Chapter 7: The Woman Who Broke In
Her name was Petra Solis.
Matteo's contact found her in forty minutes.
She was twenty-nine years old, formerly employed as a private nurse through an agency that contracted with several of Dario's properties.
She had worked for the Varric household for eight months before her contract was quietly terminated six weeks ago.
Three weeks after her termination, she had used a forged staff badge to enter the estate and reach the nursery.
"She's not hiding," Matteo said.
He set his phone on the desk.
"She's still in the city.
Same apartment.
She hasn't run."
"Because she wants to be found," Liana said.
"By you.
Not by him."
"I'll send someone—"
"No." Liana stood.
"I'll go."
Matteo looked at her.
"Absolutely not."
"She broke into this house to leave a photograph for a grieving father who didn't know what he was looking for.
She risked everything to do that." Liana met his eyes.
"She's not going to talk to your guards.
She'll talk to me."
He was quiet for a moment.
"You don't know that."
"She's a woman who watched something terrible happen to a baby and couldn't live with it.
I know exactly how she feels."
The argument died before Matteo made it.
He looked at her for a long moment, then picked up his phone again.
"Marco goes with you.
He stays in the car unless you call him in."
"Agreed."
"And you wear this." He opened the desk drawer and set a small device on the surface.
A clip, no larger than a button.
"Everything recorded.
Everything."
Liana clipped it to the inside of her collar.
Petra Solis lived in a fourth-floor apartment in a quiet part of the city.
The building had no doorman.
The hallway smelled like old coffee and radiator heat.
Liana knocked.
Silence.
Then the sound of someone very still on the other side of the door.
"My name is Liana Graves," she said.
"I was in room 14A at St.
Carmine's on October third.
I need to talk to you."
A long pause.
The door opened.
Petra was small, dark-haired, with shadows under her eyes that suggested she hadn't slept well in weeks.
She looked at Liana.
Then she stepped back and let her in.
The apartment was neat and sparse.
A single lamp.
A cup of tea on the table that had gone cold.
"You found the photograph," Petra said.
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"Did he believe it?"
"He had a DNA test run.
It confirmed everything."
Petra sat down.
She pressed both hands flat on the table.
"I didn't know what they were going to do.
I want you to understand that.
I was hired to assist with a private birth.
That's what they told me.
A private birth, a private adoption, everything legal.
I didn't know until afterward."
"What did you find out?"
"That there was no adoption.
That the baby I helped transfer that night had a mother who was told he d*ad." She looked up.
"That was you."
Liana sat down across from her.
"Tell me everything."
Petra told her.
It took forty minutes.
She spoke carefully, with the precision of someone who had been rehearsing the account in her head for weeks.
She described the night at St.
Carmine's.
A doctor she named.
A second nurse she named.
The transfer of an infant from one room to another while both mothers were sedated or in surgery.
The paperwork that was altered.
The bracelet that was placed in a box and given to Liana with a forged certificate.
"The baby," Liana said.
"The one they transferred out.
Where did he go?"
Petra's hands pressed harder on the table.
"To a private residence.
Outside the city.
I drove the car." She looked up.
"I can give you the address."
Liana's breath stopped.
"He's there?" she managed.
"He was, three weeks ago.
When I came to the estate to leave the photograph, I had just been to that address.
I needed to see for myself that he was—" She stopped.
"He's being cared for.
He's healthy.
But the woman looking after him doesn't know the full truth.
She was told he was a legal private adoption."
"And Dario?"
Petra's jaw tightened.
"He visits twice a week.
He calls the baby his insurance policy." Her voice went flat.
"Those were his exact words.
I heard him say it on the phone.
That's when I knew I couldn't stay quiet anymore."
Liana reached across the table.
She placed her hand over Petra's.
"Will you testify to everything you just told me?"
Petra looked at her.
"He'll come after me."
"Yes."
"He has lawyers.
He has money.
He has people."
"I know."
"And you're asking me anyway."
"I'm asking you," Liana said, "because a little boy is in a house somewhere outside this city and his mother has been told he's d*ad for twenty-two days."
Petra looked at their hands on the table.
Then she looked up.
"Yes," she said.
"I'll testify."
In the car on the way back, Liana held the address Petra had written on a piece of paper.
Her hand was completely steady.
Marco glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
"Ms.
Graves.
Are you all right?"
May you like
She looked out the window at the city moving past.
"Drive faster," she said.
