Chapter 4

As their previous home was in the neighboring state, the police contacted local authorities to dig up the garden. In the meantime, they gathered more information from Cassandra about Pietro's wives.

Before Leslie, Pietro had been married to Eleanor Vandenstein, Andre's birth mother. Cassandra's memories of her were of a nervous woman, always worrying and never happy. She also didn't bond well with children, even her own. She suffered chronic weakness and ultimately committed suicide when Andre was five and Cassandra was nine. She recalled her father scolding the woman about how poor a mother she was compared to Cassandra's mother, Kira, and how prestigious the Marin family was back in his home country of Georgia compared to the Vandenstein's in America.

Cassandra didn't understand then but now realized he was speaking of his wife's family, not his own, the Volkovs. She told the police she had no memories of her own mother as she must have been just a year old when Pietro em