Dr. Bell’s Recommendation
Chapter 04 - Dr. Bell’s Recommendation
Dr. Bell knew he had made a mistake the moment he heard his own words.
A better liar would have pretended confusion. A stronger liar might have looked offended. Dr. Bell simply went pale and clutched the folio against his chest, as though paper could protect him from Luca Moretti’s silence.
Luca did not move toward him.
That made the hall feel smaller.
“After the wedding,” Luca repeated.
Dr. Bell swallowed. “Mr. Moretti, I mean only that these matters are sensitive. Your fiancée asked that recommendations be handled delicately.”
“My daughter is ten.”
“Yes.”
“She believed I was sending her away.”
“I was told she had been informed gradually.”
“By whom?”
The doctor looked at Vanessa.
No one missed it.
Vanessa lifted her chin. “Don’t blame him because your daughter is struggling, Luca. You asked me to prepare this house for marriage. I did what you wouldn’t do.”
“What wouldn’t I do?”
“Admit Elena is gone.”
A sound moved through the gathered guests. Not a gasp. Something quieter. Discomfort with manners still attached.
Luca’s expression did not change, but I saw Sophie in the sitting room doorway behind him. She had followed us. Her face had gone paper-white.
Teresa saw her too.
Before I could move, Sophie whispered, “I know Mommy is gone.”
Luca turned.
The child stood in her navy dress, one hand wrapped around the doorframe. Her dinner ribbon had slipped loose, and there was something terribly small about her beneath all that crystal and gold.
“I know,” she said again. “I just don’t want everyone to throw her away.”
That sentence finished what Vanessa had started.
Luca crossed the hall in three strides and knelt in front of Sophie.
“Nobody is throwing her away.”
Sophie looked over his shoulder at Vanessa.
“She said keeping Mommy’s things makes you sad.”
“It does.”
Her lower lip trembled.
“But losing them would make me worse,” Luca said.
Sophie blinked.
“Then why did you let her put boxes in the room?”
“I didn’t.”
The child studied his face. She knew adults lied for comfort. All children do, sooner or later. But Luca’s voice had changed. It had lost the command everyone else feared and kept only the truth.
Sophie stepped into his arms.
The hallway exhaled.
Vanessa looked disgusted.
It lasted one second too long.
I saw Luca see it.
He stood slowly, keeping Sophie beside him.
“Dr. Bell,” he said, “who paid you?”
“I was retained through Ms. Bellini’s office.”
“Not by my attorney?”
“No.”
“Not by my family foundation?”
“No.”
Vanessa cut in. “Because I handled it privately to spare you the burden.”
Teresa tapped her cane once against the floor. “How considerate.”
Luca looked at the doctor. “What did you evaluate?”
Dr. Bell hesitated.
“Answer carefully,” Luca said.
“I reviewed behavioral notes supplied by Ms. Bellini.”
“Did you meet my daughter?”
“Briefly.”
“How briefly?”
The doctor’s ears reddened. “Approximately twelve minutes.”
Sophie pressed closer to Luca’s side.
Twelve minutes.
I had spent four months making sure Sophie’s school sweater was washed on Thursdays because she worried about smelling like old cafeteria milk. Twelve minutes was not enough time to know how she held grief behind her teeth. Twelve minutes was not enough time to know anything that mattered.
Luca opened the document again.
“These behavioral notes. Who wrote them?”
“Ms. Bellini.”
Vanessa’s voice sharpened. “Observations from the household staff supported them.”
My stomach dropped.
Luca’s eyes moved to me.
I shook my head. “Not from me.”
Vanessa smiled. “Claire, dear, you signed a statement last Thursday.”
“I signed receipt of my paycheck.”
“You signed what was placed in front of you.”
The hall tilted.
I remembered the envelope. Three forms clipped together. Direct deposit correction. Emergency contact. A tax update, Vanessa had said, annoyed that I was reading slowly. Sign where marked, Claire. We are all very busy.
I had signed.
Luca saw my face.
“What did she sign?” he asked.
Vanessa did not answer.
Dr. Bell opened his folio with trembling fingers and removed a sheet.
I recognized my signature at the bottom.
Above it, in clean formal language, was a statement claiming Sophie refused meals, screamed at guests, destroyed property, and showed unhealthy fixation on her deceased mother.
None of it was true.
“I didn’t write that,” I said.
Vanessa’s smile became small. “Prove it.”
Luca took the paper from Dr. Bell.
For a terrible moment, I wondered if power always chose paperwork over people.
Then Sophie spoke.
“She made Claire sign it.”
Vanessa laughed. “Now we’re taking testimony from a child?”
Sophie lifted her chin.
“No.”
She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a small white device shaped like a cat.
“My tutor said if people tell lies, I should record them.”
Vanessa’s face emptied.
May you like
Sophie held it out to Luca.
“I recorded her.”
