The Night She Could Not Remember
Chapter 02 - The Night She Could Not Remember
At four that afternoon, Adeline married Cassian Raldi in a judge's private chamber three blocks from City Hall.
There were no flowers.
No music.
No one asked if her father would have been proud.
Ezra witnessed for Cassian. A paralegal named Denise witnessed for Adeline, though they had never met before that day. The judge had kind eyes and the tact not to comment on the absence of family.
Cassian slid a plain platinum band onto Adeline's finger.
For one absurd second, she thought of her mother's silver clip hidden in the inside pocket of her coat.
Two objects. Two promises. One she understood, and one she did not.
Afterward, Cassian's driver took them north through sleet toward a stone townhouse overlooking Lincoln Park. It was not the glass penthouse Adeline had expected. The house was old, quiet, and almost severe, with dark floors and shelves full of books that looked read rather than arranged.
A woman in her sixties met them in the foyer.
“Marta Alvarez,” she said, offering Adeline both hands. “I've worked for Mr. Raldi since he was young enough to hate vegetables.”
Cassian removed his coat. “I still hate vegetables.”
“Now you pay people not to notice.”
Adeline looked at him despite herself.
His expression did not change, but Marta's familiarity had put a crack in the image she had formed of him. Men feared Cassian Raldi. This woman apparently told him to eat carrots.
Marta led Adeline upstairs to a bedroom overlooking bare winter trees.
“Mr. Raldi's room is at the opposite end,” she said. “You have your own sitting room, bath, and key. If you dislike the linens, tell me. If you dislike him, join the club.”
Adeline laughed before she could stop herself.
That evening, she visited her mother at St. Anne's.
Eleanor Whitmore had once been a woman who wore lipstick to the grocery store and wrote birthday cards two weeks early. Since the stroke seven months earlier, the left side of her body had grown unreliable. Some days her speech came clearly. Other days words seemed trapped behind a locked door.
Adeline sat beside her bed and combed her hair slowly.
“I did something today,” she said.
Eleanor's eyes moved toward the ring.
A long breath left her.
“Married?”
Adeline nodded.
Her mother's fingers tightened weakly around the blanket.
“Who?”
“Cassian Raldi.”
The monitor kept its steady rhythm.
Then Eleanor's heart rate rose.
Not dramatically. Enough.
Adeline leaned forward. “Mom?”
Eleanor tried to push herself upright.
“No.”
“Mom, please don't strain.”
“No Raldi.”
The words came thick and urgent.
Adeline froze.
“You know him?”
Eleanor's gaze dropped to Adeline's coat, where the silver clip was tucked into the pocket.
Adeline removed it carefully.
Her mother stared at it.
For several seconds, she seemed completely present.
“Where?” Eleanor whispered.
“Cassian had it.”
Her mother's face changed in a way Adeline had not seen since the stroke.
Fear.
Not confusion. Not frustration.
Fear.
Eleanor tried to say something else, but the words broke apart. “Lake... your father... not accident...”
Adeline's hand went cold.
“What wasn't an accident?”
A nurse entered after the monitor alarmed and asked Adeline to step back while they settled Eleanor. By the time her mother calmed, exhaustion had erased the sudden clarity from her eyes.
Adeline remained another hour.
She asked twice what her mother had meant.
Both times Eleanor slept.
At nine, Adeline returned to the townhouse.
Cassian was alone in the library, jacket off, sleeves buttoned at his wrists, reading something on a tablet. He looked up when she entered.
“My mother knows your name.”
He set the tablet down.
“She knew your family?”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
“Then give me one.”
Cassian studied her face. “Your mother worked at Lakeshore General for twenty-six years.”
“As a trauma nurse. Half of Chicago went through her ER.”
“I was one of them.”
Adeline felt the silver clip against her palm.
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
The room narrowed.
“The night of the accident?”
“Yes.”
Her breathing slowed rather than quickened. Anger did that to her. It made everything precise.
“What happened?”
Cassian looked toward the unlit fireplace.
“I was twenty-four. I was driving south on Lake Shore after a board dinner. A car followed me. I stopped near Belmont because I thought I had a flat tire.”
“And?”
“Two men pulled me out of the car.”
Adeline said nothing.
“I woke up in an ambulance. Your mother was there.”
“You expect me to believe she lost her hair clip while treating you?”
“No.”
Again, that pause.
Cassian rose and crossed to a locked cabinet. From it he removed a small black box and placed it on the table.
Inside was a folded paper stained brown with age.
Adeline recognized her mother's handwriting immediately.
Three words were written across it.
KEEP HER SAFE.
Underneath was Adeline's full name.
She looked up.
Cassian did not move.
“My mother gave you this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“Another lie.”
“I know what she asked. I don't know why.”
Adeline stepped closer. “You knew my name eight years ago.”
“Yes.”
“You knew who the clip belonged to.”
“Eventually.”
“And this morning you said you didn't.”
“I said I didn't know when I found it.”
It was technically possible.
That made her dislike the answer more.
“Why didn't you contact me?”
Cassian's eyes held hers. “I did.”
Adeline's stomach tightened.
“No, you didn't.”
“I sent two letters to your apartment in Evanston. Both were returned.”
“I never lived in Evanston.”
For the first time, Cassian looked genuinely unsettled.
Ezra appeared in the library doorway, holding his phone.
“Cassian.”
Something in his voice made both of them turn.
Ezra walked in and placed the phone on the table.
On the screen was a scanned copy of an old envelope.
It was addressed to Adeline Whitmore, Evanston, Illinois.
In the upper left corner, someone had written the address by hand.
Adeline stared at the handwriting.
She had seen it earlier that very evening on the hospital forms beside her mother's bed.
May you like
Her mother had given Cassian the wrong address on purpose.
And whatever Eleanor Whitmore had been hiding for eight years, she had been hiding it from her own daughter too.
