The Mother Who Was Not Dead
Chapter 05 - The Mother Who Was Not Dead
They drove to the marina in silence so sharp Maeve felt cut open by it.
The abandoned ambulance sat near a row of winterized boats, one back door hanging open, rain tapping on metal like impatient fingers.
There was no blood.
No broken glass.
No obvious sign of struggle.
For some reason, that made it worse.
Declan searched the vehicle with violent efficiency. Gabriel spoke quietly to men who appeared from nowhere and vanished when Roman looked at them. Roman stood beside Maeve beneath a black umbrella neither of them had asked for.
Maeve held Nell’s note until the paper softened from the damp.
Not sick enough to die. Useful enough to keep.
“What does L.U.C.I. mean?” she asked.
Roman watched the harbor. “It was what Gabriel called our mother when we were little. He couldn’t say Lucia.”
Gabriel, ten feet away, went still.
Maeve looked at him. “Your brother didn’t know?”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Roman said.
“Apparently that’s a family hobby.”
He accepted the blow.
Declan slammed the ambulance door shut. “There’s a second route from here. Boat, not car.”
“Where would Varo take her?” Roman asked.
Declan looked toward the black water. “Somewhere he thinks we won’t burn down.”
Gabriel turned from his call.
“There’s an old convent hospital on Mercy Island. Closed officially. Kept alive through donations from three foundations.”
Maeve knew before he finished.
“Falcone Foundation.”
Gabriel nodded.
Roman’s face changed in that almost invisible way his brothers understood better than language.
Declan cursed under his breath.
“What?” Maeve demanded.
“Our mother used to fund that hospital,” Gabriel said.
“But she died.”
Declan stared at the water. “That is what we were told.”
The ferry to Mercy Island no longer ran. Roman did not need ferries.
An hour later, they crossed the harbor in a black patrol boat with no markings, Maeve wedged between Gabriel and a coil of rope, her hands numb around her mother’s old name.
The island rose from the fog like a bad memory.
Stone buildings. Broken bell tower. Windows boarded on the upper floors but lit on the lower ones.
A place that could hide sickness.
Or people.
They found Nell in a white room that smelled of antiseptic and old lilies.
She lay beneath a thin blanket, exhausted but alive, an IV in her arm and fury in her face.
“You took long enough,” she whispered.
Maeve nearly collapsed against her.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“That seems ungrateful.”
Maeve laughed and cried at the same time into her sister’s hair.
Roman stood in the doorway and looked away as if giving them privacy hurt.
Then a woman’s voice came from the bed across the room.
“Rose?”
Maeve froze.
The other patient was old but not elderly. Illness had hollowed her face, and silver threaded her dark hair, yet there was something unmistakably familiar in the shape of her mouth.
Gabriel made a sound behind her.
Not a word.
A wound.
The woman turned her head slowly.
Her eyes settled on the three brothers.
For one suspended second, nobody breathed.
Then she said, “My boys.”
Declan stepped backward as if struck.
Roman moved toward the bed, then stopped halfway. The most disciplined of the Falcone brothers had lost the ability to cross a room.
Gabriel covered his mouth with one hand.
“Lucia,” Maeve whispered.
The woman looked at her then.
Not fully present. Not fully gone. Somewhere between memory and medicine.
“You have Rose’s eyes.”
Maeve’s knees weakened.
“My mother is dead.”
Lucia’s lips trembled. “She got the girls out.”
Nell pushed herself up on one elbow. “Maeve?”
A door opened at the far end of the ward.
Silvio Varo entered with two men behind him and a smile soft enough to be almost polite.
Roman turned.
“Silvio.”
“Roman. I wondered how long the maid would need to bring you here.”
Maeve went cold.
May you like
Varo looked at her like a man admiring a key that had finally fit the lock.
“Thank you, Miss Cole,” he said. “Your mother was useful too.”
