Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO HAD A KEY
I shut the front door.
Victoria flinched at the sound.
“Daniel, give me the phone.”
“Who’s Mason?”
“You know who he is.”
Of course I did.
Mason Reed handled maintenance at my company’s rental properties.
He also handled the night calls, the broken pipes, the things I stopped having room for after Caroline died.
He had recommended Victoria for a temporary administrative job.
Six months later, I asked her to marry me.
“Take Lily upstairs,” Victoria said. “We can talk like adults.”
I almost laughed.
Instead, I called our housekeeper.
“Rosa. Come to the foyer.”
Victoria reached for my arm.
“Please. You’re frightening her.”
“No. She was frightened before I got here.”
Rosa appeared from the kitchen.
She took one look at Lily and hurried forward.
“What happened?”
“Take her to the breakfast room. Stay with her.”
Lily tightened her grip.
“Don’t go away, Daddy.”
“I’m staying in the house.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Rosa lifted her, purse and all.
Victoria watched them leave.
Then she lowered her voice.
“That phone belongs to Mason. He left it here.”
“In the room where you were getting dressed?”
“He came by this morning.”
“And he has footage from the night my wife died?”
Her eyes filled.
I had seen those tears before.
At Caroline’s grave.
At our kitchen table.
The night she told me loving a widower meant making room for a ghost.
“This is going to sound terrible.”
“Try.”
Before she could answer, the side door opened.
Mason walked in carrying his usual canvas tool bag.
“Morning, groom.”
He stopped.
His eyes dropped to the phone.
Nobody spoke.
Then he smiled.
“There it is. Been looking everywhere.”
I stepped back.
“Tell me about Caroline.”
His smile disappeared.
Victoria turned toward him.
“He saw the messages.”
Mason set down his bag carefully.
“Daniel, whatever you think you know—”
I pulled out my own phone.
He moved.
Not toward me.
Toward the breakfast room.
I shoved a chair into his path and shouted for Rosa to lock the door.
Mason stopped short.
Then he looked at me with an expression I had never seen on him.
May you like
“You need to calm down,” he said.
Behind the breakfast room door, my daughter began screaming again.
