Chapter 2 - THE ENVELOPE THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE EXISTED
At 3:47 p.m., I watched my girlfriend enter my private bathroom carrying a brown envelope.
Three minutes later, I learned that someone I trusted had been preparing to destroy my life.
And the first clue came from a five-year-old girl wearing a plastic detective hat.
On the surveillance monitor, Isabella closed the bathroom door.
She wore the pale blue dress I'd bought her for our anniversary. Her dark hair was pinned neatly behind her ears, and the diamond bracelet I'd given her caught the light as she approached the toilet.
Nothing about her suggested fear.
She moved with the confidence of someone who believed the house belonged to her.
I leaned toward the screen.
Beside me, Raphael Vargas folded his arms.
"She's checking the hallway," he observed.
I noticed it too.
Before Isabella entered the bathroom, she'd glanced directly toward the security camera outside my bedroom.
Not nervously.
Deliberately.
Then she knelt beside the toilet, reached behind the porcelain base, and removed a decorative panel I'd never noticed.
My jaw tightened.
"Did you know that was there?"
Raphael shook his head.
"The bathroom was remodeled eight months ago."
Eight months.
Isabella had been dating me for thirteen.
"Who supervised the renovation?"
Raphael didn't answer immediately.
He didn't need to.
Marcus Carrera.
My oldest friend.
The man who had introduced me to Isabella.
On the screen, she slipped the envelope into a narrow cavity behind the panel.
Then she took something else out.
A small black object.
She turned it over in her hand before placing it inside her purse.
"Zoom in," I ordered.
Raphael adjusted the image.
It was a flash drive.
Isabella stood, washed her hands, and checked her appearance in the mirror.
Then she smiled.
Not the warm smile she gave me across dinner tables.
This one was satisfied.
She left the bathroom at 3:51.
I was already reaching for my jacket.
Raphael caught my arm.
"Not yet."
"She just used my house to exchange information."
"With whom?"
"Marcus."
"That's what we're supposed to think."
I stared at him.
Raphael had served my father for twenty-six years. He rarely raised his voice, and he never offered an opinion without a reason.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying Isabella checked the hallway camera before she moved. She knew exactly where the cameras were."
"Marcus controls security."
"Exactly. So why would she make certain he could see her?"
That stopped me.
Raphael brought up another monitor.
Marcus had returned to the estate at 3:39.
His car was parked outside the west entrance.
But instead of going to his office, he was standing beside the service courtyard, talking to Elena.
Sophie's mother.
I sat straighter.
"Turn on the audio."
Elena's voice came through faintly.
"...I don't understand why you need her schedule."
Marcus stood too close to her.
"I'm responsible for everyone's safety."
"She's five years old."
"Then you'll appreciate knowing where she is."
Elena stepped backward.
"Mr. Carrera, Sophie stays with me."
Marcus smiled.
It was the same smile I'd known since we were boys.
"Of course she does."
He reached into his jacket and handed Elena a white envelope.
She refused it.
Marcus placed it on the windowsill.
"Think about your future, Elena."
He walked away.
Elena stood staring at the envelope.
Then she picked it up with shaking hands.
I was on my feet.
"Get her out of there."
Raphael was already moving.
"Quietly," he said. "And Dante? Don't call Marcus."
Twenty minutes later, I entered a small apartment above one of Raphael's legitimate businesses.
Elena sat on the couch with Sophie beside her.
The little girl was coloring a picture of a purple dog.
Her mother looked as though she hadn't taken a full breath since morning.
"Mr. Moretti, I didn't take the money."
"What money?"
She handed me Marcus's envelope.
Inside were ten thousand dollars in cash.
And a handwritten note.
Take your daughter to Milwaukee tonight. Don't return to work.
I read it twice.
"Did Marcus explain?"
"He said there were going to be changes at the house."
"What kind?"
"He wouldn't say."
Elena swallowed.
"Then he asked whether Sophie had been going upstairs."
My eyes moved to the child.
Sophie continued coloring.
"Sweetheart," I said gently, "did Mr. Marcus ask you anything?"
She nodded.
"He asked if I was playing detective."
"What did you tell him?"
"That detectives don't tell bad guys their secrets."
Despite everything, Raphael almost smiled.
I didn't.
"Why do you think Marcus is a bad guy?"
Sophie looked up.
"Because he made Mommy cry."
Elena covered her mouth.
I turned back to her.
"What else happened?"
She hesitated.
Then she reached beneath her sweater and pulled out a silver necklace.
An old-fashioned oval locket hung from the chain.
"I found this in the linen closet yesterday," she whispered. "Marcus told me to throw it away."
She opened it.
Inside was a faded photograph of a younger woman holding a baby.
My chest tightened.
I recognized the woman.
Not because I'd known her personally.
Because her face had appeared in a photograph on my father's desk for almost twenty years.
Her name was Teresa Rossi.
My father's former housekeeper.
She had disappeared when I was seventeen.
And everyone in the family had been told she'd stolen money.
"Where did this come from?"
Elena's eyes filled.
"It belonged to my mother."
I looked at her sharply.
"Your mother?"
"Teresa Rossi."
The room became painfully still.
Raphael slowly lowered himself into a chair.
I studied Elena's face.
Her eyes.
The shape of her mouth.
Something about her had seemed familiar since the day I hired her, but I'd never understood why.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because my mother made me promise never to use her name around your family."
"Why?"
Elena looked toward Sophie.
Then back at me.
"Because she said your father once saved her life."
I barely breathed.
"And?"
"She said someone close to him tried to kill her afterward."
Raphael's expression changed.
"Elena," he said quietly, "how old were you when your mother disappeared?"
"Six."
He closed his eyes.
I turned toward him.
"What do you know?"
Raphael stood and walked toward the window.
For the first time in my adult life, the man who'd never been afraid of anyone looked frightened.
"Your father made me promise something," he said.
"What?"
"That if Teresa's daughter ever returned to Chicago, I would protect her."
"Why?"
Raphael faced me.
"Because the night Teresa disappeared, she took something from your father's office."
"What something?"
"A ledger."
I stared at him.
"My father kept dozens."
"Not like this one."
Raphael lowered his voice.
"It contained the names of everyone who betrayed him during the last years of his life."
I remembered my father's final months.
The arguments behind closed doors.
The suspicion.
The way he'd stopped allowing Marcus into certain meetings.
I'd assumed old age had made him cautious.
"What happened to the ledger?"
"Teresa hid it."
"Where?"
Raphael looked toward Sophie's drawing.
"That's what someone has been trying to discover for eighteen years."
Before I could ask another question, Sophie tugged my sleeve.
"Mr. Dante?"
I knelt.
"What is it, sweetheart?"
She held out her drawing.
It wasn't just a purple dog.
Behind the animal, she'd drawn a square with a tiny black circle in the middle.
"What's this?"
"The bathroom hiding place."
I smiled faintly.
"You're a very good detective."
She shook her head.
"No. That's not the secret one."
My smile disappeared.
"What secret one?"
Sophie pointed at the black circle.
"Miss Isabella puts envelopes in the toilet wall."
"I know."
"But Mr. Marcus takes them out."
I glanced at Raphael.
Sophie continued.
"And yesterday, I heard them arguing."
"What did they say?"
She scrunched her nose, trying to remember.
"Miss Isabella said, 'I won't let you hurt her.'"
"Who?"
Sophie touched Elena's sleeve.
"Mommy."
Elena went pale.
Then Sophie said something that made the hair rise along my arms.
"Mr. Marcus said he didn't need Mommy anymore."
I kept my voice steady.
"What did he need?"
Sophie looked directly into my eyes.
"Me."
May you like
And then she added:
"He said I'm the only one who can show him where Grandma hid the book."
