“Don’t just agree with me!”
He looked exhausted.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth!”
His jaw tightened.
“The truth is that five years ago, I lost my wife and my son in the same night.”
The room fell silent.
Margaret began crying.
I looked at her.
“Did you know about Noah?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Emma, I swear.”
I turned back to Luca.
“Tell me what happened.”
He sat slowly.
For several seconds, he stared at the photograph.
Then he began.
“Five years ago, Elena and I spent a weekend at our lake house in Wisconsin.”
His voice was quiet.
“We were supposed to celebrate our anniversary.”
I swallowed.
“Noah came with us?”
Luca nodded.
“He was four.”
I looked down.
The boy in the photograph seemed to smile at me.
“Was he ours?”
Luca hesitated.
Then he said something unexpected.
“Not biologically.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“We adopted him.”
I stared at him.
“He had been living in foster care. His mother died when he was a baby. Elena met him through the community center where she worked.”
My chest tightened.
“She wanted to adopt him?”
Luca smiled sadly.
“More than anything.”
He looked at the photograph.
“She said every child deserved someone who would come when they called.”
Something moved inside my memory.
A small voice.
Mommy, don’t go.
I gasped.
Luca leaned forward.
“What?”
I pressed my fingers against my temples.
“I heard something.”
“What?”
“A child.”
My eyes filled.
“He was calling for his mother.”
Luca’s face crumpled.
“That sounds like Noah.”
I began crying.
I didn’t know why.
I didn’t remember loving him.
But my body seemed to recognize the grief.
Luca continued.
“That night, the lake house caught fire.”
“How?”
“We never found out.”
I looked at him.
“Where were you?”
His expression darkened.
“Chicago.”
I stared.
“You weren’t there?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Business.”
One word.
But the shame in his voice told me there was more.
“I was supposed to return before dinner. Elena called me three times.”
He swallowed.
“I didn’t answer.”
I felt my chest tighten.
“Why?”
“Because I was meeting with Victor Hale.”
The room went silent.
I stared at him.
“Hale?”
Luca nodded.
“He was trying to sell me a controlling interest in a Swiss investment company. I thought it was legitimate.”
I looked at Margaret.
She was staring at him.
Luca continued.
“When I finally answered my phone, it was one of the house guards.”
His voice broke.
“The house was burning.”
I could barely breathe.
“Did they find Noah?”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Did they find me?”
He looked at me.
“They found a woman’s body in the remains of the house.”
My stomach tightened.
“The doctor identified her as Elena.”
“Adrian Keller?”
Luca nodded.
I closed my eyes.
“Then who was she?”
“We don’t know.”
I looked at the photograph again.
Noah.
Four years old.
A red toy car.
A little boy who had vanished.
I felt something rise inside me.
Not memory.
Not exactly.
A terrible certainty.
“He isn’t dead.”
Luca looked up.
“What?”
I stared at him.
“Noah isn’t dead.”
His expression changed.
“Emma—”
“I don’t know how I know.”
My voice shook.
“But he’s alive.”
Luca stood.
“Why do you think that?”
I pressed my hands against my head.
An image flashed.
A hallway.
A locked door.
A little boy crying.
A woman’s voice saying:
Be quiet, Noah. Mommy will come back.
Then darkness.
I gasped.
Luca caught my arm before I fell.
“Emma!”
I gripped his jacket.
“Blue room.”
He froze.
“What?”
“The blue room.”
His eyes widened.
I stared at him.
“Someone told me to remember the blue room.”
Luca stepped backward.
I saw something terrifying in his expression.
Recognition.
“Where?” I whispered.
He swallowed.
“At the lake house.”
My heart pounded.
“What?”
“There was a blue room upstairs.”
I gripped his arm.
“What was inside?”
He looked at me.
“It was Noah’s bedroom.”
By sunrise, Luca had arranged for an independent neurologist and trauma specialist to examine me.
The doctors warned that memories could return unpredictably.
They also warned against forcing them.
I listened.
But all I could think about was Noah.
A little boy I couldn’t remember.
A child who might still be alive.
That afternoon, Marco entered Luca’s study carrying a folder.
“Boss, we found something.”
Luca stood.
“What?”
“Victor Hale’s Swiss company purchased a private residential property five years ago.”
“Where?”
“Outside Geneva.”
My heart began pounding.
Marco placed photographs on the desk.
A large estate.
Stone walls.
Iron gates.
A garden.
Then a photograph of a child.
A boy.
About nine years old.
Dark hair.
Blue eyes.
Standing beside a woman in a white coat.
I stared.
The boy held a red toy car.
My hands began shaking.
“Noah.”
