Chapter 6 - The Man at the Window| The old house had been converted into three apartments, but the kitchen window was still there. So was the narrow staircase, though someone had replaced the original wooden railing with cheap metal.
The current tenant, a nurse named Patricia, allowed me to look around after I explained that my mother had once lived there.
“I don't know what you're hoping to find,” she said. “The place has been renovated twice.”
“Neither do I.”
I checked the floorboards near the kitchen window. Most were new. One had a different grain, and when I pressed it, it moved slightly.
Patricia fetched a screwdriver.
Beneath the board was a shallow cavity containing a small brass key and a folded note wrapped in plastic.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Sophia, if you are reading this, I failed to keep the truth away from you. I wanted you to have an ordinary life. I wanted you to grow up believing that people could be trusted.
The letter continued in my mother's handwriting.
I made a mistake by trusting someone who seemed kind. I will not write his name here. If I do, the wrong person may find this letter before you do.
There was an address for a storage facility and a number that looked like an old account code.
At the bottom, she had written:
Do not confuse guilt with love. A man may regret what he has done and still be dangerous.
I read the sentence twice.
Then I folded the letter and placed it in my bag.
The storage facility was on the outskirts of Brooklyn. The clerk searched the account number and informed me that the unit had been closed after years of unpaid fees. Its contents had been transferred to an auction company.
The auction had taken place six months earlier.
I felt the familiar pressure of disappointment settling over my chest.
“Do you have the buyer's information?” I asked.
“We can't release personal information,” the clerk replied. “But I can give you the auction company's public contact details.”
Rachel called the company on my behalf. They had no inventory of individual items, only a broad description of the unit's contents: furniture, boxes of books, office equipment, and assorted personal papers.
The buyer had been a restoration business.
Its owner agreed to meet us after Rachel explained the situation. He remembered the boxes because one contained old accounting books.
“I kept them,” he said. “They looked like they belonged to a business.”
He brought out three cartons.
Most of the contents were ordinary: invoices, faded photographs, letters, and notebooks. But at the bottom of the second carton, I found a small black ledger wrapped in brown paper.
The first page carried the Bellweather Children's Trust logo.
The following pages listed payments, transfers, and handwritten corrections.
Some transactions were marked with my mother's initials.
Others bore the initials V.M.
Victor Moretti.
I photographed every page and gave copies to Rachel. She arranged for a forensic accountant to review them.
Before we left, I noticed a narrow envelope tucked into the ledger's back cover.
It contained a photograph of my mother standing beside Adrian.
They were much younger than I remembered him being in our early photographs. Adrian looked perhaps twenty-two. My mother was older, with one hand resting on his shoulder.
On the back, she had written:
He doesn't know what his father did. Not yet.
I stared at Adrian's face.
He had told me my mother was not the person I thought she was.
But my mother had apparently known him before I did.
And she had believed there was something about him that he didn't know.
Rachel examined the photograph.
“This could change everything,” she said.
“Because it proves he knew my mother?”
“Not necessarily. It proves they met. We need context.”
My phone rang.
Adrian's name appeared on the screen.
I almost ignored it, but something in me wanted to hear what he would say.
“Where did you get that photograph?” he asked immediately.
My blood ran cold.
“How do you know I have it?”
“Because Victor just called me.”
I looked at Rachel.
“What does Victor want?”
Adrian's voice dropped.
“He wants the ledger. And he knows you've found it.”
A heavy knock sounded at the apartment door.
Patricia called from the hallway.
“There's a man here asking for you.”
I looked through the window.
A dark sedan waited at the curb.
May you like
This time, I recognized the driver.
Victor Moretti had finally come himself.
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