Chapter 6 - The Night My Father Disappeared
My father had been dead for four years. I still remembered the smell of sawdust in his workshop, the way he whistled off-key, and his habit of telling me to check the underside of any piece of furniture before deciding what it was worth.
I did not remember him ever mentioning Luca Moretti.
“You knew him?” I asked.
Luca nodded slowly. “Thomas did restoration work for the foundation. Some of Isabella's community centers used reclaimed furniture. She thought it gave the spaces character.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“When you applied to work for us, I saw your surname. Dawson is common. I didn't know your father was Thomas until just now.”
My coffee had gone cold. “What about my mother?”
“I met Ruth once. Maybe twice. She helped Isabella organize a fundraiser. I never saw her after the accident.”
His eyes moved away from mine. “But I remember Thomas coming to the house that night.”
I gripped the paper cup. “The night Isabella died?”
“Yes. He wanted to speak to her. Adrian said she had already left.”
“My father was there?”
“According to Adrian, yes. I was out of town until late. Thomas came back a few days afterward and asked whether Isabella had left anything in his care.”
“What did you say?”
“That I didn't know what he meant. He looked frightened. Then he left.”
I was furious. Not because Luca had lied to me, but because all those years I'd believed my father had nothing worse on his mind than mortgage payments and the ache in his joints. What had he carried home that night? What had he hidden from my mother? And why had nobody told me?
We returned to Mom's hotel room. She was sitting by the window with her plants lined neatly on the sill.
When I said the name Isabella Moretti, she pressed a hand to her chest.
“Who told you?”
“Vanessa Bellini,” I said.
Mom's eyes filled with immediate fear. “That girl?”
Luca stood near the door. “Mrs. Dawson, I think we need to talk.”
My mother looked at him and shook her head. “We should have talked seven years ago.”
She asked me to sit. Then she told us a story she'd kept locked away for most of my adult life.
Isabella had hired my father to repair cabinets and tables in a community center. She liked that he charged less for schools than he did for private customers. He became someone she trusted.
“Your father was good at keeping secrets,” Mom said. “Not cruel secrets. The kind people handed him because he listened.”
One evening Isabella arrived at our house with a small parcel. She asked him to hide it until her daughter was old enough to understand what was happening.
“What was inside?” Luca asked.
“Thomas never told me. He said it wasn't ours to open.”
The next morning, Isabella died in the car crash.
Two days later, men came to the workshop. They claimed to be looking for a missing set of office keys. They tore apart the drawers while Mom stood holding a kitchen knife, threatening to call the police.
“They didn't find anything,” she said. “But afterward Thomas changed. He stopped taking new work. He checked the street every morning.”
“Where's the parcel?” I asked.
Mom began to cry.
“Your father hid it somewhere he thought nobody would ever look. Before he died, he said you would know how to find it when the time came.”
My stomach turned. His words about furniture. His old tool chest. The workbench he'd made from salvaged oak.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because he begged me not to. He thought knowing would make you a target.”
“And now I'm a target anyway.”
She reached for my hand. “I'm so sorry.”
Luca stepped forward. “Ruth, did you witness anything on the night of the crash?”
She nodded.
“I saw Isabella leaving the workshop. A silver car followed her.”
“Did you see the driver?”
“Not clearly. But I saw the passenger get out at the traffic light and walk toward another vehicle.”
“Who?”
Mom looked at him. “A woman. Young. Dark hair. Red coat.”
“Vanessa,” I whispered.
Mom shook her head. “I don't know. I only know this: she wore the same gold brooch I later saw in a newspaper photograph of the Bellini family.”
Luca went to the window. For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then his phone rang. Marco had found records from the night of Isabella's crash. The police report included a witness statement that had been marked withdrawn.
May you like
The witness was Thomas Dawson.
And the officer who had filed the withdrawal was now employed as head of security at Adrian Bellini's private estate.
