Chapter 1 – THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH

Dr. Harris stood beside Anna Moretti, one hand resting on the examination table.

But it wasn’t the doctor who made Luca stop breathing.

It was the woman standing behind him.

“Vanessa,” he whispered.

I moved closer.

The photograph showed three people inside the very room where we were standing.

Anna sat on the examination table, wearing a pale yellow cardigan. Her dark hair was pulled loosely over one shoulder. She looked tired, but she was smiling at whoever held the camera.

Dr. Harris stood beside her.

And Vanessa Bellini stood near the medicine cabinet.

She wasn’t a frightened teenager visiting her sick sister.

She wore a white clinical jacket, with an identification badge clipped to her pocket.

“That’s her,” Maria said.

Luca took the photograph from its frame.

“She told me she never came into this room.”

Marco turned toward him.

“When?”

“When we started dating. I asked whether being in Anna’s old house bothered her.”

He looked at the photograph again.

“She said she’d only been here twice, for family dinners.”

I studied Vanessa’s badge.

The photograph had faded, but I could make out two words beneath her name.

Clinical Assistant.

“Was Vanessa working for Dr. Harris?” I asked.

Maria nodded.

“Her father arranged it.”

Luca stared at her.

“She was studying art history.”

“She was studying nursing before that.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Vanessa told me she never finished college.”

Maria looked down.

“She didn’t finish nursing school either.”

I felt the first real piece of the story settle into place.

Vanessa wasn’t an inexperienced woman blindly trusting a family physician.

She’d received medical training.

And she’d hidden it.

Luca turned the photograph over.

On the back was a date.

May 18, 2010.

Sixteen years earlier.

He rubbed his thumb across the handwriting.

“Anna was thirty-four.”

“Was she already diagnosed with cancer?” I asked.

“Yes. But she’d finished her first course of treatment.”

“Was she improving?”

He hesitated.

“She said she was.”

Maria made a small sound.

We looked at her.

“Mrs. Anna was improving,” she said. “She was eating again. She’d started playing the piano.”

Luca looked toward the covered furniture along the wall.

“She wanted to go back to work.”

“What happened?”

Maria glanced at the examination table.

“Dr. Harris said her recovery was too good to be trusted.”

I frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“He said the disease could be hiding.”

That wasn’t an unreasonable concern in someone with a history of cancer.

But it didn’t explain insulin.

I examined the photograph again.

Anna’s left hand rested on her lap.

Her right hand was gripping Vanessa’s wrist.

Not tightly enough to look violent.

But deliberately.

Vanessa was holding something partly concealed behind her jacket.

A black injection pen.

My stomach tightened.

“Luca, look at her hand.”

He leaned closer.

“She was holding Vanessa.”

“Look at Vanessa.”

He did.

The color drained from his face.

“That’s the same pen.”

“Possibly the same type,” I corrected. “We can’t establish that from a photograph.”

He looked at me sharply.

I didn’t apologize.

We needed facts.

Not conclusions made in anger.

Marco opened the cabinet beneath the examination table.

Inside were old bandages, empty containers, and a cardboard file box.

Before anyone touched it, I asked him to photograph the room as we’d found it.

He glanced at Luca.

“Do it,” Luca said.

We already had a potentially serious crime involving a living patient. Whatever happened sixteen years earlier deserved careful documentation, not four angry people rummaging through evidence.

Maria sat on a wooden stool.

“I should have told you.”

Luca turned.

“Told me what?”

“That Vanessa helped with the treatments.”

He looked at her for a long moment.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Dr. Harris said the family’s medical arrangements were private.”

“I was Anna’s husband.”

“I know.”

“Then why did everyone treat me like a stranger?”

Maria began crying.

I understood his anger.

But I also noticed her hands trembling.

“Luca,” I said quietly, “we need to hear the rest.”

He looked away.

Maria took a breath.

“After the treatments, Mrs. Anna sometimes couldn’t remember things. She’d forget what she’d eaten. Once, she couldn’t remember the name of the dog she’d had since she was a little girl.”

“What did Harris say?” I asked.

“That her medication was affecting her memory.”

“And Vanessa?”

“She said the same thing.”

Luca stared at the photograph.

“Anna told me she was afraid she was losing her mind.”

Maria nodded.

“She told me too.”

I crouched beside the cardboard box.

There were treatment schedules, receipts, and a thin notebook with a green cloth cover.

Most pages contained ordinary observations.

Meal times.

Temperatures.

Headaches.

Days when Anna felt well enough to walk through the garden.

Then the entries changed.

May 18. Treatment at 3:00. Shaking by 3:20.

May 20. No treatment. Ate lunch. Walked outside.

May 22. Treatment. Couldn’t remember conversation afterward.

The entries were written in different handwriting.

Some belonged to Dr. Harris.

Others, apparently, to Vanessa.

Near the back, someone had written a note in blue ink.

Patient requested that husband attend next appointment.

Below it was another entry.

Request declined. Family visitor restriction remains in effect.

Luca read it twice.

“Who declined?”

There was no signature.

Only initials.

He closed the notebook.

“I was told Anna didn’t want me here.”

Maria covered her mouth.

I examined the next entry.

It was dated four days later.

The same request.

The same initials.

And beside it, in handwriting that looked different from the rest, someone had added three words.

Please tell Luca.

I looked at Maria.

“Was that Anna’s handwriting?”

She nodded.

“Those were her words.”

Luca moved toward the door.

I thought he was going after Vanessa.

Instead, he stopped beside the old examination table and pressed both hands against its edge.

He remained there for a long time.

When he finally spoke, his voice sounded different.

“I believed she wanted me to leave her alone.”

Nobody answered.

“She was getting sicker. Harris told me I was making it worse.”

He looked at Anna’s photograph.

“So I stayed away.”

Maria began crying again.

Luca picked up the notebook.

There was one final entry on the last page.

Dated June 2, 2010.

It wasn’t in the doctor’s handwriting.

Or Vanessa’s.

It was Anna’s.

I watched Luca read it.

Then I saw his face change.

He handed it to me.

The sentence was short.

“If I am confused after the injection, please don’t believe me when I say I don’t want my husband.”

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