Chapter 5 - THE DRAWING WITH LUCY’S NAME
Maria took the drawing from Samuel so quickly the paper nearly tore.
“No.”
Her voice was barely audible.
Caroline stepped closer.
“Maria—”
“No.”
She stared at the purple stick figure.
LUCY.
Three years earlier.
Her daughter would have been five.
I looked at Maria.
“Did Lucy know anyone at St. Agnes?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
Maria did not answer.
That was not the same thing.
“Maria.”
Her eyes stayed on the drawing.
“My sister volunteered there.”
Samuel frowned.
“What sister?”
“Teresa.”
“Last name?”
“Reyes.”
“Where is she now?”
Maria swallowed.
“Dead.”
Lucy had already lost an aunt.
I did not know that.
Another thing my employees carried through my hallways while I knew nothing.
“When?” I asked.
“Two years ago.”
“How?”
“Cancer.”
Samuel’s expression softened, but his mind kept moving.
“Was Teresa at St. Agnes during the East Harbor dispute?”
“Yes.”
“Did Lucy ever go with her?”
Maria shook her head.
“Maybe once.”
Once became enough.
“Think.”
Maria closed her eyes.
“She used to pick Lucy up from preschool if I was working late.”
“Could she have taken her to St. Agnes?”
“Yes.”
Caroline exhaled.
That explained Lucy’s name.
Except Maria looked even more frightened now.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Teresa used to call one boy Matty.”
Samuel went still.
“A child?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“She called a grown man Matty.”
Nobody spoke.
“Did you ever meet him?”
“No.”
“Did she say his last name?”
“No.”
Maria looked at the Barone lion in the drawing.
“She told me he was someone who brought food.”
Matteo Barone.
A rival capo.
Bringing food to a church shelter during a territorial dispute.
That did not fit the story I knew.
Which increasingly meant the story I knew was incomplete.
Samuel spoke quietly.
“Matteo was never supposed to be involved in Barone operations then.”
“He was twenty-nine.”
“His father kept him outside the family business after his wife died.”
I looked at him.
“What wife?”
Samuel stared back.
Exactly.
“Another thing you were not told.”
I was getting tired of that sentence.
Samuel continued.
“Matteo married young. Her name was Claire. She died in childbirth.”
“And the child?”
“Officially, the baby died too.”
I looked at the drawing.
Apparently not.
Caroline sat on the edge of her bed.
“My mother knew about a hidden Barone child.”
“Likely.”
“And Teresa Reyes knew Matteo.”
Maria shook her head.
“My sister never told me any of this.”
“Maybe she was protecting you.”
Maria looked at me.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
The room went silent.
She folded the drawing carefully.
“People hide things, lie to us, use our names, spend our money, scare us—and then say it was protection.”
Her voice did not rise.
It did not need to.
“My sister may have had a reason. Mr. Rizzo may have had a reason. Caroline’s father may have had a reason.”
She looked at Keller.
“And he had a reason.”
Keller looked down.
Maria continued.
“But none of those reasons put food in my refrigerator.”
Lucy had been the first to simplify the problem.
Her mother had just done it again.
Motives mattered.
Consequences mattered too.
I turned to Samuel.
“Where is Matteo Barone tonight?”
He hesitated.
“My men believe his people took one of the missing shipments toward St. Agnes.”
Caroline stared.
“You were going to attack him.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“I was going to make him return what belonged to me.”
“Knowing what we know now?”
“We know very little.”
Maria spoke.
“We know St. Agnes.”
I looked at her.
“My sister kept an old coat from there.”
Samuel frowned.
“Another coat?”
Maria almost smiled.
“Apparently women hide history in pockets.”
Caroline looked at her mother’s camel coat.
Fair point.
Maria continued.
“When Teresa died, I kept some of her things. There’s a blue raincoat in a storage box at my apartment.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you think—”
“She told me never to throw it away.”
That was enough.
I looked at Samuel.
“Cars.”
He nodded.
Caroline stood.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
Her face hardened.
“My mother’s disappearance is tied to this.”
“And your brother may be involved.”
“Exactly.”
I studied her.
Then nodded.
Maria immediately said:
“I’m coming too.”
“No.”
She stared at me.
I realized the hypocrisy before she spoke.
“This is about my sister.”
Fair.
“You stay beside me.”
She lifted one eyebrow.
“I’ve been cleaning your house for four years. I don’t need an escort.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“But tonight you’re getting one.”
That ended differently than an order.
She accepted it.
We stopped first at Maria’s apartment.
Small.
Second floor.
Clean.
Lucy’s drawings covered the refrigerator.
One grocery list was held up by a magnet shaped like a strawberry.
Milk.
Rice.
Apples.
NO COOKIES UNTIL FRIDAY.
I hated seeing that.
Maria went straight to the bedroom closet.
She returned carrying a plastic storage box.
Inside were Teresa’s things.
Photographs.
A rosary.
A faded scarf.
The blue raincoat.
Maria checked the pockets.
Nothing.
Then she felt the lining.
“Wait.”
There was stitching along the hem.
Not factory stitching.
Hand-sewn.
Maria brought scissors.
Inside the lining was a small flat envelope.
No one spoke.
She opened it.
Three photographs.
First:
Teresa standing outside St. Agnes beside Elena Bellini.
Second:
Elena holding a toddler boy with dark curls.
Third:
Matteo Barone kneeling beside Lucy.
Lucy was five.
She was holding the toddler’s hand.
On the back, Teresa had written:
LUCY SAID HE NEEDED A FRIEND.
Maria sat down hard.
“That’s my daughter.”
Caroline picked up the photograph of her mother.
Elena looked happy.
Not kidnapped.
Not frightened.
Happy.
Caroline whispered:
“She was helping them.”
Samuel studied the toddler.
“Matteo’s son.”
I turned the last photograph over.
Another note.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, ELENA KNOWS WHY NICHOLAS WANTED THE BOY FOUND.
The room changed.
Caroline’s face went white.
“Why would my brother want a toddler?”
Samuel took the photograph.
“Leverage.”
“Against Matteo?”
“Possibly.”
I looked at him.
“Or Barone leadership.”
“Yes.”
Maria stared at Teresa’s handwriting.
“My sister knew Nicholas was looking for that child.”
Caroline closed her eyes.
“And Mom helped hide him.”
Everything rearranged itself.
Elena Bellini had not been taken because she accidentally discovered Nicholas selling routes.
She had become a target because she interfered.
Samuel seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“Nicholas wasn’t only feeding schedules to Barone.”
Caroline looked at him.
“What else?”
“He may have been dealing with a faction inside Barone that wanted Matteo weakened.”
I thought of today’s missing shipments.
The eastern push.
The sudden appearance of Barone trucks near my territory.
“What if Matteo isn’t moving into my territory?”
Samuel looked at me.
I continued.
“What if he is following Nicholas?”
Caroline’s face changed.
“Then you’ve been preparing for the wrong enemy.”
Yes.
That was exactly it.
My phone buzzed.
This time I answered.
Frank D’Angelo, one of my dock capos.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found the missing shipment.”
“Where?”
“St. Agnes.”
I looked at Maria.
“Who has it?”
Frank hesitated.
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“Nobody stole it.”
My jaw tightened.
“Explain.”
“The trailer is parked behind the church. Seal intact.”
“Then why was the route changed?”
“Driver says he got a direct order.”
“From who?”
“He says Samuel Rizzo.”
Everyone turned toward my consigliere.
Samuel stared at the phone.
“I gave no order.”
Frank continued.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“Matteo Barone is here.”
“What does he want?”
“He says he wants to talk to Maria Reyes.”
Maria went completely still.
“Why?”
Frank lowered his voice.
“He has a little boy with him.”
“How old?”
“About eight.”
Same age as Lucy.
“And the boy is holding an old photograph of Lucy.”
Maria’s hand covered her mouth.
Frank continued.
“Matteo says Lucy once saved his son’s life.”
I looked at the photograph on Maria’s kitchen table.
Two children holding hands.
And suddenly the grocery receipts on my desk no longer seemed like the beginning of one theft.
They looked like the thread someone had pulled because Maria Reyes had been kept poor, frightened and quiet for years.
Not simply because she was convenient.
May you like
Because someone needed her too exhausted to remember what her sister knew.
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