Chapter 2 - THE LOCK ON THE INSIDE
Sophia did not sleep. Every time the wind tapped the windows she thought of footsteps in the corridor, and every time Lily rolled over she checked that the child's breathing was steady.
The room Mrs. Voss had given them had a brass lock, a bathroom with warm towels, and a view of the east lawn. The bed was enormous. Lily lay diagonally across it, as if determined to occupy every inch denied her in the narrow staff apartment downstairs.
The note rested on the nightstand beneath an upside-down water glass. Sophia had not called anyone to report it. She had once reported a missing silver spoon and watched a young housekeeper lose her job over a theft she had not committed. In this house, information did not always go where it was supposed to go.
At seven, a knock came.
“It's Elena Voss,” a woman said through the door. “I brought breakfast. I can leave it outside.”
Sophia opened the door a few inches. Elena was sixty-one, broad-shouldered, and had run the domestic staff for twenty-three years. She took one look at Sophia's face and put down the tray.
“You look like you've been holding your breath since yesterday.”
“Who has a key to this room?”
“You. Me, for emergencies. Mr. Moretti asked me to change the house master code last night.”
“And the corridor?”
“Two guards. Neither is from the estate staff.” Elena hesitated. “Someone tried to come up the service stairs around four. They were turned away.”
“Who?”
“They wouldn't tell me.”
Sophia showed her the note. Elena read it without touching the paper.
“Did you write this?” Sophia asked.
“No. But if I had, I wouldn't have left you alone with it.”
For a moment the older woman's composure slipped. “Your Daniel used to stop by the staff entrance when his shift ended. Always brought those awful pastries with too much icing. I haven't forgotten.”
Sophia folded her arms. “Neither have I.”
Daniel Carter had been a maintenance electrician at the waterfront. Eighteen months earlier, a fire had consumed Warehouse Nine and two adjoining storage offices. Six men were injured. Three died, including Daniel. The official report called it an electrical fault aggravated by improper chemical storage. The company paid modest settlements. Sophia had accepted hers because the rent was due and Lily was barely walking.
For months afterward she had dreamed of Daniel turning a key in their front door. In the dreams, he was never surprised to find her waiting.
“You should tell Mr. Moretti,” Elena said.
“I don't know who sent it.”
“That's one reason to tell him.”
Sophia stared at the message. “And if he's part of what happened?”
Elena did not tell her that Dominic was a good man. She knew too much to say it convincingly.
“Then you will know more than you did yesterday,” she answered.
***
Dominic had been awake all night in the study. Behind him, dawn turned the lawn the color of ash. On the desk lay photographs of the banquet table, a seating chart, and a printout from the camera system.
Victor Hale, head of estate security, stood across from him. “The camera lost connection,” Victor insisted.
“Marco says the recording played the same six seconds in a loop.”
“Software failure.”
“On three cameras simultaneously?”
“That's what it looks like.”
“It looks like someone knew where all three cameras pointed.”
Victor's hands remained at his sides. “Are you accusing me?”
“I'm asking who can edit the recordings.”
“Me. Two technicians. The outside vendor.”
“Give Marco all four names.”
Victor's jaw moved once. He nodded and left.
Marco came in before the door had closed. “Alessandro is in the west guest suite. He gave up his telephone and agreed to have someone outside the door.”
“Agreed?”
“After I reminded him the police will want to know why he left.”
“Did you tell him we're calling them?”
“Dr. Vale already did. She reported a suspected poisoning. A detective is coming this morning.”
Dominic looked at his oldest friend. “You let her?”
“I didn't stop her.”
“Good.”
Marco exhaled. He had known Dominic since they were twenty-two, back when loyalty had seemed like a matter of standing beside a man in a fight. The years had taught him it could also mean refusing an order before it was spoken.
“There is something else,” Marco said. “The banquet staff roster was changed twice yesterday. Sophia was meant to be off by five. Someone put her back on late service.”
“Who?”
“The events office. It was authorized under Alessandro's assistant's code.”
Dominic thought of Lily in the hallway, still awake because her mother was working. If Sophia had been sent home at five, no child would have watched the table from behind the flowers. Was that accident or design? One could lead a man into a trap by planning every step. One could also lose a plan because a child refused to stay where she was told.
“Bring Sophia in,” he said. “Only if she wants to come. And have Elena stay with Lily.”
Marco's eyes narrowed slightly. “You think she's involved?”
“I think she may be the only person here who hasn't yet decided what version of last night serves her.”
***
Sophia entered the study in a borrowed gray cardigan, holding the note by one corner inside a clean envelope. She had expected Dominic behind a massive desk. Instead he stood by the window, his tie removed, the bruise of sleeplessness under his eyes.
“You found that upstairs?” he asked after reading it.
“Under the door. Around two.”
“Did you see who delivered it?”
“No.”
“Did your husband work at Pier Nine?”
She watched his face. “You know he did.”
“I know his name appeared on a list of men killed there. I only learned that this morning.”
“Your company owned the property.”
“One of our holding companies leased it.”
“Does changing the noun change what happened?”
His silence gave her more courage than an apology might have.
“Daniel told me the place was unsafe,” she continued. “He said manifests didn't match the cargo. He started taking photographs because somebody kept moving containers after they were inspected. Four days before the fire he said he had found something that could get people killed.”
“Did he tell you what?”
“No. He said he was going to give it to the right person.” Her voice sharpened. “Then he died, and the right person never came.”
Dominic sat down slowly. He remembered the fire. He had read the report, approved the compensation fund, and told himself he had done more than the lease required. A family with a dead husband was a line in a ledger. A woman sitting opposite him had spent eighteen months learning the weight of that line.
“What did Daniel keep?” he asked.
“Nothing that I found.”
“You don't sound certain.”
“He hid money behind the kitchen vent once when we were saving for Lily's crib. He thought ordinary hiding places were too obvious.” Sophia looked down. “He left a key. I don't know what it opens.”
“Where is it?”
“Somewhere you can't reach without my permission.”
For the first time he looked at her with something other than urgency. “That's sensible.”
“Was Alessandro involved in the warehouse?”
“He ran portions of our shipping business.”
“That's not an answer.”
“No,” Dominic said. “It isn't. I'm going to find one.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn't. You should write down everything you know and give a copy to the detective who comes here. Keep another copy somewhere I can't touch.”
She had been ready for threats, for money, for the practiced reassurance of a rich man who believed his promises were interchangeable with facts. This was different enough to unsettle her.
“Lily stays out of this,” Sophia said.
“As much as the law allows, yes.”
“Don't tell me what you can do for me. Tell me what you will not do.”
He considered that. “I won't ask her to identify someone again. I won't make you trade her safety for your silence. I won't use Daniel's death to frighten you into handing over his key. And I won't pretend I've earned your trust because I listened to her for five minutes.”
Sophia picked up the envelope. She had reached the door when he spoke again.
“Mrs. Carter.”
She looked back.
“Was your husband left-handed?”
Her stomach tightened. “Yes. Why?”
Dominic lifted a photograph taken at the fire inquiry. Daniel stood in the warehouse office beside a pallet of boxed medical supplies. He held a clipboard in his left hand. Behind him, just visible through a window, was a man in a dove-gray suit.
The man's face was blurred. His ring was not.
Sophia heard herself ask, “Where did you get that?”
“The archived insurance file.”
On the back of the photograph, an ink stamp carried a date three days before the fire.
Dominic laid the picture carefully on his desk.
“My brother told me he hadn't visited Pier Nine that month,” he said.
Outside the study a telephone rang, stopped, then rang again. Marco answered it in the hall.
When he returned, he did not sit.
May you like
“Dr. Vale called,” he said. “The preliminary screen found a substance in your wine that shouldn't have been there. Enough to have killed you.”
Sophia looked at the photograph. She could not tell whether she was frightened more by what had been in the glass or by the sudden possibility that Daniel had been right all along.
