Chapter Nineteen – The Rossi Name

 Three days passed in silence. No word from Sheila. No flicker of the green dot on Janet’s phone.

Each morning she and Lorne pushed through files, following leads on Newspaper.com, combing clippings of seniors scammed in Alberta—romance cons, CRA frauds, phony prize winnings. The victims stretched from Medicine Hat to Fort McMurray, and beyond to Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Both admitted Unknown’s reach could extend anywhere in North America. But Evelyn Shaw, the bank connection, the slip about winter—they all pointed back to Edmonton. Janet clung to that.

By evening the silence pressed in on her. Back in her hotel room, she poured whiskey and sat staring at the window. One glass became two, two became three. The burn dulled the edges, but in the hollow hours of the night it sharpened her despair.

She called her father.

Three days passed in silence. No word from Sheila. No flicker of the green dot on Janet’s phone.

Each morning she and Lorne dug through files, tracing scams from Medicine Hat to Fort McMurray and beyond. Romance cons. CRA fraud. Phony prizes. Seniors who had lost everything. It all pointed back to Edmonton. Janet clung to that like a rope.

But by night, silence pressed harder. She sat alone in the hotel room, the whiskey bottle shrinking. One glass turned into three. The glow of the window gave her no answers.

She called her father.

“You’ve been drinking,” Edward said flatly the moment he heard her voice.

Janet shut her eyes. “Only a little.”

“You’re lying, Janet. I can hear it.” His voice carried both anger and fear. “And it’s not just the bottle. You sound low. Depressed.”

She exhaled, her words spilling. “Dad, it’s been three days. No word from Sheila. No sign of Unknown. Marianne’s hounding me—she wants copy, deadlines, something for the front page. And I’ve got nothing. I’m losing it.”

There was a pause, then his steady voice. “You are not losing it. This woman will surface again, because she needs you to. And if Sheila has something, she’ll call. But you need to stop drowning yourself in whiskey. It’s eating you alive.”

Janet pressed the phone tight to her ear, fighting the urge to cry.

On the third morning, her phone finally buzzed. It was Lorne.

“Sheila’s back,” he said, urgency threading his voice. “She’s got something.”

They met in the same small room at the bank headquarters. Sheila looked more animated than before, her notebook open on the table.

“I spoke to a colleague at the seminar,” she said. “She remembered a case. Not huge, but enough that it spread quietly through HR circles. A young female employee—fifteen years ago—skimming refunds. Small adjustments to client accounts. Rounding errors she shifted into her own pocket. It didn’t total much, but it was noticed.”

“She get charged?” Janet asked.

Sheila shook her head. “No. The bank didn’t want the publicity. They dismissed her quietly, swept it under the rug. No report to police, no claim to insurance. Just… gone. But the name stuck.” She flipped her notebook around.

Rossi.

“Ramona Rossi,” Sheila said.

The name sent Janet and Lorne straight to the archives. They dug through public records, cross-referenced genealogy sites, then trawled old editions of the Edmonton Journal. Hours passed before Lorne stopped scrolling.

“There,” he said, pointing.

The article was nearly thirty-five years old—a glossy feature on the wealthy Rossi family and their chain of Italian restaurants that had become a local institution. Beneath the headline, a smiling family stood outside one of their dining rooms.

In the front row, next to her parents, was a plump little girl with red hair and freckles. The caption named her: Ramona Elizabeth Rossi, age 7.

A chill crept up Janet’s spine. She and Lorne did the math. If that girl had been seven then, she would now be in her early forties.

Exactly who they were looking for.

That night, Janet sat in her hotel room. No whiskey this time. Just a notebook, her phone, and the hum of the heater. She felt sharper than she had in days.

The phone buzzed. The green dot appeared.

Unknown: Miss me?

Janet’s pulse kicked.

Ramona was back.

Meanwhile, in Lacombe…

Ramona sat at her desk, pen scratching across a legal pad. She was crafting a script. The next conversation would be different. She would demand ten thousand more—no apologies, no negotiations. She’d frame it as a natural cost of risk. If Janet wanted the story, she would pay. And if Janet slipped again, even slightly, the price would climb higher.

She leaned back, studying her notes. Direct. Firm. Unassailable.

Her gaze drifted to a framed photograph on the bookshelf—not her own, but one clipped from an old article she’d found online. The Rossi family, all smiles, the golden children of Edmonton’s Italian dining empire. Her family.

She’d been born into privilege. She remembered the endless hours her parents spent in the restaurants, sleeves rolled up, sweat pouring, lecturing her about hard work, sacrifice, diligence. Her father’s bark: Nothing worth having comes without effort, Ramona. Her mother’s scold: We build our name on honesty.

She’d hated it. The lectures. The expectations. The “model Rossi” identity she was supposed to wear.

Yes, they’d built something lasting. Franchises stretched across Western Canada. The Rossi name was respectable. But she wanted none of it.

She had wanted money without sweat. Status without toil. Power without the endless grind.

So she had walked away. Closed the door. Changed her name. Vanished. Her parents didn’t know where she lived. They never would.

Now she sat in her warm condo, groceries in the kitchen, BMW parked safe below, her script for Janet half-written.

Her family’s restaurants sold pasta and sauce. She sold illusions. And in her mind, she was better at her job than they had ever been at theirs.