Chapter 2 - THE EMPTY ROOM
Alessandro started for the stairs.
Victoria caught his arm. “Don’t listen to her. She’s been stealing from us.”
Mara almost laughed. It was such a small lie compared with the others.
Alessandro pulled away. “What’s in the west hall?”
“Storage.”
“Then you won’t mind showing me.”
Victoria did mind. Mara saw it in the way she gripped the banister, as if the house had tilted beneath her feet.
They climbed together. Teresa followed at a distance. Two guards appeared at the top of the stairs, but Alessandro waved them back.
The west hall smelled faintly of furniture polish and fresh paint. Victoria had ordered it cleaned every Friday, even though she told everyone the rooms were unused.
At the end stood a white door with a new brass lock.
Alessandro held out his hand. “Key.”
Victoria searched her pockets. “I don’t have it.”
“You were here when that door closed.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
Mara stepped forward. “She keeps the key behind the blue vase in her sitting room.”
Victoria’s eyes flashed. “You went through my things?”
“I dust your sitting room.”
Alessandro sent a guard for the key. When it arrived, Victoria folded her arms and looked bored. She was good at looking bored when she was terrified.
The lock turned.
Inside were a desk, an armchair, and shelves of old accounting boxes. A window stood open an inch. The room was empty.
Victoria exhaled. “Satisfied?”
Alessandro wasn’t. There was a half-full cup of coffee on the desk. He touched it.
Warm.
He crossed to the window. Below lay the stone terrace, two floors down. Nobody had gone out that way.
Mara checked the boxes. They had been moved since morning. A pale square marked the carpet where a heavy cabinet usually stood.
“Help me,” she said.
Alessandro and a guard pushed the cabinet aside. Behind it was a narrow service door.
Victoria’s voice rose. “Alessandro, stop.”
He opened it.
The passage beyond led into darkness.
On the floor, just past the doorway, lay a woman’s silk scarf. Mara recognized the blue stitching at its edge. Her mother had sewn it by hand when Mara was seven.
She snatched it up. “She was here.”
Alessandro looked at the scarf, then at Mara. “Your mother?”
Before she could answer, a phone rang inside the passage.
They followed the sound to a small security room. A phone sat on the desk beside three live camera feeds. One showed the front gate. Another showed the kitchen.
The third showed Mara’s bedroom.
The phone kept ringing.
May you like
Alessandro answered.
A man’s voice said, “You should have let the maid take the blame for the wine.”
