The Mother Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Chapter 08 - The Mother Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Sebastian’s mother had died twice.
That was how he said it.
Once when he was fourteen, in the version his father gave him: a winter illness, a closed casket, a funeral where Sebastian had not been allowed to see her face because grief, Alessandro said, did strange things to boys.
Then again at twenty-two, in a hospital photograph that proved she had been alive eight years after her funeral.
Clare sat across from Sebastian in his study while morning spread pale and merciless over Lake Michigan.
“You never questioned the funeral?” she asked softly.
His eyes remained on the photograph.
“I was fourteen.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only one I have.”
Clare did not push.
Children believed adults because survival often required it. She knew that better than most.
Sebastian touched the edge of the photograph.
“She was a nurse before she married my father. He hated that she knew more about pain than he did.”
“Why fake her death?”
“Because she tried to leave.”
The sentence settled heavily between them.
“She had family in Denver,” he continued. “A sister. She wanted to take me. My father told everyone she was unstable. Then she disappeared.”
“And you were told she died.”
He nodded once.
The tenderness on his face frightened Clare more than his anger. It made him seem younger and more breakable, and she had no room in her life for breakable men.
But she stayed.
Gabriel entered without knocking.
“We found Madsen.”
Sebastian’s chair turned.
“Where?”
“Same place he goes every Thursday. Private dialysis clinic in Evanston.”
Clare looked up.
“He’s sick?”
“Kidneys,” Gabriel said.
Oliver stirred in the guest room upstairs. Mrs. Alvarez had insisted on sitting with him, knitting something from a ball of green yarn she had produced from her purse as if prepared for siege.
Clare rose. “I’m going with you.”
“No,” Sebastian said.
She faced him.
“Do not confuse fear for me with authority over me.”
Gabriel looked briefly at the ceiling.
Sebastian’s gaze held hers.
Then he said, “Get your coat.”
Madsen looked smaller than Clare expected.
He sat in a private clinic room with a blanket over his knees and a needle taped carefully to one arm. Age had reduced him, but not softened him. His eyes sharpened the moment Sebastian entered.
For several seconds, neither man spoke.
Then Madsen said, “Alessandro’s son.”
Sebastian rolled closer. “You remember me.”
“I remember what was done.”
“Conveniently vague.”
Madsen looked at Clare. “And you are?”
“The reason his toe moved.”
The old doctor’s face changed.
Only a little.
Enough.
Sebastian saw it.
“You knew,” he said.
Madsen closed his eyes.
“I knew there was a chance.”
“You buried it.”
“I wrote the addendum.”
“My father buried it.”
“Your father paid to bury many things. Not all of them stayed buried because of money.”
Clare stepped forward. “Oliver Bennett.”
Madsen opened his eyes.
The old arrogance flickered.
“What about him?”
“You altered his file.”
“I reviewed his file.”
“You delayed his equipment and moved him down a list.”
“That child became relevant when you did.”
Clare felt Gabriel move behind her.
Sebastian did not. His eyes stayed on Madsen.
“Explain.”
Madsen sighed, as if they had inconvenienced him.
“Your family has enemies who understand leverage. Miss Bennett’s son was identified after Gabriel began asking questions about old medical records. I was instructed to create pressure. Delay, not deny.”
“By whom?”
Madsen smiled weakly.
“You know the answer you want.”
“Valentina.”
“No.”
The room went silent.
Madsen’s voice lowered.
“Valentina protected the lie after your father died. She did not create it.”
Sebastian leaned forward. “Who did?”
Madsen looked at the photograph on Sebastian’s lap—the one of his mother in the hospital hallway.
“She did.”
Clare stared.
Sebastian went very still.
“My mother.”
Madsen’s eyes did not waver.
“Lucia Lombardi signed the final restriction herself.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No,” Madsen said. “It is worse.”
He reached toward the bedside table with his free hand and took a folded envelope from beneath a medical magazine.
“I wondered when someone would come.”
Sebastian did not move.
Clare took the envelope and gave it to him.
His name was written across the front in a woman’s hand.
Sebastian opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Lucia Lombardi holding a newborn baby wrapped in a blue hospital blanket.
On the back were five words.
Protect him from your father.
Clare looked at the baby’s face.
Then at Sebastian.
“That isn’t you,” she whispered.
Sebastian’s voice turned hollow.
“No.”
May you like
Madsen smiled sadly.
“That is your younger brother.”
