The Signature on the Wrong Page
Chapter 02 - The Signature on the Wrong Page
The company was called Hawthorne Redevelopment. Hannah had seen its name on a damp sheet of paper taped to an apartment building in South Philadelphia fourteen months earlier. Her grandmother had lived there until the building was emptied for renovation. She had died in a nursing facility six weeks after the move.
Hannah kept the thought to herself while Luca read the agreement. It was nearly midnight. The great house below them made small, expensive noises: a clock chiming, a dishwasher turning over, a distant door closing too carefully.
"You didn't sell the house, Ma," Luca said.
"I know what I did."
"According to this, you gave Hawthorne a long-term controlling lease over the east property. They can renovate the house, develop the grounds, even sublet the carriage cottages."
Teresa rubbed the edge of her blanket between her fingers. "Vanessa said there were some insurance forms. She told me you needed my signature or the bank might freeze your accounts."
"When?"
"Easter Sunday. After church."
That Easter afternoon had left other traces. Hannah remembered carrying a cup of tea into the dining room and seeing Teresa's fountain pen lying uncapped on a stack of contracts. Vanessa had moved the papers as soon as Hannah entered, but not before Hannah glimpsed the words EAST PARCEL at the top of a page. She had mistaken it for a reference to the roof repairs everyone was discussing.
The following week, a man measuring the hallways had asked Hannah whether there was a freight elevator. He'd spoken to Teresa as if she were not there. Vanessa told him, "She's only staying until we finish the arrangements." Teresa had turned toward the window. Hannah had assumed the contractor meant the renovation. Now she remembered the pink skin around Teresa's eyes and wished she had asked one more question.
For all her suspicion, Hannah had not been fearless. She was behind on a student loan and still paying the bills from Ada's final months. Her first night at the mansion, Vanessa had said references were important to families of their standing. She understood the message. Anyone might be dismissed. It had taken her too long to understand that Teresa was living under the same warning.
Hannah remembered that Sunday. Teresa had returned from Mass dizzy because she had forgotten breakfast. Vanessa had sat with her at the breakfast table, positioning the papers beside a vase of lilies. When Teresa asked for her glasses, Vanessa said she would read the pages aloud.
"I brought the glasses from upstairs," Hannah said. "Miss Bellini told me to put them away. She said the print was only legal language."
Luca stared at her. "Why didn't you tell me?"
She could have given him half a dozen answers: that Vanessa had hired her, that she needed the wages, that Teresa begged her not to stir trouble before Luca returned. The answer she chose was the truest.
"I tried. Your assistant said all household calls went through Vanessa."
"Gabriel?"
"Three times."
Luca reached for his phone. Teresa touched his wrist. "Don't call him yet."
He paused. His mother had spent half her life protecting men from consequences, beginning with his father. When she asked him to wait, he felt the old impulse to obey. But the transfer paper on the bed made obedience feel like cowardice.
"Tell me what you're afraid of," he said.
"If you call the wrong person, someone else will lose a home."
From the hallway came a soft scrape. Hannah moved first and opened the door. Mrs. D'Amato, the head housekeeper, stood by the linen cabinet holding a tray with two cups of tea. Her eyes were red. She had worked for the family since Luca wore school uniforms.
"I thought she might want something warm," the housekeeper said.
"Come in, Rosa," Teresa replied.
Rosa placed the tray on the crate. Luca asked whether she knew about the room. She didn't try to lie. She looked at the floor, as she always did when he was angry.
"I made the bed," she said. "I moved her clothes. They told me the east wing had mold."
"Did you believe them?"
"I smelled fresh paint, not mold."
Rosa's son, Anthony, maintained several properties owned by the Bellini family. Hannah knew because Rosa mentioned him whenever his children got sick. Luca looked at Rosa's shaking hands and chose not to press her in front of everyone.
"Bring two men to move these boxes," he said. "My mother will sleep downstairs tonight. Find a room near mine with its own bathroom."
"No," Teresa said.
Her refusal surprised them all.
"Not until I know where the other women are sleeping."
Hannah glanced toward her. Teresa had never explained what she meant when she spoke about the women. She had only asked Hannah to save every envelope addressed to her and had hidden them under the mattress.
Luca knelt beside the bed. "What women?"
"Your father's seamstresses. The ones who kept the factory running after the fire. He promised them places in the carriage cottages when they got old. I made sure he kept that promise."
"That was twenty years ago."
"Most of them are in their seventies now. Margaret has had both knees replaced. June can't drive. Two others are widows. They live out there because they can't afford another place."
Through the small window Luca could see the dark outlines of the cottages beyond the garden. He had grown up passing them on his bicycle. He had not been inside one for more than a decade.
"Hawthorne can't evict them overnight," he said.
"People said that about my grandmother's building," Hannah replied before she could stop herself.
Luca looked up. "What did you say?"
"Nothing."
"Hannah."
"My grandmother lived in a Hawthorne property. She got a letter saying the repairs would take three weeks. She never went home."
The room seemed to contract around the four of them. Rosa sat heavily on the folding chair. Teresa watched Hannah with an expression Hannah couldn't read.
"You knew the company?" Luca asked.
"I knew the name. When I applied here, I didn't know Vanessa was dealing with them."
"And you didn't think to mention it after Easter?"
"I did," Hannah said. "To your office. I kept the messages."
He felt the first sting of a familiar suspicion. In his world, secrets meant leverage. A young woman with a history involving the developer in his mother's agreement could be an innocent employee or a well-placed spy. He hated himself for thinking it while she stood in a uniform that paid less in a month than he spent on dinner.
His phone rang. Vanessa. He let it ring out.
Rosa took a small square of paper from her apron pocket. "You should see this, Mr. Luca. They brought it while you were away. Miss Bellini said it was only a room number for the construction crew."
On the paper was a date, a key code, and the name of a private residence for elderly patients in New Jersey. Beside Teresa's name, someone had written in red ink: TRANSFER SCHEDULED — FRIDAY, 8 A.M.
May you like
It was Thursday morning now.
Luca read the word transfer again. His mother had not been moved upstairs temporarily. She was being sent away before the weekend, and the arrangements had already been paid for.
