Chapter 6 - THE SECRET INSIDE THE BLUE WALL
Laura held the brass key between her fingers.
It was small.
Ordinary.
The kind of key someone might use for an old cabinet or jewelry box.
But the words attached to it made her stomach tighten.
For the room where your son was supposed to sleep.
Marco looked toward the cottage windows.
“Elena knows where you are.”
Laura nodded.
“And she knows about the nursery.”
“She might be trying to frighten you.”
“Then why give me something that could help?”
Marco didn't answer.
Laura studied the blue blanket.
She remembered buying it at a small children's boutique in Coral Gables.
The elderly woman behind the counter had embroidered her initials while Laura waited.
Dominic had laughed when she brought it home.
“Our son isn't even born, and he already has better blankets than I do.”
For a few seconds, the memory hurt more than she expected.
Then she folded the blanket carefully.
“I need to know what's inside that wall.”
Marco shook his head.
“You're not going back to the mansion.”
“I'm not planning to walk into Dominic's house.”
“Then what?”
She looked at the photograph again.
“Find out who worked on the nursery.”
“Dominic painted it.”
“But he didn't build it.”
Marco considered.
The nursery had once been a guest bedroom.
Before Laura became pregnant, Dominic arranged for renovations.
Built-in bookshelves.
New windows.
A reinforced closet.
An entire wall redesigned to accommodate a recessed reading nook.
Marco remembered the contractor.
Samuel Price.
A quiet carpenter in his late fifties.
Unlike most people who worked for the Romanos, Samuel hadn't been hired through the family organization.
Laura had chosen him herself after seeing his work in a neighbor's home.
Marco found him that afternoon.
Samuel agreed to meet them at a small church community hall.
Laura insisted on coming.
Her ankle was still swollen, and she moved slowly with a support boot.
Marco drove her through the back entrance.
Samuel was waiting beside a folding table.
He looked worried.
“Mrs. Romano, I heard about the attack.”
“I'm all right, Samuel.”
“And the baby?”
“Still making his opinions known.”
For a moment, the older man smiled.
Then Laura placed the brass key on the table.
His smile disappeared.
“Where did you get that?”
“Someone left it for me.”
Samuel closed his eyes.
“I told him this was a mistake.”
“Who?”
Samuel looked toward Marco.
Then back at Laura.
“Your husband.”
Laura froze.
“Dominic knew?”
Samuel shook his head.
“He knew I was asked to build something unusual. He didn't know what was going inside.”
“What was it?”
“A hidden compartment behind the reading nook.”
Laura stared.
“Why would anyone put a hidden compartment in a baby's room?”
Samuel's hands trembled.
“Mr. Romano said he wanted a fireproof storage space for family keepsakes.”
“Dominic said that?”
“Yes.”
Laura felt a painful flicker of hope.
Perhaps Dominic had been protecting something innocent.
Perhaps the nursery had been his attempt to preserve family memories.
Then Samuel added, “But three days after I finished, someone came back.”
“Who?”
“A woman.”
Laura's pulse quickened.
“Elena?”
Samuel shook his head.
“No. Older. Maybe in her sixties.”
“What did she look like?”
“Gray hair. Dark glasses. A long beige coat.”
Marco leaned forward.
“Did she give you a name?”
Samuel hesitated.
“She said she was a family member.”
“What name?” Laura asked.
Samuel swallowed.
“Maria Romano.”
Laura felt the room tilt.
Dominic's supposedly dead mother.
The woman whose disappearance had shaped his entire life.
“Did you see her face?”
“Not clearly. She kept her glasses on.”
“Did she have the key?”
“Yes.”
Samuel pointed to the brass object.
“That exact one.”
Laura stared.
“Why would Maria put something in Dominic's child's nursery?”
Samuel shook his head.
“I don't know. But she said something I'll never forget.”
“What?”
He looked at Laura's stomach.
“She said, 'The first Romano boy who gets to grow up without fear deserves to know why the others didn't.'”
Laura felt tears rise.
The sentence sounded like a grandmother speaking about a child she desperately wanted to protect.
But it could also have been a warning.
Marco asked whether Samuel had copied the key.
He had.
The second copy remained locked inside his workshop.
He agreed to retrieve it for them.
Before leaving, Laura asked one final question.
“Did Dominic ever open the compartment?”
Samuel shook his head.
“Not while I was there.”
“Then why did he paint over it?”
“Because he said he didn't want anyone to know it existed.”
Laura went silent.
Dominic knew there was a hidden compartment.
But apparently not what it contained.
And he'd concealed its entrance beneath the pale-blue paint he had chosen with such care.
That evening, Marco found another piece of information.
The nursery's security camera had stopped recording for seventeen minutes three days before the charity reception.
The system labeled the interruption as scheduled maintenance.
But there was no maintenance request.
Someone had entered the nursery.
Someone with access to the mansion's security system.
Laura immediately thought of Elena.
But Marco discovered something stranger.
The override had used a credential assigned to Antonio Romano.
A credential that should have been deactivated twelve years earlier.
“My father went into that room,” Marco whispered.
Laura felt cold.
“And Dominic didn't know?”
“Apparently not.”
They sat in silence.
Then Marco said, “Laura, I'm beginning to think Elena isn't the real danger.”
Laura looked at him.
“Who is?”
“My father.”
She wanted to disagree.
But Antonio had allowed his son to mourn him for twelve years.
He had appeared at the mansion before a violent attack.
And he had access to security systems that should have been closed to him.
Those weren't innocent coincidences.
At eight the next morning, Samuel delivered the duplicate key.
Marco arranged for a trusted security specialist to examine the nursery while Dominic was away attending a meeting with federal investigators.
Laura watched through an encrypted video connection.
The familiar blue room appeared on the screen.
The white crib.
The children's books.
The rocking chair Dominic had bought after Laura mentioned wanting one like her grandmother's.
Everything looked untouched.
For a moment, Laura almost couldn't breathe.
That room had held so many dreams.
Now it looked like a museum of a life she could no longer trust.
The specialist removed a small panel beneath the reading nook.
Behind it was a metal compartment.
The key turned smoothly.
Inside were three objects.
A woman's gold wristwatch.
A sealed envelope.
And a child's drawing.
Marco instructed the specialist to bring the contents to the cottage.
When Laura opened the envelope, she found a handwritten letter.
The first line made her cover her mouth.
My dear Dominic,
If you are reading this, then someone finally loved you enough to tell you what happened to me.
It was signed:
Your mother, Maria.
Laura began crying.
She had spent days believing Dominic was the man who had abandoned her.
But this letter reminded her he was also a boy who had once been abandoned himself.
Or believed he had.
She read further.
Maria described being forced away from Dominic.
She described Antonio helping her escape.
She wrote about spending years trying to return without exposing her son to Vincent's enemies.
Then came a sentence that made Laura stop.
Antonio promised to protect you. But he was never supposed to protect Vincent's secret.
Marco leaned closer.
“What secret?”
Laura turned the page.
The next paragraph had been removed.
Cleanly cut away.
Only a few words remained.
The child in the photograph was not—
Laura stared.
The sentence ended there.
Then she unfolded the child's drawing.
A little boy stood beside a woman.
Above them was a yellow sun.
And beside the woman stood another child.
A smaller boy.
At the bottom, in careful handwriting, were three names.
MAMA. DOMINIC. GABRIEL.
Marco whispered, “Gabriel?”
Laura looked at the drawing.
Then at Maria's watch.
Its back was engraved with a date.
MAY 4, 1991.
Seven years before Maria disappeared.
Laura turned the watch over.
Tucked beneath the loose leather strap was a tiny photograph of two little boys.
One was unmistakably Dominic.
The other had the same dark eyes.
The same sharp chin.
The same unmistakable Romano features.
Laura looked at Marco.
“Dominic had a brother.”
Marco shook his head.
“No. That's impossible.”
But Laura was staring at the photograph.
May you like
And beneath it, written in Maria's handwriting, were five words.
THEY TOLD DOMINIC HE DIED.
