Chapter 5 - The Woman in Blue
By sunrise, Dante’s house had become a war room.
Maps covered the study table.
Carlo had three laptops open.
Rocco sat under guard near the fireplace.
Leo slept on a sofa despite insisting he was not tired.
Lucy slept upstairs with Mrs. Bell.
Clara stood beside Dante and watched people pull six years of lies apart one line at a time.
The hospital wristband was genuine.
That was the first useful fact.
St. Catherine’s had officially closed four years earlier, but its east wing had quietly reopened three months ago under a new name: Harbor Light Recovery.
The license belonged to a nonprofit medical trust.
The trust’s legal counsel was Adrian Voss.
Dr. Vale.
Dante stared at the screen.
“He never went away.”
“No,” Carlo said. “He changed stationery.”
Clara pointed at the admission code.
“What does B. More mean?”
“Could be Bianca Moretti,” Dante said.
“Could be Beatrice Moore,” Rocco added.
Dante looked at him.
“Your contribution level is currently low.”
Rocco gave him a tired look.
“I noticed.”
Leo stirred on the couch.
“My mom uses the name Bea sometimes.”
Everyone turned.
He pushed himself up.
“Not legally. On online orders. Coffee shops. Stuff like that.”
Clara moved closer.
“Why?”
“She says Bianca gets people’s attention.”
Dante and Rocco exchanged a look.
Twins with nearly identical faces.
One named Bianca.
One named Beatrice.
Somewhere along the way, the names had been blurred on purpose.
“Did your mother ever talk about having a sister?” Clara asked.
“No.”
“Did she ever say she was adopted?”
“No.”
Leo rubbed his eyes.
“She hates hospitals. That’s all I know.”
“Why?”
“Because my dad died in one.”
Dante looked at Rocco.
“Michael Voss.”
Rocco nodded slowly.
“Vale’s son.”
Clara asked, “How did he die?”
Leo’s face closed.
“Car accident.”
The room went silent.
Another car.
Another death.
Another Voss connected to a crash.
Carlo began typing.
“Date?”
Leo gave it.
Carlo searched.
“Single-vehicle rollover outside Milwaukee. Michael Voss, thirty-six. No other passengers.”
“Investigator?” Dante asked.
Carlo read.
“State police.”
“Anything odd?”
“Report amended twice. Toxicology missing from scanned file.”
Dante’s instincts tightened.
He had spent his adult life noticing what paperwork tried not to say.
“Who signed the death certificate?”
Carlo stopped.
Then looked up.
“Adrian Voss.”
Leo went pale.
“That’s his father.”
“Yes.”
“No. My grandfather loved my dad.”
Clara stepped between Leo and the men.
“Slow down.”
Dante nodded.
She was right.
They were talking around a seventeen-year-old as if his life were evidence.
Clara sat beside him.
“Leo, we don’t know what happened.”
He stared at the floor.
“My mom always said Dad fell asleep driving.”
“That may still be true.”
“But you don’t think it is.”
Clara did not lie.
“No.”
Leo’s eyes filled.
He looked furious about it.
Dante knew that kind of anger.
It was grief looking for something it could hit.
At eight, Carlo got them access to Harbor Light’s former employee records through a contact.
One name stood out.
Nurse Elena Price.
She had worked at St. Catherine’s six years ago.
She now lived twenty minutes away.
Dante reached for his coat.
Clara did too.
“No.”
She stared at him.
“No?”
“You’re staying here.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Someone came onto my property carrying a current hospital band. We do not know who is watching you.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“Because this is my problem.”
She stepped closer.
“That sentence is exactly why your wife left angry the night she disappeared.”
The room went very quiet.
Dante’s jaw tightened.
Clara almost regretted it.
Almost.
“You read one notebook and now you know my marriage?”
“No. I know a pattern.”
“And what pattern is that?”
“You decide protection means everyone else loses the right to decide.”
Rocco looked away, hiding a smile.
Dante noticed.
“Do not enjoy this.”
“I’m trying not to.”
Clara folded her arms.
“I’m coming.”
Dante stared at her.
Then sighed.
“Carlo, double the house team.”
Clara nodded once.
“Thank you.”
“That was not agreement.”
“You’re learning.”
Nurse Elena Price lived in a small yellow house near the edge of the city.
She opened the door only after Dante moved back from the porch and Clara stood alone in view.
Elena was seventy, small, sharp-eyed, and immediately afraid when Clara mentioned St. Catherine’s.
“I signed papers,” she said.
“We’re not police.”
“That’s worse.”
Clara glanced at Dante.
“Sometimes.”
He ignored her.
Elena finally let them in.
The living room smelled like cinnamon and old books.
They showed her photographs of Bianca and Beatrice.
Elena stared for a long time.
Then pointed to Bianca.
“This one.”
“You’re sure?” Dante asked.
“No.”
He frowned.
Elena looked at Beatrice.
“That was the problem. Nobody was sure.”
She explained that Room 214 had been occupied by a woman with severe injuries after a car crash.
She was admitted as Beatrice Moore.
But she repeatedly insisted her name was Bianca.
“Memory issues?” Clara asked.
“Possibly. Pain medication. Head injury. But she knew details about Chicago. A husband named Dante. A blue kitchen. A dog named Felix.”
Dante sat forward.
Felix.
Bianca’s childhood dog.
Nobody outside the family knew that.
“It was her.”
Elena nodded.
“I believe so.”
“What happened?”
“She recovered enough to walk. Then one night Dr. Vale came with another woman who looked almost exactly like her.”
Dante’s pulse jumped.
“Beatrice.”
“Maybe.”
“They argued.”
“About what?”
“I heard only pieces. ‘You were supposed to stay away.’ ‘He thinks I’m dead.’ ‘Michael paid for this.’”
Leo’s father.
Dante and Clara looked at each other.
“What happened after?” Dante asked.
Elena’s hands began to tremble.
“The next morning, Room 214 was empty.”
“Bianca left?”
“I was told she transferred.”
“You didn’t believe it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Elena looked at Dante.
“Because there was blood on the bathroom floor.”
The room chilled.
“How much?”
“Not enough to mean someone died. But enough that I reported it.”
“To Vale?”
“To administration.”
“What happened to the report?”
“It disappeared.”
Elena stood and walked to a cabinet.
From beneath old tax papers, she removed a sealed envelope.
“I kept a copy.”
Inside was her incident report.
And a photograph.
The east-wing security camera.
Two women in a corridor.
Bianca.
Beatrice.
Face to face.
One in a hospital gown.
One in a dark coat.
Between them stood Dr. Vale.
On the back, Elena had written the time.
2:17 a.m.
Dante’s hands shook.
“My wife was alive.”
“Yes.”
“After everyone told me she was dead.”
“Yes.”
He looked at the photograph so long Clara thought he might stop hearing them.
Then Elena said something worse.
“There was another person there.”
Dante looked up.
“Who?”
“I didn’t see his face. But he wore a raven medal.”
Dante’s eyes shifted toward the silver pendant at Clara’s neck.
“Elias?”
“No. Taller. Older.”
“Rocco?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could it have been my father?”
Elena hesitated.
Dante’s father had been dead eight years.
“No.”
“Who, then?”
She handed him a second image.
Grainy.
A man entering the corridor.
His face partly turned.
Dante recognized the posture.
The broad shoulders.
The habit of carrying one hand near his jacket button.
“Carlo,” he whispered.
Clara stared at him.
“No.”
Dante looked at the image again.
His security chief.
His closest friend.
The man currently guarding Lucy.
Dante was already reaching for his phone when it rang.
Carlo.
Dante answered.
“Where’s Lucy?”
Silence on the other end.
Then Carlo’s strained voice.
“Boss, listen to me.”
Dante stood.
“Where is she?”
“The house was hit.”
Clara went white.
“Lucy?”
Carlo breathed once.
“Mrs. Bell is safe. Leo is safe.”
“Lucy?”
Another pause.
May you like
Then:
“They took her.”
