Thirteen Years After His Brother Vanished

CHAPTER 2 - THE NAME HE NEVER SAID

Elena Marquez almost turned and ran.

For thirteen years, she had imagined this meeting in a hundred different ways. In none of them had it happened on a sidewalk, under mirrored glass, with her daughter holding her coat and the brother of the man she had loved staring at her like the dead had spoken.

Now Luca's mother stood three feet away.

Margaret Vale was elegant in the careful way of women who learned long ago that dignity can keep you standing when nothing else will. But the moment she looked at Sofia, all of that control cracked.

"What is her name?" Margaret asked.

Elena swallowed. "Sofia."

Margaret's hand went to her mouth. Adrian looked between them, confused.

"My grandmother's name was Sofia," he said.

"I know," Elena whispered.

That landed harder than anger would have.

They moved inside to the lobby cafe because Sofia was cold and Elena's knees were shaking. The security men stayed back. Adrian sent them away with one sharp look. Margaret bought hot chocolate for Sofia and tea for Elena, though Elena could barely lift the cup.

Adrian sat across from her, his watch flashing under the lights each time his hand tightened.

"Start from the beginning," he said.

So she did.

Barcelona first. A summer language program. Luca twenty-two, funny, reckless, sketching tattoo designs in the margins of his notebooks. Elena twenty-one and trying to become practical. They fell in love before either of them had enough sense to call it dangerous.

Then she got pregnant.

"Luca was happy," Elena said. "Terrified, but happy."

"So why didn't he come home with you?" Adrian asked.

Elena looked at Sofia. The child was coloring on a napkin now, drawing a wolf without meaning to.

"Because he told me someone was following him," Elena said. "And two days before he disappeared, he gave me an envelope and said if anything happened, I was never to take it to his family."

Margaret went rigid.

Adrian leaned forward. "Where is it now?"

Elena opened her bag with shaking hands.

"I still have it."

On the front, in Luca's handwriting, were four words:

For Adrian. If I'm gone.