Chapter 2 - The Photograph Beneath the Mattress
Tommy’s words should have reassured Gabriel.
Instead, they frightened him.
Gabriel stood in Hazel’s empty bedroom while Tommy placed a thin folder on the bed.
“No credit history before 3 years ago,” Tommy said. “No social media. No driver’s license under Hazel Ward. No hospital records. No school records. The Social Security number she gave payroll belonged to a woman who died in Ohio in 1998.”
Gabriel stared at him.
“So Hazel Ward doesn’t exist.”
“Not officially.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
He had been right.
She had lied.
But betrayal should have made him angry.
This felt different.
He began searching.
He removed drawers, checked beneath furniture, opened electrical plates, and tore the cheap lining from Hazel’s suitcase shelf.
Nothing.
Then his fingers brushed something beneath the mattress.
An envelope.
Gabriel pulled it free.
Inside was a photograph.
His breathing stopped.
The photograph was old, probably 15 years old. It showed a smiling woman standing outside a small medical clinic. Beside her stood a younger Hazel.
And between them stood Gabriel’s younger brother.
Luca Rossi.
Gabriel dropped into the chair.
Luca had been dead for 12 years.
Gabriel remembered every detail of the night he died—the rain, the overturned sedan, the blood on the steering wheel, the hospital doctor telling Gabriel there was nothing anyone could have done.
But Luca was smiling in this photograph.
His arm rested around Hazel’s shoulders.
On the back were 4 handwritten words.
Luca, Hazel, Mom. Providence.
Gabriel looked at Tommy.
“Find the clinic.”
By sunrise they had identified it.
St. Catherine’s Community Clinic in Providence, Rhode Island.
It had closed 8 years earlier.
The woman in the photograph had been Dr. Margaret Ward, a trauma physician.
Hazel Ward’s mother.
Suddenly the stitching made sense.
Gabriel drove to Providence himself.
Tommy tried to insist on accompanying him.
Gabriel refused.
The clinic had become a boarded-up building squeezed between a laundromat and an apartment complex. Gabriel stood across the street staring at it until an elderly man sweeping the sidewalk noticed him.
“You looking for Dr. Ward?”
Gabriel turned.
“How do you know?”
“You’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The look people had when they came looking for Margaret.”
The old man introduced himself as Samuel Brooks. He had owned the pharmacy next door.
Gabriel showed him Hazel’s photograph.
Samuel’s expression softened.
“That’s Maggie’s girl.”
“You knew Hazel?”
“Everybody did.”
“Where is she?”
Samuel studied Gabriel.
“You Gabriel Rossi?”
Gabriel went still.
Samuel’s expression hardened.
“That answers it.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Because Hazel’s mother died because of your family.”
The street seemed to become silent.
Gabriel stepped closer.
“Explain.”
Samuel shook his head.
“Not here.”
They entered the pharmacy.
Samuel locked the door behind them and led Gabriel upstairs to a dusty office.
“About 12 years ago,” Samuel began, “your brother came here badly hurt.”
Gabriel’s pulse changed.
“Luca?”
Samuel nodded.
“He’d been shot.”
“No. Luca died in a car accident.”
“That’s what somebody wanted you to believe.”
Gabriel stared at him.
Samuel continued.
“Margaret treated him secretly. Hazel helped. She was barely 18, studying nursing. Your brother stayed hidden for almost 2 weeks.”
“Why?”
“He said somebody inside his family wanted him dead.”
Gabriel felt the room tilt.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Hazel?”
Samuel hesitated.
“That’s what got her mother killed.”
Gabriel stood abruptly.
“Where is Hazel?”
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel slammed both palms against the desk.
“Do not lie to me.”
Samuel did not flinch.
“Now I understand why she was afraid of you.”
The words struck harder than Gabriel expected.
“Afraid?”
“She believed that if you discovered who she was, the people who killed Luca would discover her too.”
Gabriel stared at him.
Samuel opened an old filing cabinet.
From the bottom drawer, he removed a medical chart.
The patient name had been changed.
But the date matched Luca’s supposed death.
Inside was an X-ray, treatment notes, and a handwritten page.
Samuel gave it to Gabriel.
The handwriting belonged to Luca.
Gabriel knew it instantly.
Gabe, if you ever find this, do not trust the man who tells you I died instantly. I survived. Someone close to us arranged the ambush. Margaret saved me. Her daughter Hazel knows where I hid the proof. Protect them.
Gabriel stopped breathing.
For 12 years he had believed his brother died on impact.
Someone had lied.
Someone Gabriel trusted.
And Hazel had carried the truth all along.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Samuel’s face softened.
“Maybe she tried.”
Gabriel frowned.
Samuel retrieved another envelope.
It contained photocopies of 7 letters.
All addressed to Gabriel Rossi.
All written by Hazel.
All returned unopened.
The first was dated 11 years earlier.
The last, 6 years earlier.
Gabriel read the opening sentence.
Mr. Rossi, your brother did not die when they told you he did. My mother and I tried to save him. I think the same people who killed him are watching us.
Gabriel’s hands began trembling.
“I never received these.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because after the last one, Margaret was murdered.”
Gabriel looked up.
Samuel’s voice lowered.
“House fire. Police called it accidental.”
“And Hazel?”
“Disappeared.”
Gabriel looked again at the photograph.
Then something occurred to him.
“If she spent years hiding from my family, why come work in my house?”
Samuel gave him a long look.
“That’s the question you should be asking.”
Gabriel drove back to the estate in silence.
He reached his study shortly after midnight and ordered Tommy to retrieve every employment document connected to Hazel.
At 2:13 a.m., Tommy found something.
Hazel had not applied for the housekeeping job.
Someone had recommended her.
Gabriel examined the authorization form.
The signature belonged to the estate’s longtime administrator.
Victor Rossi.
Gabriel’s uncle.
The same man who had identified Luca’s body 12 years earlier.
The same man who had told Gabriel his brother died instantly.
Gabriel slowly raised his eyes.
“Where’s Victor?”
Tommy swallowed.
“Chicago.”
Gabriel stood.
Then Tommy’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Gabriel grabbed the phone.
A guard spoke frantically from the estate gate.
They had found something attached to the iron fence.
A gray cardigan.
Hazel’s cardigan.
Pinned to it was a note.
Gabriel unfolded it.
May you like
There were only 6 words.
Stop looking, or she dies tonight.
