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Chapter 4

Author: Michelle
For the next two days, no one in the Romano security office slept for more than a few hours.

An unidentified woman had been tortured and dumped on family territory. If the Calderones were responsible, the body was more than evidence of murder. It was a warning before war.

Mom barely went home. Celeste had left on an academic retreat, so she could not bring the dinners that had made everyone in the office believe she was Veronica's daughter.

Near midnight, Ethan brought coffee to Mom's desk and paused over the latest forensic report.

“One thing still bothers me,” he said. “She was held for hours. If she was conscious for even part of that time, wouldn't she have tried to contact someone?”

Mom looked up from the file.

“Most victims do. When people know they're in danger, they don't stop to think through every option. They reach for whoever they trust to come for them.”

“A parent?”

“Maybe. A partner, a sibling, anyone they believe will answer.”

She pulled the timeline closer and studied it again.

“If she had access to a phone at any point, even briefly, there should be a call, a message, something. Check the carrier records again. I want deleted calls, cloud backups, anything that might show who she tried to reach.”

Ethan nodded, then glanced toward the photographs from the alley.

“If we find that person, they could tell us what happened before she disappeared.”

Mom was silent for a moment.

“They may be able to tell us more than that.”

Her eyes remained on the photograph of my body.

“If a terrified girl reached out because she believed someone would come for her, I want to know why that person didn't.”

The words went through me like cold water.

I had reached out.

With the last strength I had, I had sent her one message.

[Mom, help me... I'm on the West Side. Someone is trying to kill me.]

She had answered.

She had simply chosen not to believe me.

Ethan closed the report. “I'll have the records pulled again.”

Mom nodded.

“Do that. Whoever ignored a message like that will have to live with it once we find out the truth.”

I looked at her across the desk and wondered how she would sound when she finally understood that the person she was talking about was herself.

At two in the morning, the forensic examiner came in carrying a set of enlarged photographs.

The forensic examiner entered carrying enlarged photographs.

"We examined the victim's clothing again. There was a necklace trapped inside the torn lining of her coat. Acid residue covered it, so we missed it during the first inspection."

He placed the clearest image on Mom's desk.

"The clasp appears to have broken when someone tried to tear it off. It slipped into the lining. Blood and tissue confirm the victim was wearing it."

Mom looked down.

She stopped breathing.

I moved closer. The necklace had been with me for as long as I could remember. Acid had dulled the silver chain, but the small oval pendant remained recognizable. My father had sketched it before I was born and commissioned it as his first gift to me.

"You're certain it belonged to the victim?" Mom asked.

Her hand shook so badly that the photograph rattled.

"Almost certainly," the examiner said. "Her blood is in the hinge. Based on bone and dental development, she was between eighteen and twenty."

His voice grew rough.

"She was barely an adult."

Ethan noticed Mom's face and leaned over the photograph.

"There are letters on the back."

He enlarged the image. Two initials, damaged but still legible, appeared on the pendant.

E. R.

"What do they stand for?" Ethan asked.

Emilia Romano.

That was my name.
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