Chapter 3 - REBECCA REED
-3
Sofia Martinez agreed to meet Hannah the next morning at a coffee shop twenty minutes from the estate.
Nicholas insisted Hannah take one of his cars.
Hannah refused.
“I have a car.”
“You have a twelve-year-old Honda with tape on the mirror.”
“The tape is structural.”
“Hannah.”
“Fine. The mirror is emotionally supported.”
For the first time since she met him, Nicholas laughed without bitterness.
The sound surprised both of them.
Then his expression grew serious.
“Take security.”
“No.”
“If Walter is involved—”
“I’m meeting a nurse in a coffee shop.”
“You work for me.”
“That does not make me one of your soldiers.”
His jaw tightened.
“Driver.”
“No.”
“One driver.”
Hannah gave him a look.
Nicholas sighed.
“One driver who stays outside.”
“Fine.”
Sofia was thirty-four, with dark curls and the exhausted eyes of someone who had spent months questioning whether she imagined something terrible.
She recognized Hannah immediately.
“You’re Rebecca Reed’s daughter.”
Hannah stopped beside the table.
“How do you know my mother?”
Sofia’s face changed.
“I don’t.”
“Then how do you know her name?”
“Walter.”
Hannah sat down.
Sofia wrapped both hands around her coffee.
“During my second week, Nicholas called me Rebecca.”
“He did the same to me.”
“But you look like her.”
“You’ve seen her?”
“No.”
“Then—”
“Walter showed me a photograph.”
Hannah felt cold.
“When?”
“The day after Nicholas called me Rebecca.”
“What photograph?”
“Old staff picture.”
Sofia swallowed.
“He asked whether Nicholas had said anything else.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“Was there anything else?”
“Yes.”
Hannah waited.
Sofia lowered her voice.
“Nicholas said, ‘Rebecca was right about the medicine.’”
The café seemed to disappear around Hannah.
“When?”
“During a confused episode.”
“Did you report it?”
“To Walter.”
“Why?”
“I thought I was supposed to.”
“What happened?”
“He said Nicholas was hallucinating old memories.”
“And then?”
“Claire started watching me.”
Sofia described the same pattern Hannah had noticed.
Claire’s private tablets.
Nicholas becoming heavily sedated.
Unexplained bruises.
Periods when his progress in physical therapy suddenly declined after days of improvement.
Sofia questioned the medication list.
Two days later, Walter accused her of breaching confidentiality.
“I hadn’t.”
“What did he say you disclosed?”
“He wouldn't specify.”
“Why did you leave?”
Sofia stared into her coffee.
“My mother got an envelope.”
Hannah leaned forward.
“What was inside?”
“Photographs.”
“Of what?”
“My younger sister leaving school.”
Hannah’s stomach tightened.
“No message?”
“One.”
Sofia’s voice dropped.
Stop creating problems that don't belong to you.
Hannah felt anger replace fear.
“You didn’t report it?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“The envelope disappeared from my car before I could show anyone.”
Hannah said nothing.
Sofia’s eyes filled.
“I had no proof.”
“So you resigned.”
“Yes.”
“What about the other nurses?”
“One was fired after telling Dr. Patel Nicholas seemed overmedicated.”
“And the third?”
“Marissa Cole.”
Hannah nodded.
“I can’t find her.”
Sofia looked away.
“Neither can I.”
That sentence remained in Hannah’s mind all the way back to the estate.
She didn’t tell Walter about the meeting.
She told Nicholas everything.
He listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he asked:
“Why didn’t Sofia tell me?”
“Because somebody threatened her family.”
His hands tightened on the wheelchair arms.
“Who?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“I can find out.”
“You're missing the point.”
“No, I’m not.”
His voice hardened into something closer to the Nicholas Valenti from the newspapers.
“Someone threatened a nurse's sister because she tried to protect me.”
“Exactly. Which means charging around angry will warn them.”
He stared at her.
“You just told me not to charge around.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I like you less every day.”
“Good.”
Nicholas almost smiled.
Then Hannah said, “I want to see the old staff photograph.”
His expression changed.
They searched the estate archives after lunch.
Walter maintained decades of photographs in a secured records room adjacent to his office.
Nicholas had authority to access it.
Walter was conveniently attending a meeting downtown.
The albums were labeled by year.
Hannah’s fingers trembled as she opened one from twenty years earlier.
Holiday party.
Summer picnic.
Staff dinner.
Then she found it.
A photograph taken on the rear terrace.
Lucia Valenti sat in a chair beneath a blanket.
A fifteen-year-old Nicholas stood behind her, thinner and angrier-looking than Hannah expected.
Vincent Valenti stood beside his son.
Walter Bell stood near the end.
And three nurses stood behind Lucia.
The woman in the center was Rebecca Reed.
Hannah’s mother.
Younger.
Healthier.
Smiling.
Hannah touched the image.
Nicholas watched her.
“You have her eyes.”
“She never told me.”
“She may have been protecting you.”
“From what?”
Nicholas turned another page.
Several photographs had been removed.
Only corner mounts remained.
“Who removed these?”
“No idea.”
Hannah checked the back of the album.
Nothing.
Then she noticed handwriting on the page beneath Rebecca’s photograph.
Faded pencil.
R.R. - June 3.
“June third?”
Nicholas’s face changed.
“What?”
“My mother died June fifth.”
Hannah looked at him.
“Two days later.”
Nicholas nodded.
They found an old household calendar from the same year.
June 3:
Dr. Mercer 10:00.
Walter - bank.
Rebecca PM.
June 4:
Family meeting canceled.
June 5:
Lucia died 4:12 a.m.
Hannah looked at Nicholas.
“Did my mother work the night Lucia died?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Someone would.”
“Walter.”
“Someone else.”
Nicholas thought.
“Maria.”
“Who?”
“Maria Alvarez. Housekeeper.”
Hannah blinked.
“Alvarez?”
“Yes.”
Her heart began pounding.
“First name Maria?”
“Yes.”
Hannah pulled out her phone.
Mrs. Alvarez.
The woman who had lived across the hall from Hannah’s family for seventeen years.
The woman currently watching Ethan.
Hannah called.
Maria answered cheerfully.
“Everything okay?”
Hannah struggled to keep her voice steady.
“Mrs. Alvarez, did you ever work for the Valenti family?”
Silence.
Long.
Terrible.
“Hannah…”
“You did.”
Another silence.
“Who told you?”
“Why didn’t you?”
Maria exhaled shakily.
“This is not a telephone conversation.”
“I’m coming home.”
“Do not bring anyone.”
Hannah looked at Nicholas.
He could hear Maria through the speaker.
Maria added urgently:
“Especially not Walter Bell.”
Two hours later, Hannah sat in her apartment kitchen.
Ethan was at a friend’s house.
Maria Alvarez sat opposite her.
She looked older than she had that morning.
“I promised your mother.”
“Promised her what?”
“Not to tell you until there was a reason.”
“My patient knows her name.”
Maria closed her eyes.
“Then the reason has come.”
She stood and walked into her apartment.
When she returned, she carried a small metal box.
Hannah recognized it instantly.
Her mother had kept medical receipts in that box when Hannah was young.
“I thought we threw that away.”
“Rebecca gave it to me three weeks before she died.”
“From cancer?”
“Yes.”
Maria placed it on the table.
“She said if anyone from the Valenti family ever came looking for you, I should give you this.”
Hannah’s hands shook.
Inside were photographs.
Old employee cards.
A Valenti estate badge with Rebecca’s name.
And a spiral notebook wrapped in plastic.
The first page contained one sentence.
If Hannah is reading this, Walter Bell has run out of time.
Hannah stopped breathing.
Maria crossed herself.
“Your mother was afraid of him.”
“What did she discover?”
Maria looked toward the box.
“She discovered Walter was changing Lucia Valenti’s medication records.”
“Why?”
“I never knew.”
“Did Lucia die because of him?”
“I don’t know.”
Maria’s voice became quieter.
“But Rebecca believed Lucia’s death was only the beginning.”
Hannah opened the notebook.
Names filled the pages.
Dates.
Amounts.
Medication discrepancies.
Business accounts.
Photographs.
And one repeated name.
Claire Whitmore.
Hannah stared.
Claire would have been a child twenty years ago.
Beside the name was another.
Walter Bell.
Then a third.
Evelyn Whitmore.
Hannah turned the page.
A photograph fell onto the table.
A much younger Walter stood outside a hotel with a blond woman Hannah recognized from society photographs as Claire’s late mother.
Walter’s arm was around Evelyn’s waist.
On the back, Rebecca had written:
E.W. pregnant. Walter says child is not his.
DNA says otherwise.
Hannah stared at Maria.
“What is this?”
May you like
Maria looked frightened.
“Rebecca believed Claire Whitmore was Walter Bell’s daughter.”
