Chapter 4 - The Boy Called Vincent
By noon the city had confirmed that the demolition hold was valid. By two, Vincent's company's stock had fallen seven percent, and the largest investor in his redevelopment fund wanted him removed from negotiations. At three, his assistant told him that someone had taped a photograph of the burned orphanage to the lobby doors.
Vincent stayed at his desk instead of ordering it taken down. The photograph showed smoke billowing from the east wing, the same wing he'd been trying to reach with a flare. He had looked at those windows once, nineteen years ago, from the back of an ambulance. He had spent the intervening years making certain he never looked at them again.
His general counsel, Naomi Chen, entered with a thin file. "The county doesn't have a birth certificate under Vincent DeLuca before 2008," she said. "That's not unusual after a name change. What's unusual is that the guardianship papers in your file refer to a child called Micah Bell."
He felt the old reflex to laugh, to dismiss the phrase as a clerical problem. "I was never called Micah."
"That isn't the same as saying you weren't born Micah."
"The name 'Vincent' appears for the first time when you entered St. Agnes at nine," she continued. "The earlier paperwork isn't in the adoption packet. There's a reference to an identity amendment authorized by Evelyn Price. That authorization number doesn't match any county court index I've found."
Vincent turned his chair toward the window. When he was a child, everyone called him Vinnie. He remembered it in the kitchen of the foster house before St. Agnes. He remembered the smell of toast burning and the rough sleeve of a woman who told him not to ask questions. Nothing before that had ever been clear.
"Who would change a child's name?"
"Someone with lawful authority could petition for a change," Naomi said. "A shelter director couldn't simply manufacture a birth identity. We need the original orders to know what happened."
"Tell our communications people not to attack Carrie," he said.
"They already drafted a cease-and-desist letter."
"Don't send it."
"She called you an arsonist on a livestream. That has consequences."
"So did tearing up her sign."
Naomi put the draft away. "Stopping the letter doesn't resolve whether her statement is true."
"I know."
Across town, Carrie sat in Father James's church office facing the same video. Her volunteer coordinator, Denise, had called to say three donors wanted their pledges back because the charity now looked political. Two others wanted to give more, but only if Carrie promised to take Vincent down. She felt equally sick about both reactions.
"They're talking about my sister as though she's a weapon," Carrie said.
Father James poured tea neither of them drank. "You put her name into a fight with a living man. I understand why. But now you have to protect the truth even when it's less satisfying than the fight."
"You never told me about the flare."
"I never saw it. I heard the explosion from outside."
Carrie looked at the photograph. "Did he come back for Rose?"
Father James sat still for a long time. "After he reached the upper window, he was pulled out by the rescue ladder. He tried to go back inside. I held him down because his shirt was burning and he had a broken wrist. He cursed me for it."
"Why didn't you tell her family?"
"I did tell your aunt. I don't know whether she could bear to repeat it."
Carrie's aunt had raised her after the fire and died six years ago. She'd kept a small box of Rose's possessions but refused to discuss the investigation. Carrie had interpreted the silence as fear of a powerful man. Maybe it had simply been a way of surviving.
The bracelet had been in that box, wrapped in a sock. Beside it was a note in Rose's schoolgirl handwriting: GIVE VINNIE HIS REAL NAME IF HE FORGETS. Carrie unfolded the note again and studied the words that had once seemed like proof of a lie.
What if Rose hadn't been accusing him at all? What if she'd been trying to give something back?
Carrie called Naomi from Father James's office. She had no interest in helping Vincent save his company, but she wanted the child Rose had known to be identified properly. Naomi listened without interruption.
"Please preserve the note," she said. "Don't post it. And don't give the bracelet to anyone without documenting the transfer."
"You shouldn't. We can arrange an independent custodian."
When the call ended, Father James opened a drawer and took out an envelope bearing St. Agnes's old stamp. He placed it on the table with the careful reluctance of a man returning something he'd borrowed far too long.
May you like
"There's one more thing you need to see," he told Carrie. "I kept it because I couldn't make myself destroy it."
Inside was a photocopy of a statement taken from Vincent in the hospital. Under the line asking who had given him the road flare, the young boy had written: I DID NOT FIND IT. MRS. PRICE HANDED IT TO ME.
