Page 93 of The Unraveling of Julia

“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 wethought Rossi didn’t have children, it looked like shecouldn’tbe related to you. Now shecouldbe.”

“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 wasstrangled.”

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 somebodybeatRossi?”

“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 isbroken.”

---