Chapter 2
The emergency lights made everyone look guilty.
Red strips along the baseboards came on first, then dim ceiling lamps above the hallway doors. The dining room turned the color of old wine.
I was still on the floor.
My right shoulder had struck the edge of a chair. My injured hands had opened again when I caught myself.
Blood was already working through the fresh gauze.
Vincent knelt beside me.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I can stand.”
He held out one hand.
I hesitated only because his palm was clean and mine wasn’t.
He noticed.
“Grace.”
I took it.
He pulled me carefully to my feet.
Around us, guests spoke over one another.
“What happened to the lights?”
“Where did she go?”
“Is someone at the gate?”
“Call the police.”
“Don’t touch anything.”
Matteo raised his voice.
“Everybody stay where you are.”
Nobody listened.
Vincent did not shout.
He looked toward the security guard.
“Backup generator?”
“Should have started automatically.”
“Should have?”
“It didn’t.”
“Find out why.”
The guard left.
Vincent turned to Mrs. Dalca.
“Get everyone into the front salon. Nobody goes upstairs. Nobody leaves alone.”
Celeste’s chair sat empty.
The brass key was gone.
So was my apron pocket.
I touched the torn seam.
She had ripped the entire small square of fabric from my uniform.
Vincent saw it.
“She took it.”
I nodded.
“And she told you to run?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Anthony Romano came closer.
“Yes, you do.”
Vincent looked at him.
His uncle’s face was tight and bloodless.
Anthony was sixty-eight, silver-haired, and usually so composed that people lowered their voices around him. Now his hands shook.
He pointed toward the service corridor.
“If Celeste took that key, she knows what it opens.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“Then tell me.”
Anthony looked at the guests.
“Not here.”
Vincent’s eyes turned colder.
“You’ve had twenty-nine years to decide what not to tell me. Tonight you’re finished deciding.”
Anthony closed his eyes briefly.
Then he said, “The key belonged to Eleanor.”
The room quieted.
Even people who had no idea what they were hearing understood the name mattered.
Vincent asked, “My mother had a key hidden in Dad’s accounting room?”
“Yes.”
“To what?”
Anthony looked toward the dark hallway.
“A room your father sealed after she disappeared.”
Vincent stared at him.
“Disappeared?”
The word landed harder than died.
Anthony swallowed.
“Vincent—”
“You told me she died in an accident.”
“She did.”
“That is not what you just said.”
“She disappeared first.”
My skin prickled.
Vincent’s hand tightened around the ledger.
“How long?”
“Six days.”
“And then?”
“They found a car.”
“Her car?”
“Yes.”
“Her body?”
Anthony didn’t answer.
Vincent stepped closer.
“Did they find her body?”
“No.”
The room went completely still.
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“I stood at a funeral.”
“I know.”
“I put flowers on a coffin.”
“I know.”
“What was in it?”
Anthony’s eyes filled.
“Nothing.”
Vincent turned away.
For a moment he seemed to forget everyone existed.
I watched his shoulders rise once as he took a breath.
Then he looked back.
“You let a seven-year-old bury an empty box.”
Anthony whispered, “Your father made the decision.”
“And you helped.”
“Yes.”
The honesty of it made Vincent flinch.
A doctor arrived through the front entrance twelve minutes later.
Dr. Keller had treated the Romano family for years. She was in her fifties, sharp-eyed, wearing a raincoat over hospital scrubs.
She took one look at me.
“Sit.”
“I need to—”
“Sit.”
Vincent pointed toward a chair.
For once I obeyed.
Dr. Keller cleaned the cuts on my hands and arms while Vincent stood by the window with Anthony, Matteo, and two security men.
I tried not to listen.
I failed.
“The south gate camera went out seven minutes before the power.”
“Coincidence?”
“No.”
“Adrian?”
“We can’t find him.”
“He was at the gate.”
“He was. Then the lights failed.”
“Car?”
“Still parked there.”
Vincent turned.
“So he’s on the property.”
“Possibly.”
Dr. Keller pressed gauze against my palm.
I winced.
She looked at me.
“These are shallow but numerous. Defensive injuries?”
I nodded.
“Any deeper wounds?”
“My right thigh.”
“Show me.”
I glanced toward the men.
Vincent noticed.
“Everyone out except Mrs. Dalca.”
He did not ask.
The room cleared.
Dr. Keller examined the cuts on my leg, cleaned them, and wrapped the worst one.
“Nothing needs stitches,” she said. “But you were lucky.”
I almost laughed again.
Lucky was not the word I would have chosen.
She touched my cheek.
“This one will close cleanly if you leave it alone.”
“I have to go upstairs.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Dalca frowned.
“Grace.”
“The note is still in the accounting room.”
Vincent had returned to the doorway.
He heard me.
“I’m getting it.”
I stood.
Dr. Keller looked annoyed.
“You are not.”
I looked at Vincent.
“If Celeste is looking for it, she may already know where it is.”
He studied me for a moment.
“You remember exactly where?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re coming with me.”
Dr. Keller stared at him.
“That is not medically necessary.”
“No,” Vincent said. “It’s not.”
He looked at me.
“But I’m done asking other people to interpret what Grace saw.”
That sentence mattered more than he knew.
We went upstairs with Matteo and two guards.
The accounting room was at the end of the west corridor, behind a dark green door Carlo had once kept locked.
The door stood open.
The smell of smoke remained inside.
Burned paper.
Old leather.
Wet ash.
The fireplace was black with half-destroyed receipts.
A lamp lay broken beside the desk.
Vincent stopped in the doorway.
“Was it like this when you left?”
“No.”
“What changed?”
“The desk drawers are open.”
We moved closer.
Every drawer had been pulled out.
Files covered the carpet.
Someone had searched quickly.
Violently.
I went to the fireplace.
“The note was here.”
I pointed beneath the marble edge.
“Folded behind the ledger.”
Nothing.
Vincent crouched.
He ran his fingers along the underside.
Tape remained.
No note.
Matteo cursed.
“Celeste beat us here.”
I looked at the window.
It was closed.
Then I noticed something else.
“The photograph.”
Vincent turned.
“What photograph?”
“There was one on the desk.”
“Of?”
“I don’t know. It was facedown.”
Now it was gone.
Vincent searched the room himself.
Not like a rich man supervising servants.
Like someone who had suddenly realized the walls of his own house had been keeping secrets.
He checked behind books.
Under drawers.
Inside the fireplace.
Then he found a small burn mark on the rug.
A piece of paper had been dropped there and stamped out.
He lifted it carefully.
Only a corner remained.
On it was part of a handwritten word.
...NOR.
Anthony entered behind us.
His face changed the moment he saw it.
Vincent held up the fragment.
“Recognize the handwriting?”
Anthony stared.
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
“Your mother’s.”
No one moved.
Vincent looked at the fragment again.
“What word?”
“I don’t know.”
I did.
Or at least I thought I did.
“Eleanor.”
Vincent’s eyes went to me.
“The ending.”
I pointed.
“...NOR.”
Anthony sat heavily in Carlo’s desk chair.
Matteo looked between us.
“So Eleanor wrote a note that Carlo hid for decades?”
Anthony rubbed a hand over his face.
“It may not have been Carlo who hid it.”
Vincent said, “Explain.”
Anthony looked toward the door.
Then at the guards.
“Close it.”
One guard did.
Anthony leaned forward.
“In 1997, Eleanor told Carlo she believed someone was stealing from Romano Shipping.”
Vincent’s brow tightened.
“How?”
“Ghost vendors. Inflated port fees. False maintenance contracts.”
“Who?”
“She never told me.”
“Why not?”
“She said she needed proof.”
“And six days later she disappeared?”
“Yes.”
Vincent looked toward the burned receipts.
“And Dad covered it up?”
Anthony was silent.
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
“I know Carlo changed after she vanished.”
“How?”
“He stopped trusting people. He moved money into private accounts. He fired three executives. He kept files outside the company. And he made me promise never to discuss Eleanor with you.”
Vincent laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Convenient.”
“He believed you were in danger.”
“From who?”
Anthony’s voice dropped.
“He never said.”
A noise came from inside the wall.
Very faint.
A metallic click.
We all turned.
Matteo stepped toward the bookcase.
“What was that?”
Another click.
Then a low hum.
The old room’s wall panel shifted half an inch.
Vincent stared.
I looked at the exposed edge.
“A hidden door?”
Anthony stood.
“I didn’t know about this.”
Vincent gave him a look that said his credibility was nearly gone.
Together, he and Matteo pulled the panel open.
Behind it was a narrow stairway.
No lights.
Stone walls.
Cold air.
Vincent took a flashlight from one of the guards.
“Stay here.”
I said, “No.”
He looked at me.
“You can barely walk.”
“I found the ledger.”
“You also got attacked for it.”
“Exactly.”
For the first time that night, something almost like respect moved through his expression.
Then he said, “Behind me.”
We descended.
The stairs were narrow and steep.
The passage smelled damp.
At the bottom was a small room beneath the west wing.
No windows.
One desk.
One metal cabinet.
One wooden chair.
Dust lay everywhere except one place.
The chair.
It had been moved recently.
Vincent opened the cabinet.
Empty.
Matteo examined the desk.
“Nothing.”
I walked around the room slowly.
The walls were stone.
One had scratches.
Not random scratches.
Lines.
Dates.
I raised the flashlight.
“Vincent.”
He came beside me.
Carved into the stone were numbers.
1997.
Then tally marks.
Below them:
V - 7.
C - DON’T TRUST HIM.
Vincent stared.
His face emptied.
I whispered, “Your mother wrote that?”
Anthony moved closer.
“Oh God.”
Vincent turned.
“Who is C?”
Nobody answered.
He looked around the room.
Then he saw the floor.
A thin metal ring was set into one stone slab.
Matteo pulled it.
The slab lifted.
Underneath was a shallow compartment.
Inside sat a cassette recorder.
A sealed envelope.
And a photograph.
Vincent picked up the photograph first.
A woman stood beside a marina.
Dark hair.
Blue-gray eyes.
Elegant white blouse.
Eleanor Romano.
Beside her stood Carlo.
And beside Carlo—
a younger Celeste’s father.
Victor Bellini.
On the back, written in faded ink:
THEY BOTH KNOW.
Vincent opened the envelope.
Inside was a single page.
He read it.
His face changed.
“What?” Matteo asked.
Vincent handed it to me.
The handwriting was shaky.
If Vincent ever finds this, do not tell him I died.
Tell him I was taken.
And tell him the person who ordered it was inside the family.
I looked up.
Vincent stared at Anthony.
Anthony backed away.
“No.”
Vincent said nothing.
“I had nothing to do with it.”
“Then why did Dad make you lie?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were his brother.”
“Yes.”
“You helped bury an empty coffin.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know!”
The shout echoed through the stone room.
Then—
a sound came from the recorder.
Click.
Everyone froze.
The cassette player had turned on by itself.
A woman’s voice filled the room.
Faint.
Distorted.
But clear enough.
“If you’re hearing this, Carlo failed.”
Vincent’s face drained of color.
He whispered, “Mom.”
The tape crackled.
Eleanor continued.
“Vincent, if you are old enough to understand this, then I am sorry.”
Vincent stepped toward the recorder.
Her voice shook.
“There are two ledgers. One is money.”
A pause.
“The other is names.”
The tape hissed.
I held my breath.
“The black ledger will make them angry.”
Another pause.
“The red ledger will make them kill.”
Vincent looked at me.
I felt cold all over.
The tape continued.
“Do not trust the person who brings you the black one.”
I stopped breathing.
May you like
Every face turned toward me.
The recorder clicked off.
