Chapter 2 - THE ENVELOPE THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN FOUND
The first thing I noticed was the envelope.
The second was that Roman DeLuca was holding it like evidence from a murder scene.
And the third was that his younger sister had stopped breathing normally.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
Roman closed the music room door behind him.
“Your apartment.”
For several seconds, I couldn't understand what he'd said.
“My apartment?”
“One of my security men went there this morning.”
I stood so quickly that pain shot through my injured knee.
“You sent someone into my home?”
Roman didn't answer immediately.
That silence told me enough.
Elena turned her wheelchair toward him.
“Roman, what have you done?”
“I needed to know who was sending her money.”
“You could have asked me,” I said.
“Would you have answered?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But that's what asking means.”
His expression changed slightly.
Men like Roman DeLuca were accustomed to being feared.
Apparently, they weren't accustomed to being corrected by a housekeeper.
He placed the envelope on Elena's piano.
“Eight hundred dollars,” he said. “Four envelopes this year. No return address.”
My stomach tightened.
“How do you know there were four?”
“Your building superintendent let my man inside.”
I felt sick.
My rented room wasn't much.
A narrow bed. A secondhand dresser. A tiny kitchen with a window that never closed properly.
But it was mine.
It was the only place where I didn't have to explain myself to anybody.
“You had no right.”
“No,” Roman said quietly. “I didn't.”
That surprised me more than an argument would have.
He turned toward Elena.
“Look at the envelope.”
She didn't move.
“Please.”
Something in his voice made her reach for it.
Elena examined the paper.
Then her fingers stopped.
Near the sealed flap was a tiny embossed silver music note.
Her face lost its color.
“Where did this come from?”
Roman looked at me.
“I was hoping Miss Turner could tell us.”
“I can't.”
Elena rubbed her thumb over the little symbol.
“Our mother used this stationery.”
I glanced at her.
“What?”
“She had it made for the Open Door Fund. It helped people who couldn't afford rehabilitation, mobility equipment, and medical transportation.”
Roman nodded.
“She founded it twelve years ago.”
“Then maybe somebody from the foundation sent the money,” I suggested.
Roman's expression hardened.
“The fund stopped making private assistance payments after my mother's death.”
“Maybe someone restarted them.”
“Without informing either of us?”
Elena looked up sharply.
“Why wouldn't they?”
Roman stared at her.
“Because I oversee the family's finances.”
“And you've done such a wonderful job of keeping track of everything that happens in this house?”
The room became painfully quiet.
Roman absorbed the insult without answering.
I wanted to disappear.
Instead, I reached for the envelope.
“Whatever this is, I never asked for it. I haven't spent a dollar.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn't know who sent it.”
Roman studied me.
“Most people in your position would have taken the money.”
Something hot rose in my chest.
“My position?”
“I didn't mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
I pointed toward the envelope.
“I owe forty-one thousand eight hundred dollars because a man I trusted forged my name. Every month, I choose which bill gets paid late. But that doesn't mean I accept money from strangers without asking questions.”
Elena's eyes filled.
Roman said nothing.
I took a painful step toward the door.
“I think you should find another housekeeper.”
“No,” Elena said immediately.
I looked at her.
She gripped the wheels of her chair.
“Please don't leave because of him.”
Roman lowered his eyes.
It was the first time I'd seen that powerful man look ashamed.
“Maya,” he said, “your apartment will be secured again. The superintendent will receive written instructions that nobody enters without your permission. And the man who went inside will answer for it.”
“You will, too,” Elena said.
Roman nodded.
“Yes.”
Then he opened a leather folder he'd brought into the room.
“I need to show you something.”
He withdrew an old vehicle maintenance invoice.
The paper was dated six days before the accident that killed their mother.
At the top were the words:
SOUTH HARBOR FLEET SERVICES.
Beneath them was a record for the DeLuca family's black sedan.
Roman pointed toward a signature.
“The company that approved the vehicle's release was connected to the Open Door Fund.”
I barely heard him.
Because I recognized the signature.
Not the handwriting.
The name.
My knees weakened.
Roman watched my face.
“That's why I came to speak with you.”
I grabbed the edge of the piano.
At the bottom of the maintenance record were two words I hadn't seen together in almost three years.
GAVIN TURNER.
My husband.
The man who had stolen my identity.
The man who had vanished and left me drowning in debt.
Roman's voice dropped.
“Maya, your husband signed the release for the car my mother died in.”
May you like
And behind me, Elena whispered something that made the room go cold.
“That's impossible. Vincent told us Gavin Turner died before the accident.”
