Chapter 11
Marcella was charged in stages.
First for the banquet assault on Elsie and related child endangerment.
Then obstruction.
Forgery.
Adoption fraud.
Witness intimidation.
Financial crimes tied to Matteo’s laundering network.
And conspiracy connected to concealing Serena’s child and falsifying placement records.
Prosecutors did not charge her with Serena’s murder.
They did not have proof Serena was dead.
That angered Vincent.
Lena Hart told him:
“Suspicion is not a body.”
He hated the sentence.
It was still true.
Then investigators found Serena.
Not alive.
Not in a dramatic hidden room.
In an old medical examiner archive under an unidentified case number.
A woman found years earlier after a highway crash outside another county.
Using new DNA comparison, she was identified as Serena Corvino.
The crash occurred nine days after Elsie’s birth.
The evidence suggested Serena had been transported under an alias after leaving St. Brigid.
The driver died too.
No one could prove whether Serena was escaping, being moved, or being abandoned.
That uncertainty remained investigative, not emotional.
Legally, the cause of death stayed a crash with unresolved surrounding circumstances.
Marcella was not charged with killing her.
But the concealment before and after the birth was now clearer.
Serena had lived long enough to refuse the adoption.
She had not abandoned Elsie.
That mattered most to Elsie’s future.
Vincent visited Serena’s grave after the identification.
No entourage.
No black cars.
Just him and Lydia.
He said:
“I raised her.”
Lydia answered:
“I know.”
“I didn’t steal her.”
“No.”
“I didn’t save Serena either.”
May you like
Lydia did not comfort him with a lie.
“No.”
