Chapter 3 - The Woman in Elena’s Photographs
Matteo survived.
Barely.
Doctors found a sedating substance in his system, enough to leave him unconscious but not enough to suggest suicide. He woke twelve hours later furious, confused, and immediately asked whether Nico was alive.
Lorenzo refused to visit him.
“Convenient performance.”
“Maybe,” I said.
He looked at me.
“You think he’s innocent?”
“I think somebody wants you to decide before evidence does.”
That annoyed him.
Good.
Crane remained under investigation but had not yet confessed.
His attorney instructed him to say nothing.
Teresa began cooperating.
Then I noticed Elena.
Not literally.
Photographs.
Nico’s nursery walls contained dozens of framed pictures of Lorenzo’s late wife.
Elena pregnant.
Elena laughing at a Christmas party.
Elena with Teresa.
Elena beside Crane during a charity dinner.
Elena with Matteo at a hospital fundraiser.
One face kept appearing farther in the background.
A blond woman.
Mid-thirties.
Elegant.
Never centered.
Always present.
“Who is she?”
Lorenzo looked.
“Celeste Vane.”
“Family?”
“No.”
“Employee?”
“Elena’s college friend.”
“She appears a lot.”
“They were close.”
“Still around?”
Lorenzo’s expression shifted.
“Not since Elena died.”
“Why?”
“She left Chicago.”
“When?”
“Two weeks after the funeral.”
I stared at the photographs.
“Where?”
“London, I think.”
“You think?”
“I had other things to manage.”
A wife dead.
A newborn son.
Fair.
But patterns matter.
Celeste was in too many photographs to vanish casually.
I asked Detective Monroe.
She searched.
There was no London employment.
No recent U.S. tax trail under Celeste Vane.
No death record.
No obvious marriage.
Then her name surfaced somewhere strange.
One of Dr. Crane’s shell companies had paid consulting fees to Vane Medical Strategies.
Nearly $180,000 over eighteen months.
Lorenzo’s face became stone.
“Find her.”
Again Monroe reminded him that detectives would.
Before sunset, Celeste was located.
Not London.
Chicago.
Living under her married surname.
Celeste Kane.
Twenty minutes from the Bolaro estate.
She had never truly left.
Why lie?
Lorenzo remembered Elena mentioning a falling-out shortly before the birth.
Over what?
He claimed not to know.
Rosa did.
The nanny had worked for Elena during pregnancy.
“Mrs. Bolaro stopped speaking to Ms. Celeste after the baby shower.”
“Why?” I asked.
Rosa hesitated.
“Sir…”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“Say it.”
“She accused Ms. Celeste of being obsessed with you.”
Silence.
Oh.
Not financial.
Personal.
“Did Celeste and Lorenzo have an affair?” I asked.
“No,” Lorenzo said immediately.
Rosa agreed.
“Mrs. Bolaro did not think there had been one.”
“Then what?”
“She found letters.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“Letters?”
“From Celeste to you.”
“I never received letters.”
Exactly.
Elena had intercepted them.
Celeste apparently wrote Lorenzo for years.
Romantic fantasies.
Claims they belonged together.
Anger that Elena “stole” a life meant for her.
The final letter, according to Rosa, contained one unsettling sentence:
When the baby comes, you will understand what she took from both of us.
Lorenzo looked sick.
“Why didn't Elena tell me?”
Rosa lowered her eyes.
“She planned to after delivery.”
But she died.
My skin prickled.
“Was Elena’s death investigated?”
Lorenzo’s face changed.
“She died from hemorrhagic complications.”
“Who was her doctor?”
We already knew.
Victor Crane.
The room went silent.
Lorenzo stood so suddenly the chair hit the wall.
“No.”
I understood.
He had trusted Crane not only with Nico.
With Elena.
“Get the records,” he told Monroe.
“We already requested them.”
“I want everything.”
“So do I.”
Medical records showed Elena suffered severe postpartum bleeding after an emergency delivery.
Nothing immediately suggested foul play.
But Crane had been present.
Celeste had worked with him financially.
And Celeste had openly resented Elena.
That was not proof.
But it was enough to turn the case upside down.
Police interviewed Celeste.
She denied involvement with Nico.
Denied knowing about the bottle compartment.
Denied seeing Crane socially in years.
Financial records contradicted the last claim.
She called consulting payments “legacy business obligations.”
Meaning nothing.
Then investigators found a message from Crane to Celeste sent three weeks before Nico’s first midnight episode:
He signed the amendment. Once the diagnosis is established, we proceed.
What amendment?
Lorenzo stared at the message.
“I signed insurance documents three weeks ago.”
“Did you read them?”
He looked ashamed.
“Not completely.”
Crane had placed a stack of medical-authority papers in front of him after Nico’s hospitalization.
Lorenzo signed.
One document expanded Crane’s authority to approve specialized long-term treatment vendors.
Another designated Celeste’s consulting company as a patient-services coordinator.
He had signed away millions of dollars in oversight because he was exhausted and terrified.
But why Celeste?
Greed explained Crane.
Celeste wanted more.
Detective Monroe found it.
A private trust amendment drafted but never executed.
If Lorenzo died before Nico reached adulthood, Elena’s original succession plan placed temporary stewardship of Nico’s personal trust with three people.
Matteo.
Crane.
And—
Celeste Vane.
Elena had named her years earlier, before their friendship collapsed.
Nobody updated the document after the fallout.
Celeste still had a potential path into Nico’s life.
But only if Lorenzo was gone.
That changed the threat completely.
Lorenzo was not just protecting a sick child.
He may have been next.
That night, I found him alone in the nursery.
Nico slept against his chest.
Lorenzo stared at nothing.
“You should rest.”
He laughed quietly.
“That's what everyone says.”
“You've slept maybe six hours in two days.”
“My wife died in a hospital with Victor Crane standing beside her.”
“I know.”
“And I thanked him afterward.”
The pain in his voice hurt.
“You didn't know.”
“I paid him. Trusted him. Let him hold my son.”
“Lorenzo.”
“What kind of man doesn't know what's happening in his own house?”
“A grieving one.”
He looked at me.
“That's generous.”
“No. It's accurate.”
I sat across from him.
“You hired specialists because you were scared.”
“Yes.”
“You assumed expensive people with degrees and credentials were safer than your own world.”
His mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
“And one of them may have used that.”
He looked down at Nico.
“Why did you notice?”
“The timing.”
“Nobody else did.”
“They were told not to question Crane.”
“And you?”
“I’m bad with authority.”
He almost smiled.
Then Nico stirred.
His tiny hand opened against Lorenzo’s shirt.
Lorenzo looked at me.
“What if I lose him?”
“You haven't.”
“What if—”
“Don't finish that sentence.”
His eyes lifted.
“Nico is here. Stable. Investigators are working. We use what is true now.”
He stared.
“You talk to me like I'm one of your patients.”
“You're worse.”
A faint smile.
Then his expression softened.
“You saved him.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I noticed a bottle.”
“You refused to put it down when Crane told you.”
“That was mostly irritation.”
“Whatever the reason.”
He looked at me.
“I owe you.”
I hated that.
“You don't.”
“Maya.”
“You pay me to nurse your son. That's enough.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“Don't turn gratitude into debt.”
Something in his expression changed.
He nodded slowly.
“Fair.”
The nursery door opened.
Detective Monroe stood there.
“We found Celeste’s storage unit.”
Lorenzo rose.
“What’s inside?”
“Photographs.”
“Of what?”
“You.”
He frowned.
“And Nico.”
My stomach tightened.
“Recent?”
“Every week since he was born.”
Celeste had been watching the estate.
Then Monroe added:
“And Maya.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Pictures of you entering this house yesterday.”
My blood turned cold.
I had been working for Lorenzo for less than forty-eight hours.
Yet somebody had already photographed me.
May you like
Which meant finding the hidden bottle had not only protected Nico.
It had put me directly inside their plan.
