Page 53

J ulia and Courtney whacked through weeds, underbrush, and overgrown grapevines using a shovel, a scythe, and a machete they found in the tool shed. Their progress was slow but steady, and every step stirred up bugs, birds, and vermin that had taken up residence.

Courtney squeaked when she saw a snake, and Julia kept it to herself when a rat raced away from them, but they kept going.

Nettles scratched their forearms, and thorns tore their jeans.

They were about to give up when Julia spotted a rim of an alberese stone embedded in the ground.

She’d seen so much of it that she recognized it immediately.

Julia pointed. “Is that a fieldstone or a well?”

“Get it!” Courtney answered, and they worked to clear the stone, exposing the top of a small, circular well, about four feet above ground.

The stones at the rim were bigger than those on the body of the well, a decorative element, and dark green moss and slick algae covered it in patches.

Sedum grew between the stones, having pushed out the mortar in chunks.

They figured the earth had mounded around it from erosion.

Julia scanned the well, wiping her forehead. “It’s narrow.”

Courtney looked grim. “It’s wide enough for a body.”

Julia sniffed the air. “It smells bad.”

“The whole place does. So who’s going to look first?”

“I will.” Julia braced herself, went to the well, and looked inside, but it was too dark to see anything.

Bramble, ferns, and spiderwebs filled it, and beyond was darkness.

“Hold on.” She’d slid a flashlight out of her pocket, turned it on, and shone it inside the well.

There was plant material all the way down, and she felt the dampness of water below, but couldn’t see that far.

“In the good news department, no bodies.”

“Whew.” Courtney leaned over, looking inside the well. “Hold on, shine the light to the right again.”

Julia did, then noticed a rusted chain. “What’s that for?”

“Probably a bucket.” Courtney scrambled to her. “Pull it up and let’s see. Go slow or the chain will break.”

Julia pulled on the chain and gathered it up. It clanked and jangled, shedding flakes of rust. Her heart began to pound. “It’s not heavy enough to be a body.”

“Skeletons aren’t heavy.”

Julia halted, grimacing. She couldn’t begin to think she was yanking on the remains of her own mother. “Court, really? Are you trying to freak me out?”

“Sorry.” Courtney cringed. “Don’t stop.”

Julia pulled the chain, and a black box popped through the plant material. “Thank God! It’s like a shoebox.”

“Maybe it’s shoes!”

Julia laughed, releasing the tension. She pulled up the box and grabbed the handle, which was rusted. The box was metal enameled black and in surprisingly good condition. “Please tell me it’s not locked.”

Courtney pointed to a keyhole on the side. “It’s locked.”

“Shit.” Julia turned the box this way and that. Something shifted inside. “God knows where the key is. It could be anywhere.”

“How do we open it?”

“Watch.” Julia picked up the box and bashed it on the side of the well, making a dent. She bashed it again and again, until the dents distorted the shape of the box. The lid popped on one side. She turned the box around and bashed the opening, and in the next moment, the lid broke.

“Victory! Open it! Maybe there’s money inside!”

“We’re already rich, remember?”

“Speak for yourself.”

Julia sat on the ground, pried off the lid, and looked inside the box. There was a manila envelope with no writing. She picked out the envelope. “I guess Rossi put it here. It doesn’t look older than fifty years.”

“Hurry up! Open it!”

Julia turned the envelope over, undid the brass brad, and peeked inside. There were three white envelopes, so she took them out and set them on the ground.

“What is this? A game?”

“Hold on.” Julia opened one envelope, and it contained a thick pack of multicolored bills in a paperclip, but they weren’t euros. She slid one out, and it read 1000 LIRE BANCA D’ITALIA , with an engraving of a woman. “This is a lira, from before euros.”

“Let me find out when they changed.” Courtney checked her phone. “Italy used lira until about 2000 or so. You were right, it’s old. Open the next one.”

Julia went to the next envelope, opened it, and slid out the contents, two green passports that read REPUBBLICA ITALIANA above a gold embossed emblem, then PASSAPORTO . “Italian passports.” Her chest tightened as she picked one up. “I’m almost afraid to open it.”

“Want me to?”

“No, I got it.” Julia opened the passport to a black-and-white photo of Rossi when she was a younger woman. Her eyes were clear, her gaze direct, and she was smiling at the camera. “This is her.”

“She does look a little like you.”

Julia turned the passport sideways and read the name, ELENA RITORNO . “What? Elena Ritorno? Her name is Emilia Rossi. That’s not her name, but that’s her photo.”

“She’s Jason Bourne.”

Julia was too tense to laugh. “So is this a passport with a fake name?”

“It could be, or it could be her real name and Emilia Rossi is her fake name.” Courtney sat down beside her, eyeing the passport. “See, the initials are the same. ER. People keep the same initials when they choose aliases.”

“How do you know?”

“From Matt Damon. Open the other passport.”

Julia picked up the other passport and opened it to a black-and-white picture of a baby with cute features, a perfectly round head, and light brown hair. Her heart wrenched. “A baby .”

“Do you think it’s her baby?”

“It seems likely. The passports are together.” Julia didn’t see a resemblance to Rossi in the baby, but the baby’s features were too unformed.

“She could have kidnapped the baby.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Julia turned the passport, reading the baby’s name. “Patrizia Ritorno. They have the same last name.”

“That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Not here. The lawyer told me Italian women don’t change their last names when they get married.

The babies get the father’s last name. But Rossi didn’t give the baby the father’s last name.

Maybe she never married the guy.” Julia returned to the passport, hesitating.

“Now that I know Rossi had a daughter, it kind of scares me.”

“Why?” Courtney touched her arm. “You think the daughter’s your bio mom?”

“I think it makes it more likely, don’t you?”

“Not logically, but I know what you mean. Before, when we thought Rossi didn’t have children, it looked like she couldn’t be related to you. Now she could be.”

“Right.” Julia thought it over. “So this baby could be my biological mother? Is the little girl in that cell Patrizia Ritorno?”

“Possibly. I think it makes the kidnapping scheme less likely.”

“So Rossi was monstrous enough to imprison her own daughter, but not someone else’s. Either way, she’s a monster.”

“When was Patrizia born?”

Julia checked the page. “November 3, 1972. In Bologna.”

“May I?” Courtney reached for Rossi’s passport and opened it up. “Rossi was born in Milan. March 10, 1947.”

Julia couldn’t stop staring at Patrizia’s passport. She used to wonder about her biological mother all the time, and it was inconceivable that she was looking at her baby picture, retrieved from a well in Tuscany. “But why all this mystery? Why bury passports? Why have an alias?”

“Who knows? Let’s see what’s in the last envelope.”

Julia reached for the third envelope, opened it up, and pulled out six Polaroid photos, buckled with moisture. She sorted through them quickly, and the images were still visible. They were photos of arms and legs with deep, purplish hideous bruises.

“Oh no, this is horrible.” Julia shook her head, appalled.

“Holy God.” Courtney groaned, and Julia picked up one picture, turning it this way and that.

“I can’t even tell what body part this is.”

“It’s a neck. See the jugular vein? Under the bruise?”

“Ugh.” Julia sorted through the photos with increasing repugnance. “This is the top of an arm, bruised up. Here’s another view of the neck. The bruising is worse, like somebody was strangled .”

Courtney straightened. “I think this is a go-bag.”

“What’s that?” Julia looked over.

“Remember when I volunteered at that women’s shelter, junior year?

They tell abused women to make a go-bag, which is a bag with money, car keys, ID, insurance cards, the whole nine.

They’re supposed to hide the bag where their abuser would never find it, not in the house or the car.

Somewhere only they know and can get to if they have to run. ”

Oh my God. “Or in a well.”

“Right. They tell you to take pictures of your wounds, too, so the cops will believe you. This is evidence of a beating, maybe more than one. The neck, the arms, the legs? That’s a woman who was beaten.”

Julia’s stomach turned over. “So somebody beat Rossi?”

“It looks that way.”

Julia stopped at the last photograph. It was a baby’s arm, the elbow misshapen, pinkish, and swollen. “Oh my God, her elbow is broken .”

Courtney gasped, covering her mouth. “Somebody beat them both .”

“This is awful.” Julia flashed on the underground cell.

She wondered if she’d been thinking about it the wrong way, topsy-turvy.

“What if Rossi wasn’t imprisoning the girl because she was an abusive mother?

What if she was protecting the girl, hiding her from an abusive man?

Someone who was abusing them both.” Julia felt the revelation come over her, changing everything she thought before.

“Rossi could have raised the girl here, in the middle of nowhere. No one even knew she had a child. What if Rossi kept the child a secret, not because she was crazy and reclusive, but because she wanted her child to stay safe?”

“She could’ve moved here to get away from the abuser. To get them both away.” Courtney nodded, her expression grave. “A lot of women leave when the man starts abusing the child. That’s the last straw, and the mom gets them both out.”