Chapter 4 - The Woman With the Keys
I pressed two fingers against Lorenzo’s neck.
A pulse.
Weak, but there.
Emma knelt beside him.
“Mr. Lorenzo?”
“Stay back, sweetheart.”
“He’s sleeping.”
“I need him awake.”
I rubbed his shoulder and called his name until his eyes opened.
“Stop,” he muttered.
“Then stop scaring me.”
The cellar door shook.
I looked around.
Preserve jars. Broken chairs. Christmas decorations.
A short staircase led up to a second door.
Before I reached it, a key turned.
A woman stepped inside holding a laundry basket.
Rosa.
The housekeeper had worked for the Ducas longer than I’d been alive.
She saw Lorenzo on the floor.
Then she saw Emma.
Her basket dropped.
“Mother of God.”
“Marco’s behind that door,” I said.
Rosa didn’t ask another question.
She pulled a heavy cabinet across the cellar entrance with me, bracing it against the hook.
Then she pointed upstairs.
“Linen room. Quickly.”
Lorenzo staggered between us.
At the top, Rosa locked the door and pushed a rolling hamper in front of it.
Emma climbed into my arms without being asked.
Rosa guided us into a narrow room lined with folded sheets.
For the first time, we had a solid door and a few seconds to breathe.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“I didn’t. I heard someone fall.”
She looked at Lorenzo’s bandage.
“Vittoria said you’d left.”
“She lied,” he said.
Rosa’s mouth tightened.
“She’s been doing that since she could talk.”
There was an old wall phone beside the dryer.
Rosa handed me the receiver.
“Different line. The staff asked for it years ago.”
A dial tone.
I nearly cried.
I called 911 and gave the address.
“Gunshot victim. Armed men in the house. A three-year-old child with us.”
The dispatcher’s voice stayed calm.
I held on to that calm like a rope.
Then the lights went out.
The phone clicked dead.
Somewhere nearby, metal doors slammed.
Rosa closed her eyes.
“The security shutters.”
A speaker crackled overhead.
Vittoria’s voice came through, smooth as polished glass.
“Nora, I know you can hear me.”
Lorenzo reached for my hand.
Too late.
May you like
“My brother has lost a great deal of blood,” she continued. “Your daughter doesn’t have to lose her mother too.”
Then she said my husband’s name.
