Chapter 6 - THE LIE THEY PUT IN MY MOTHER'S MOUTH
My mother called before I could call her.
"Nora, I didn't say any of that."
The article claimed she'd admitted I was obsessed with Luca, that I'd deliberately staged a scene to destroy his engagement, and that she'd once worried I would do anything to become part of a rich family.
I read it twice. It didn't become less ugly.
The photograph showed me carrying flowers through the side entrance of the estate. It had been taken months earlier. Whoever supplied it had known my schedule.
"I believe you," I said.
She began to cry anyway.
I wanted to fight with every stranger who had shared the story. Instead, Miriam advised us to document it, request a correction through appropriate channels, and avoid feeding the rumor mill. Detective Ruiz was notified because the published details overlapped with the threats.
Luca offered to issue a statement immediately. Miriam cautioned that the family first needed to separate verified facts from allegations.
"Then state the facts," he said.
That afternoon his office released a short statement: the wedding was canceled, Ethan was safe, and the family thanked the staff member who had identified an unsafe dessert. It did not name me or accuse Vanessa of a crime.
It wasn't exciting enough to drown out the lies.
By evening, thousands of strangers had decided they knew my motives.
I sat on the service stairs and considered resigning.
Mrs. Carter found me there again.
"You can't control what people say," she told me. "You can decide whether they get to write the ending."
"My mother has neighbors calling her."
"Then go be with her. The laundry can wait."
I took two days off with full pay. Luca insisted on that part, but he let me decide everything else.
At my aunt's house, my mother sat under a faded quilt eating soup. For once she looked smaller than I remembered. I made her laugh by describing how Ethan had once tried to teach me chess using gummy bears as pieces.
Then she told me about her old restaurant job in more detail. There was a ledger she'd briefly helped maintain, she said, filled with deliveries that never reached the kitchen. She'd kept a photocopy of a page after her manager blamed missing money on her. It had been stored with her tax papers for decades.
"I don't know whether it matters," she admitted.
"Then we won't decide that ourselves," I said.
We found the folded sheet inside a yellow envelope. It contained a dated list of payments and an initial: A.B. One entry referred to a property held in trust for an unnamed minor. The sheet was old, ambiguous, and potentially irrelevant. We gave it to Detective Ruiz anyway.
On the ride back to the estate, Marco called to say a contractor who once worked for the Bellini family had tried to enter the property using an outdated access credential. Security had turned him away. No confrontation occurred, but it convinced me that somebody was testing the doors.
When I arrived, Luca was waiting near the foyer.
"Ethan asked to speak with you," he said.
"Is he okay?"
"He had a hard day."
We called Claire together. Ethan appeared on the screen with his stuffed wolf under one arm.
"Miss Nora? I saw a picture of you on Mommy's phone."
My heart sank.
"People are saying mean things," he continued. "Are they saying those things because you helped me?"
I couldn't lie to him.
"Some people are confused about what happened," I said. "But you didn't cause it."
He looked at Luca. "Can you tell them she's good?"
"I'm trying, buddy."
Ethan shook his head. "No. Tell them she saved me."
Luca closed his eyes for a moment.
Then Claire gently turned the camera away and told Ethan he didn't have to fix grown-up problems. She was right.
After the call, Luca stood very still.
"I've been trying to protect him from the truth," he said. "Maybe I should have been protecting his right to tell it."
"He's nine," I replied. "Let him be nine."
Luca nodded.
Later that night, Miriam received a response to her request for records. The company named in Vanessa's trust amendment had been established only six weeks earlier.
Its registered agent was a law office that had once represented Adrian Bellini.
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And the money it was supposed to receive wasn't coming from Luca's accounts.
It was tied to Ethan's inheritance.
