Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Died)
Caesar read the message twice.
Then he looked at Clara.
She did not deny it.
Vanessa did not even breathe.
Evelyn pressed herself against Clara’s side.
Caesar crossed the room slowly.
“You are Amelia?”
Clara closed her eyes.
“My name is Clara Bennett.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No.”
The word should have relieved him.
It did not.
Clara looked down at Evelyn.
“But Amelia Bennett was my sister.”
Caesar stopped.
Amelia had never spoken of a sister.
Not once.
Not in eleven years.
“That is impossible.”
“I know.”
“She was an only child.”
“That is what our father told the world.”
Caesar’s face hardened.
“Explain.”
Clara looked at the locked safe room door.
“We may not have time.”
“You are going to make time.”
Marcus still held the threatening message.
“Whoever sent this wanted us to turn on each other.”
Clara nodded.
“And it almost worked.”
Caesar stepped closer to her.
“My daughter just called you her mother.”
Evelyn whispered, “She told me to.”
Caesar looked down.
“Who?”
“Mommy.”
The answer struck him harder than anything else that night.
Clara knelt beside Evelyn.
“Before Amelia died, she made me promise that if something happened to her, I would protect Evelyn. But I was not supposed to come until I knew who was responsible.”
Vanessa’s voice became shrill.
“She is lying.”
Clara ignored her.
“For years, I stayed away because I thought Evelyn was safe with Caesar.”
“Then why come eight months ago?”
Clara looked directly at him.
“Because Samuel was born.”
Caesar frowned.
Samuel was his nine-month-old son.
Vanessa’s son.
Clara continued.
“Three weeks after Samuel’s birth, an anonymous package arrived at my apartment in Baltimore. It contained one photograph of Amelia, one copy of Samuel’s hospital blood panel, and a note.”
“What note?”
“It said, ‘The second child has the same marker.’”
Caesar looked at Samuel.
Clara kissed the baby’s forehead.
“I applied for the maid position using a name that would not attract attention.”
“You forged references.”
“I had help.”
“From whom?”
Before Clara could answer, the laptop beeped.
A new file had automatically unlocked.
Amelia appeared again.
This time she was outside at night.
Trees swayed behind her.
Caesar recognized the location.
The lake behind the Moretti country house.
The place where Amelia supposedly drowned.
“If this recording opens,” she whispered, “then someone has accessed the first file.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“I need to say this clearly. My death may be staged. If a body is found, Caesar must demand independent DNA verification. Not hospital records. Not family identification. DNA.”
Caesar stared at the screen.
He remembered the coffin.
Closed.
The coroner had said water exposure and injuries made viewing difficult.
Vanessa had been beside him through every meeting.
Vanessa had handled funeral arrangements when Caesar was barely functioning.
Vanessa had introduced him to the medical examiner.
His stomach turned.
The video continued.
“I discovered that someone had been collecting genetic samples from our family for years. Mine. Caesar’s. Evelyn’s. Other children.”
Other children.
Caesar stepped closer.
“What does that mean?”
The recording could not answer him.
Amelia whispered, “Project Orpheus is not about money. It is about bloodlines.”
A noise sounded behind her.
Amelia turned.
The video shook.
Then a man’s voice could be heard.
“Amelia?”
The recording stopped.
Caesar replayed it.
The voice was faint.
But familiar.
Marcus leaned closer.
“That is not me.”
Vanessa snapped, “Of course you would say that.”
Caesar looked toward Daniel.
“You heard it?”
Daniel nodded.
“Yes.”
“Recognize him?”
Daniel hesitated.
“I think so.”
“Say it.”
Daniel looked toward the floor.
“It sounds like your father.”
Caesar went still.
Vittorio Moretti had been dead for nine years.
Amelia died four years ago.
“Impossible,” Caesar said.
Daniel did not argue.
Marcus moved to the security monitors.
“Sir.”
One camera showed the front gate.
A black sedan had stopped outside the property.
Another monitor showed a man stepping from the car.
He was elderly.
Silver hair.
Walking cane.
Dark overcoat.
Evelyn gasped.
Clara covered her mouth.
Caesar moved toward the screen.
The man lifted his face toward the security camera.
Caesar had seen that face every day of his childhood.
At breakfast.
At church.
In family portraits.
At the head of every dinner table.
Vittorio Moretti.
His father.
May you like
The dead man looked directly into the camera.
Then he smiled.
