A Photograph Worth Fifty Thousand Dollars

The drive to the Narrows was silent, but it was a suffocating silence.

Luca gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. The gold pocket watch rested in the cup holder between us, glowing faintly in the streetlights.

My father’s watch. Luca’s father’s watch.

Nothing made sense. My dad was a gentle, quiet jeweler. How did he have the watch of a murdered Mafia boss?

“He bought it,” Luca said suddenly, as if reading my mind.

“What?”

“Your father. He must have bought it. When my father was killed thirty years ago, the men who did it stripped him of his valuables. They fenced them. Your father was a jeweler. Someone probably brought it to him to melt down.”

“But he didn’t melt it,” I said softly.

“No. He hid it. And he hid Vanessa’s secret inside it.”

We pulled up to 442 West 8th Street.

It was a decaying brick building. The front door’s glass was shattered, and the stench of stale beer and garbage hung heavy in the damp air.

“Stay behind me,” Luca ordered, stepping out of the Range Rover. He didn’t wait for my response. He moved with a terrifying, calculated precision.

We climbed the dark, sticky stairwell to the fourth floor.

Apartment 4B.

Luca didn’t bother knocking. He took a step back and kicked the door right at the lock.

The cheap wood splintered loudly, and the door slammed open.

Inside, the apartment was a disaster. Trash bags piled in the corner, empty bottles on a stained mattress in the living room. The TV was blaring a late-night infomercial.

A man in a dirty undershirt jumped up from the couch, dropping a beer bottle.

“Who the hell are you?” the man slurred.

Luca closed the distance in two strides. He grabbed the man by the throat and slammed him against the peeling wallpaper.

“Where is the boy?” Luca demanded.

The man gasped, his eyes wide with fear. “I-I just watch him! Richard pays me two hundred a week to keep him fed! He’s in the back!”

Luca dropped the man, who scrambled toward the door and ran down the hallway.

I didn’t wait for Luca. I ran toward the only closed door in the hallway.

I turned the knob. It was locked from the outside with a simple latch. I flicked it open and pushed the door.

The room was entirely dark except for a small nightlight plugged into the wall.

Sitting in the corner, curled up on a thin blanket, was a little boy.

He looked exactly like the photograph from the envelope. He had dark, messy hair and large, terrified brown eyes. He was holding a broken blue crayon.

“Hi,” I whispered, dropping to my knees so I wouldn’t scare him. “Are you Leo?”

The boy clutched the crayon tighter and gave a tiny nod.

“I’m Emma,” I said gently, offering a warm smile. “We’re here to take you somewhere safe. Somewhere with real beds and lots of food.”

Luca appeared in the doorway. His massive frame filled the frame, and Leo shrank back against the wall.

“Luca, step back,” I said softly. “You’re scaring him.”

Luca immediately took a step back into the shadows. He watched me with a soft, strange expression as I reached out my hand.

“You don’t have to stay here anymore, Leo,” I promised.

Leo looked at my hand. Then he looked down at the floor next to him.

There was a piece of lined notebook paper covered in blue crayon drawings.

“I draw my mommy,” Leo said. His voice was incredibly small, raspy from disuse.

My heart broke. Despite being abandoned, he still thought of her.

I picked up the drawing. “She looks very pretty, Leo.”

But as I looked closer, my blood froze.

It was a drawing of a woman in a red dress. Vanessa.

But she wasn’t holding Leo’s hand. She was standing next to a big, square box. And she was putting shiny things into her pockets.

“Leo,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “What is your mommy doing in this picture?”

“Taking the shiny rocks,” Leo said simply.

I looked up at Luca.

“Emma,” Luca said, his voice tense. “What is it?”

I handed him the drawing.

“That’s a safe,” I whispered. “And those are diamonds.”

Luca stared at the child’s drawing.

“Vanessa didn’t just abandon him,” I said. “She visited him. Leo saw her with the things she stole from my father. She was the one who robbed our house, Luca. Not just her brother.”

Luca’s jaw clenched. “She used my money and my status as a cover. She was running a theft ring right under my nose.”

He knelt down, his expensive trousers hitting the dirty floor, and looked Leo in the eye.

“Leo,” Luca said, his voice incredibly gentle. “I promise you, nobody will ever hurt you or hide you again.”

Leo looked at Luca. Then, the little boy reached into his pocket.

“Mommy dropped this,” Leo said.

He held out his small, dirty hand.

Resting in his palm was a familiar object.

I gasped.

It was the missing piece from the dining room.

The chipped porcelain plate.

“Why does he have your mother’s plate?” I asked, completely bewildered.

Luca took the plate from the boy’s hand. He turned it over.