Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Red Dress
Nora found only six members of the cleaning crew.
There should have been eight.
She stood beneath the flashing lights of three fire engines, hugging her elbows while paramedics moved around her. The Bellamy mansion burned behind them, flames devouring the eastern wing and climbing toward the black winter sky.
“Where's Hector?” she asked.
Nobody answered.
“And Luis?”
One of the housekeepers began crying.
Nora turned toward the building.
A firefighter caught her arm.
“No.”
“There are two people missing.”
“We know.”
“You have to—”
“We know.”
Something in his face stopped her.
They had already gone inside.
Nora swallowed.
Across the parking lot, Adrian Bellamy sat on the open rear platform of an ambulance while a paramedic wrapped his burned hand.
Even covered in soot, he looked dangerous.
He was perhaps thirty-eight. Tall. Broad through the shoulders. Dark hair damp from sweat. There was blood at his temple and a tear through the sleeve of his white dress shirt.
But what Nora noticed most was his stillness.
Everyone around him moved quickly.
Adrian did not.
He watched.
A gray-haired man in a charcoal suit approached him.
“Sir.”
Adrian's eyes remained on Nora.
“Where is Evelyn?”
The man hesitated.
Nora's stomach tightened.
“We haven't located Mrs. Bellamy.”
“I didn't ask whether you located her, Marcus. I asked where she is.”
“We're checking.”
Nora looked toward the eastern gate.
Black sedan.
Broken heel.
Leather briefcase.
There was nobody left back there.
She suddenly felt cold.
Adrian noticed.
His gaze sharpened.
“Nora.”
She stared at him.
He knew her name.
She had never introduced herself.
Adrian gestured.
“Come here.”
Every instinct told her not to.
But a dozen armed men were watching, and pretending she had not heard seemed considerably more dangerous.
She approached.
“How do you know my name?”
“You've worked in my house for four years.”
“You know all your maids?”
“No.”
At least he was honest.
His gaze dropped to her scraped knees.
“I asked Marcus while you were looking for your crew.”
“Oh.”
“What happened before you found me?”
Nora looked at Marcus.
Then the guards.
Then Adrian.
“Why?”
“Because somebody barred that door.”
The bluntness of the statement silenced her.
Adrian continued.
“The fire began in the electrical storage room directly beside the basement stairs. The suppression system didn't activate. The security cameras stopped recording seventeen minutes before the fire.”
Nora stared at him.
“You already know all that?”
“My people know their jobs.”
“Apparently not all of them.”
Marcus looked offended.
Adrian almost smiled.
Almost.
Then his expression hardened again.
“Tell me what you saw.”
Nora hesitated.
A firefighter shouted behind them.
Someone ran from the house carrying equipment.
Nora lowered her voice.
“A woman.”
Adrian didn't move.
“What woman?”
“Tall. Dark hair. Red dress.”
Marcus went completely still.
Adrian's burned fingers curled.
“Continue.”
“She came from the service corridor.”
“Was she injured?”
“No.”
“Afraid?”
“No.”
“What did she say?”
Nora remembered the woman's calm eyes.
“There was nobody left back there.”
Something changed in Adrian's face.
Not shock.
Recognition.
“Anything else?”
“She had a briefcase.”
“What kind?”
“Black leather.”
Marcus cursed quietly.
Adrian looked at him.
“You recognize it?”
Marcus nodded.
“The Zurich case.”
Nora frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Neither man answered.
Adrian asked, “Which way did she leave?”
“Eastern side door.”
“Was there a vehicle?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Black sedan. Engine running. Lights off.”
Marcus was already speaking into an earpiece.
Adrian stared toward the flames.
“What about her shoes?”
Nora blinked.
“Her shoes?”
“You looked at everything else.”
It was the strangest question anyone had asked her that night.
“Her left heel was broken.”
Adrian turned his head slowly.
For the first time, Nora saw something close to certainty in his eyes.
“Evelyn.”
His wife.
The paramedic beside him stopped wrapping the bandage.
Nobody spoke.
Then Adrian asked, “Did you see her face clearly?”
“Yes.”
“Would you recognize her again?”
“Yes.”
Adrian reached into Marcus's jacket without asking, removed a phone, and tapped the screen.
A photograph appeared.
Nora's mouth went dry.
The woman smiling beside Adrian in the photograph wore diamonds at her throat and white silk over one shoulder.
But the face was unmistakable.
“That’s her.”
The air changed.
Marcus stepped away and began issuing orders.
“Lock the airports. Train stations. Private fields. Every vehicle registered to the household. I want traffic cameras from here to the state line.”
Nora stared at Adrian.
“Your wife locked you down there?”
“We don't know that.”
“She walked away from a burning building carrying something your people apparently care about.”
“That isn't proof.”
“She told me nobody was there.”
Adrian's jaw tightened.
“No. It isn't proof.”
The distinction seemed important to him.
Nora respected it despite herself.
A firefighter approached.
“Mr. Bellamy?”
Adrian looked up.
“We found the point of origin.”
“And?”
“Accelerant.”
Nora closed her eyes.
Arson.
The firefighter continued.
“And there's something else.”
“What?”
“We found a body.”
Nora's eyes flew open.
“Hector?”
The firefighter looked at her.
“We don't know yet.”
“Male?”
“Yes.”
Nora swayed.
Adrian rose despite the paramedic's protest.
“Where?”
“Near the security room.”
Adrian looked at Marcus.
“Get identification.”
Nora turned away.
She had known Hector Alvarez for three years. He was sixty-two, complained constantly about his knees, brought cinnamon candies to work, and sent half his paycheck to his daughter in Puerto Rico.
“Nora.”
She ignored Adrian.
“Nora.”
“What?”
“You can't go home.”
She laughed once, without humor.
“Watch me.”
“You witnessed my wife leaving the scene of an attempted murder.”
“That sounds like your problem.”
“It became yours the moment she saw your face.”
Nora stopped.
Adrian stepped closer.
Smoke drifted between them.
“If Evelyn knows you saw her, you're a liability.”
“To her?”
“To anyone involved.”
“I have an apartment.”
“Then someone can find it.”
“I have a life.”
“Then I'd prefer you remain alive long enough to keep it.”
Nora stared at him.
“You don't get to order me around because I dragged you out of a basement.”
“No.”
Something almost human entered his expression.
“I owe you because you dragged me out of a basement.”
Before Nora could respond, Marcus returned.
His face had changed.
“Sir.”
Adrian turned.
Marcus held a phone.
“We checked the garage cameras from the backup server.”
“And?”
“Mrs. Bellamy didn't leave alone.”
He turned the screen.
The footage was grainy, captured from a camera across the courtyard.
Evelyn Bellamy crossed toward the sedan carrying the briefcase.
A man followed her.
Nora leaned closer.
She recognized his jacket.
His walk.
His face.
Her stomach dropped.
“No.”
Adrian looked at her.
“You know him?”
Nora couldn't breathe.
The man entering the car beside Evelyn Bellamy was Luis Ortega.
The missing member of Nora's cleaning crew.
The same man who had spent the last six months bringing Nora coffee every morning.
The same man who had asked her three days earlier what time she would be working after the gala.
And suddenly Nora understood.
May you like
He had not been making conversation.
He had been making sure she would be inside the house when it burned.
