Chapter 2 - THE CARD
The camera showed me walking into the linen closet at 4:16 with sheets stacked in both arms. My hands worked fine.
Thirty seconds later, Vanessa came down the hall. She checked over her shoulder and went in after me.
At 4:20, she came out alone.
She locked the door.
Luca watched the frozen image on his monitor. “Keep going.”
At 4:31, I stepped into the hallway. My left hand was pressed to my chest. My right fist was closed around something small.
“Zoom in,” he said.
A silver memory card.
His security chief, Marcus Hale, called the servants’ floor. Mrs. Ellis found my locker open and Vanessa standing beside it.
Vanessa said she was looking for a shawl she had misplaced.
Marcus didn’t argue. He asked Mrs. Ellis to bring him what she found inside. Ten minutes later, he slid the memory card into Luca’s computer.
Twenty-seven photographs appeared.
The first twenty-three showed corners of the house, name cards, a delivery schedule. The last four had been taken in Luca’s study.
Vanessa opened his desk drawer. She took out a document. Then she handed it to a man Luca had known since he was fourteen.
“Daniel,” Luca said.
Daniel Cross was his best man. He was also the only person outside Luca’s lawyers who knew where the study’s spare key was kept.
In the final photograph, Daniel turned toward the camera. Luca leaned closer. On the back of the document was a date: October 18, the day of his wedding.
Under it, someone had written: DO IT BEFORE HE SAYS I DO.
Marcus watched Luca’s face. “I can bring Daniel in.”
“No. Call the gate. Vanessa stays on the property.”
“And Claire?”
“Where is she?”
“With the doctor.”
Luca stood.
Upstairs, Dr. Harris had just finished wrapping my hand. Mrs. Ellis sat beside me when Luca entered. He looked at the bandage, then at my face.
“You had a camera in my study,” he said.
My breath caught. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw Vanessa take something from your desk last week. I thought if I told you without proof, you’d fire me.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“What did she want from you in the closet?”
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. A message from my younger brother, Noah.
CLAIRE, DON’T COME HOME.
A second message arrived. It was a photograph of our apartment door, standing open.
May you like
Then a third.
THEY KNOW WHERE I AM.
