Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO SHOULD NOT BE ALIVE
Dominic moved before anyone could stop him.
Gabriel caught his arm.
“Boss.”
Dominic turned so sharply Gabriel released him.
“That’s my mother.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
The words came out low and dangerous.
“You buried your mother,” Gabriel said. “Which means until we understand what we’re looking at, nobody walks into that room alone.”
Penelope expected Dominic to argue.
Instead, his eyes returned to the security screen.
The woman in the wheelchair had lifted one trembling hand.
Not toward Celeste.
Toward the camera.
Toward him.
Dominic walked.
Penelope followed.
He glanced back. “Stay upstairs.”
“No.”
“This has nothing to do with you.”
“Your mother knew my name twenty-one years ago.”
That stopped him.
Penelope folded her arms.
“I think we passed ‘nothing to do with me’ several horrifying discoveries ago.”
Under different circumstances, he might have smiled.
He didn’t.
They descended through the wine cellar.
Behind a rack Gabriel had pulled aside was a narrow stone corridor Penelope had never seen on any renovation drawing.
The architecture was wrong.
Older.
Much older.
The east wing had not created the chamber.
It had buried it.
Celeste stood at the end of the corridor.
Richard was beside her.
Dominic ignored both of them.
His entire attention fixed on the woman in the wheelchair.
She was perhaps seventy now. Thin. Gray-haired. A wool coat covered her knees despite the warmth underground.
Dominic stopped six feet away.
The woman looked at him.
“My boy.”
His face changed.
It was almost imperceptible.
But Penelope saw twenty-one years of control crack in two words.
Dominic crouched.
“You died.”
The woman closed her eyes.
“No.”
“I buried you.”
“You buried an empty coffin.”
Dominic recoiled.
Celeste stepped forward. “Dominic—”
He stood.
“Don’t.”
“Please listen.”
“You knew?”
Celeste’s silence answered.
Dominic looked at Richard.
“And you?”
Richard swallowed. “For six weeks.”
Dominic crossed the distance between them so quickly Penelope barely saw it happen.
He grabbed Richard by the lapels.
“You stood in my house knowing my mother was alive?”
“I was trying to keep Penelope out of this.”
“By humiliating her?”
Richard looked toward Penelope.
Shame flickered across his face.
“I handled that badly.”
“Badly?”
Penelope’s voice cut through the corridor.
“You stole my work for two years.”
Richard said nothing.
“You told clients I was unstable. You hid me tonight. You grabbed me hard enough to leave marks.”
“I know.”
“No. You know now because somebody more powerful than you noticed.”
That landed.
Richard looked away.
Dominic released him.
His mother spoke.
“His cruelty is his own, Dominic. Don’t excuse it because he was frightened.”
Richard flinched.
Penelope looked at the woman.
She was weak.
But not confused.
Not controlled.
“Mrs. Vale,” Penelope said carefully, “how did you know my name?”
The woman studied her face.
Then smiled sadly.
“You have your father’s eyes.”
Penelope went still.
“My father?”
“Elias Hayes.”
Her stomach dropped.
Nobody here should have known that name.
Her father had died when she was thirteen.
A highway accident outside Providence.
At least that was what she had always believed.
Dominic looked between them.
“You knew her father?”
His mother nodded.
“He built this room.”
Penelope almost laughed because the statement made no sense.
“My father sold insurance.”
“No,” the woman said.
Penelope stared at her.
“He did after he ran away.”
The corridor suddenly felt smaller.
Celeste wheeled the woman into the chamber.
Inside were old shelves, a desk, and several metal cabinets.
No treasure.
No weapons.
Just records.
Hundreds of them.
Dominic noticed the portfolio on the desk.
“What is Vanguard?”
His mother’s expression darkened.
“A mistake your father made powerful.”
Dominic became very still.
“My father?”
“Vanguard began as five families pooling legitimate investments. Real estate. Shipping. Construction.”
“And?”
“One man realized construction could hide almost anything.”
“Who?”
Before she could answer, Richard stepped toward the wall.
“We don’t have time.”
Dominic looked at him.
Richard pointed toward a hairline crack in the plaster.
“That wall was opened tonight.”
Penelope approached.
She immediately saw what he meant.
Fresh dust.
Scraped mortar.
Someone had cut around a rectangular section and resealed it.
“When?” she asked.
Celeste answered.
“Before the party.”
“By whom?”
“We don’t know.”
Penelope touched the wall.
Dominic’s mother suddenly gripped her wrist.
“Don’t.”
Everyone froze.
The old recording returned to Penelope’s mind.
Don’t let the architect open the wall.
“Why?”
The woman looked terrified now.
“Because your father designed it so only someone who understood his geometry would recognize the release.”
Penelope looked at the intersecting decorative lines.
Three arcs.
A square.
A small recessed point.
Her breath caught.
She knew that pattern.
She had drawn it hundreds of times as a child.
On notebooks.
Napkins.
Birthday cards.
Her father had taught it to her as a puzzle.
Three curves made a flower.
Turn the page sideways and the flower became a key.
Penelope stepped backward.
“He taught me this.”
“I know,” Mrs. Vale whispered.
“How?”
“Because you drew it for me.”
Penelope stared at her.
“I never met you.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No.”
“You were twelve.”
Penelope shook her head.
“I would remember.”
“You were frightened. Your father told you my name was Evelyn.”
The name struck something buried deep.
Not a memory.
A sensation.
Rain against glass.
Her father’s hand around hers.
A woman kneeling beside her.
A silver bracelet catching the light.
Penelope looked down.
Evelyn Vale was wearing that bracelet now.
Small silver arches linked together around her wrist.
Penelope stopped breathing.
“I’ve seen that.”
Evelyn nodded.
“You gave it to me.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You made it from wire while your father and I worked.”
Dominic stared at his mother.
“Worked on what?”
Evelyn looked toward the sealed wall.
“Stopping Vanguard.”
Silence followed.
Then Gabriel entered.
“Boss.”
Dominic turned.
“We checked the exterior cameras. Someone left the property during the blackout.”
“Who?”
“We can’t identify him.”
“Why not?”
“He was wearing staff clothing.”
Richard muttered something.
Penelope looked at him.
“What?”
He hesitated.
“Vanguard supplied temporary staff for tonight.”
Dominic’s gaze hardened.
“You allowed Vanguard personnel into my home?”
“They were already on the approved vendor list.”
“Approved by whom?”
Richard looked toward Celeste.
Celeste’s face changed.
“Not me.”
Gabriel held out a tablet.
“The authorization carries your electronic signature.”
Celeste stared at it.
“That isn’t mine.”
Penelope almost laughed bitterly.
“Another forged signature.”
Then she saw something beneath the desk.
A photograph.
Old.
Partially covered in dust.
She bent and picked it up.
Four adults stood outside the mansion twenty-one years earlier.
Evelyn.
A younger man Penelope recognized as Dominic’s father.
Another man she didn’t know.
And Elias Hayes.
Her father.
But that wasn’t what made her hands shake.
A little girl stood in front of them.
Twelve years old.
Curly brown hair.
Gap between her front teeth.
Penelope.
She turned the photograph over.
Her father’s handwriting covered the back.
Four words.
Penny remembers the key.
Below them was a date.
The day before his supposed car accident.
Penelope looked up.
“My father didn’t die in an accident, did he?”
Evelyn’s eyes filled with tears.
“No.”
Penelope’s voice barely worked.
“What happened to him?”
Evelyn looked at Dominic.
Then at the wall.
May you like
And finally back at Penelope.
“Your father opened it first.”
