with the same scar.
“Bring her to the study,” she said.
Gabriel studied her face.
“You’re certain?”
“No. But I need to know.”
The woman entered under escort.
She wore a plain gray coat and carried a canvas bag. Her eyes moved quickly across the room, noting the exits, the security cameras, and the men standing near the door.
When she saw Catherine, her expression crumpled.
“You look like her.”
Catherine stood.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Rebecca Sloan. I worked at the clinic where your mother gave birth.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because the people who told you Elena was dead have been lying for years.”
Catherine’s heart pounded.
“Is my mother alive?”
Rebecca lowered her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
The answer was devastating in its uncertainty.
She explained that Elena had survived the crash but suffered serious injuries. Before the police could identify her, a private security team removed her from the hospital under false paperwork.
Rebecca had been the nurse assigned to her case.
She had seen a man visit Elena two days later. He wore a wedding ring engraved with the Romano crest.
“Vittorio?” Gabriel asked.
Rebecca shook her head.
“I thought so at first. But the man was younger, taller, with a scar across his palm.”
Gabriel looked at Catherine.
Her father had a scar across his palm from a construction accident.
But the man in the photograph had been someone else.
Rebecca opened her bag and removed a small cassette recorder.
“Elena asked me to keep this. She said that if anything happened to her, I should give it to her daughter when the girl was old enough to understand.”
Catherine stared at the recorder.
“Why did you wait so long?”
“Because the people searching for her were still watching the clinic. I changed my name and moved away. I thought the danger would pass.”
“And it didn’t.”
“No.”
Rebecca pressed play.
A woman’s voice filled the study, weak but unmistakably emotional.
“If Catherine is listening to this, then I have failed to return to her. I need her to know that I never abandoned her willingly.”
Catherine covered her mouth.
The recording continued.
“Lorenzo believed the family could be saved by exposing the men using our business. He was wrong about one thing. The danger did not come only from outside. It came from someone we had invited into our home.”
A pause.
Then Elena spoke a name.
“Arthur Bell.”
Catherine felt the room tilt.
Her father had been the one to hide her.
But according to the recording, he had also been present when her mother was taken from the hospital.
Rebecca stopped the tape.
“I never heard the rest,” she said. “The recording was damaged.”
Catherine stared at her father’s letter.
The man who had raised her had confessed to keeping her hidden.
He had not confessed to what happened after Elena survived.
And now a new possibility stood before them.
May you like
Perhaps her father had protected her.
Perhaps he had also helped someone erase her mother.
