[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAMSTRESS, AND I WON’T HAVE YOUR MAID HELPING YOU EMBARRASS ME!” THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED HIS 25-YEAR-OLD HOUSEKEEPER FOR PROTECTING A 76-YEAR-OLD WOMAN AT THE ENGAGEMENT DINNER—BUT WHEN THE WOMAN TOUCHED THE RED SILK AND WHISPERED, “I SEWED THAT FOR SOMEONE ELSE,” LUCA MORETTI SLOWLY STOOD UP.

Eleanor Doyle arrived in Chicago two days later with a small suitcase and a folder that had belonged to her sister.

She looked nothing like Catherine in the photographs on Luca's shelves, yet there was something familiar about the way she straightened a crooked picture before sitting down.

I brought tea into the study and tried to leave.

"Hannah," Eleanor said, "Luca tells me you're the person who listened when Sophie asked for her mother's things. Thank you."

I hadn't expected anyone outside the staff to know about that.

"I didn't do very much."

"Sometimes listening is the important part."

Luca stood beside the fireplace, his arms folded.

"Did Catherine intend to leave me?"

Eleanor met his eyes.

"No."

He sat down slowly.

"She'd planned to stay with me while she sorted something out," Eleanor continued. "She was frightened, and she didn't want Sophie caught in it. She told me she loved you. She was afraid you might react before she understood what she'd found."

"What had she found?"

"She wouldn't explain over the phone. She said it involved Michael's old business records and a person who had lied to our family."

Luca's fingers tightened around the chair arm.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Eleanor's eyes filled.

"After Catherine died, you wouldn't speak about that week. I thought you knew she was coming to me. I thought you knew she'd asked for help."

He looked away.

They had both lived with different versions of the same last days.

Miriam placed the two letters on the desk. Eleanor recognized Catherine's handwriting on the draft immediately. When she read the printed note that had convinced Luca his wife wanted to leave, she shook her head.

"She didn't send this to me, and she never mentioned writing it to you."

"That doesn't prove who wrote it," Miriam said. "But it gives us a reason to check how it was produced."

Eleanor opened her folder.

Inside were copies of three letters Catherine had sent her before she died. Between ordinary notes about Sophie were references to Michael's firm and unexplained invoices.

One name appeared twice.

Bellini Event Holdings.

Luca stared at it.

"Vanessa told me her family had a small design business."

"This company billed Michael's firm for imported fixtures," Eleanor said. "Catherine couldn't match the invoices to any deliveries. She asked me to keep these copies because she didn't trust the papers to stay in her bedroom."

I looked toward the door. For months, Vanessa had treated the staff as if we were part of the furniture. It was unsettling to discover that her name had already been written into the family's troubles years before I arrived.

Miriam studied the dates.

"Some payments were made before Michael canceled the wedding. Others were still being disputed afterward."

Luca took a slow breath.

"Michael ran the property-services side of our family business. He was careful about vendor contracts."

"Someone appears to have used a vendor company to request money for work that may not have happened," Miriam said. "We need the underlying bank and delivery records before we draw conclusions."

That afternoon, Luca called the firm's accountant and authorized an independent review. Miriam arranged for a specialist to compare the signature on Catherine's printed note with an old office printer log, though she warned that a printer trace alone would not identify an author.

Vanessa responded through her own attorney.

She demanded the return of her dress. She also accused me of taking jewelry from the master bedroom and claimed Margaret was confused about the gown's history.

I read the accusation twice.

"Jewelry?" I whispered.

I'd never taken a ring or necklace from the house.

Luca saw my face.

"I don't believe you stole anything."

"But she can say it. If people think I stole from the family, I won't get another job."

He glanced at Miriam.

"Can we put that allegation in writing and ask for the specific item and date?"

"Yes. She'll have to describe what she says is missing."

I appreciated that he didn't simply promise to make Vanessa stop. He was finally doing something that might last beyond a single conversation.

We made a formal inventory of the linens I'd moved, the remaining contents of the cedar chest, and the guest-room garment bag. Sophie stayed with Teresa while the adults worked.

Margaret came after lunch with a worn appointment book from her sewing room. Its pages had yellowed, but her handwriting was neat.

She showed us an entry from when Sophie had been six months old.

"Catherine brought the red silk then," she said. "She told me Michael and Vanessa were serious. She wanted to make something special for the day they finally married."

A later entry marked the canceled wedding. Another, written shortly before Catherine's death, recorded work on the blue stitches.

"That's when she told me someone was entering her room," Margaret said. "She asked me to sew the marks because she was afraid the dress might disappear."

Luca read the entries twice.

"All these years you kept this book."

"It's my work," Margaret answered. "People imagine sewing is only fabric. It's also promises."

I thought of the way Vanessa had insulted her hands.

Those same hands had preserved the first dependable timeline anyone had seen.

Near the end of the afternoon, Miriam received a preliminary finding from the accountants.

A group of invoices from Bellini Event Holdings had been approved with a signature said to belong to Michael.

Several were dated after he died.

Luca stared at the dates.

"That's impossible."

"The approvals were entered later into the archived system," Miriam explained. "We don't yet know who entered them, or whether the signatures were copied."

The room went quiet.

Until then, we'd been looking at a stolen dress and letters that might have been forged.