Chapter 3 - THE RED LEDGER UNDER RACHEL’S FLOOR
A hand clamped over my mouth.
I kicked backward and heard a man grunt.
“Rachel.”
Michael.
I stopped fighting.
“Stay down.”
The cemetery was completely dark.
Somewhere beyond the mausoleum, an engine roared.
Nicholas shouted his father’s name.
Tires tore through snow.
Then headlights appeared between the trees and vanished toward the road.
Backup generators kicked in thirty seconds later.
It felt like thirty minutes.
When the lights returned, Anthony and Victor were gone.
Nicholas stood beside the gate staring at two fresh tire tracks.
Daniel was sitting against a stone wall while Margaret pressed fabric to his wounded shoulder.
Nicholas turned toward me.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Michael?”
“Clear.”
Nicholas’s face was unreadable.
But his hands were shaking.
He hid them by putting them inside his coat pockets.
“Call every person we trust,” he told Michael. “Nobody connected to Victor Warren.”
Michael nodded.
“Police?”
Nicholas hesitated.
That hesitation reminded me of the world he lived in.
Then he said, “Yes.”
Michael looked surprised.
“So does Victor,” Nicholas added. “Which means I want everything documented before he starts rewriting tonight.”
He walked toward me.
“What did my father mean?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“The red ledger.”
“I’ve never seen a red ledger.”
“He said you’ve been sleeping ten feet from it.”
I thought about my room in the staff wing.
Small bed.
Closet.
Bathroom.
A narrow writing desk.
Nothing red except an old alarm clock.
Margaret looked up.
“Maybe Anthony meant something hidden.”
Nicholas turned.
“Why Rachel?”
Margaret slowly stood.
“Because Anthony knew about her.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
Nicholas looked at her sharply.
“How?”
Margaret seemed to regret speaking.
“He asked about the people working in your house.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
“You were in contact with him?”
“Occasionally.”
Nicholas stared at her.
“You told me you hadn’t seen him since 2003.”
“I said he gave me the letter in 2003.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Margaret lowered her eyes.
Another contradiction.
Nicholas noticed.
Of course he did.
“How often did you speak to my father?”
“Three times this year.”
Nicholas laughed once.
It sounded bitter.
“My dead father had a busier social life than I realized.”
Margaret stepped toward him.
“He was trying to protect you.”
“By letting me believe he was dead for twenty-one years?”
“He believed people inside your house were watching you.”
Nicholas looked toward me.
“Rachel?”
“No.”
Margaret touched my hand.
“He trusted you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I thought back through nine months inside the DeLuca estate.
Had anyone watched me?
Asked unusual questions?
There was one person.
Camille.
She was always asking which rooms I cleaned.
Which drawers Nicholas left unlocked.
Whether I entered the private study.
I had assumed she was controlling.
Maybe it had been something else.
By four in the morning, police had taken statements.
Victor’s sedan had been found abandoned near an old warehouse in Chester.
No Victor.
No Anthony.
Nicholas brought Margaret and me back to the estate.
Camille was gone.
So was the security guard Margaret had recognized at the party.
His name was Raymond Pike.
Nicholas’s head of internal security for fourteen years.
Michael searched Camille’s rooms.
Half her clothes were missing.
Her passport was gone.
But her diamond engagement ring sat on Nicholas’s nightstand.
He stared at it for several seconds.
Then walked away.
At 5:22 a.m., we entered the staff wing.
My bedroom door was locked.
I unlocked it.
Nothing looked disturbed.
Nicholas stood in the center.
“Ten feet.”
Michael took out a measuring tape.
From my bed, ten feet reached beyond the wall into an old linen storage room.
We entered.
Shelves.
Towels.
Extra sheets.
Cleaning supplies.
Nothing.
Then Margaret noticed scratches on the hardwood floor.
“Rachel.”
I crouched.
One floorboard had been lifted before.
Michael pried it open.
Beneath it lay an old metal box.
Red paint.
My stomach turned.
Nicholas looked at me.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
He believed me.
I could tell because he immediately knelt beside the box instead of questioning me again.
There was no lock.
Inside lay a leather ledger.
Dark red.
And a photograph.
Nicholas picked up the photograph first.
It showed Anthony.
Evelyn.
Victor.
And a teenage girl.
Nicholas frowned.
“Who is she?”
Margaret made a sound behind us.
I turned.
Her face had gone pale.
“Margaret?”
She sat down heavily.
“That’s my daughter.”
Nicholas stared at her.
“You have a daughter?”
“Had.”
The room went silent.
“What was her name?” I asked.
“Laura.”
Nicholas turned the picture over.
A date was written there.
August 1989.
Nicholas would have been six years old.
Margaret looked at the photograph with tears in her eyes.
“Laura worked for Anthony.”
“Doing what?” Nicholas asked.
“Bookkeeping.”
Nicholas looked at the red ledger.
Margaret nodded.
“She found something.”
“What?”
“She never told me exactly.”
Nicholas opened the ledger.
Pages of handwritten numbers.
Dates.
Company names.
Initials.
Transfers.
Many entries were marked E.D., V.W., and A.D.
But another set of initials appeared repeatedly.
C.W.
Camille Warren.
Nicholas’s face hardened.
“That’s impossible. Camille would have been a child.”
Michael turned several pages.
“The entries continue for decades.”
Nicholas looked at the most recent date.
Three months ago.
Next to C.W. was a $12.4 million transfer.
Nicholas stared.
“That account is mine.”
Michael looked at him.
“Personal?”
“DeLuca Maritime emergency reserve.”
Margaret whispered, “Then Anthony was right.”
Nicholas flipped faster.
Shell companies.
Properties.
Trusts.
Insurance policies.
One entry stopped him.
RACHEL HAYES — 09/17 — CONFIRMED.
My mouth went dry.
Nicholas looked at me.
“What does September seventeenth mean?”
“That’s the day I started working here.”
Michael looked at another page.
There was a payment dated September 16.
$50,000.
Recipient:
HAYES PLACEMENT SERVICES.
I shook my head.
“I was hired through an agency.”
Nicholas looked at Michael.
“Does that company exist?”
Michael searched quickly.
“No.”
I sat on the edge of a shelf.
Someone had placed me inside this house.
Nicholas crouched in front of me.
“Who interviewed you?”
“A woman named Patricia Cole.”
“Where?”
“Downtown. Office building near Rittenhouse Square.”
Michael searched again.
“No Patricia Cole connected to domestic staffing.”
My hands started trembling.
Nicholas noticed.
“Rachel, look at me.”
I did.
“Did anyone tell you to watch me?”
“No.”
“Did anyone ever pay you beyond your salary?”
“No.”
“Did anyone ask you to report what happened here?”
“No.”
He nodded once.
“I believe you.”
That mattered more than I expected.
Margaret turned another page.
Then she froze.
“Nicholas.”
The entry was from nine months earlier.
RACHEL HAYES — DAUGHTER OF THOMAS HAYES.
Beneath it:
PLACEMENT ESSENTIAL BEFORE WEDDING.
Nicholas looked at me.
“Who was your father?”
“Thomas Hayes.”
“What did he do?”
“He was a mechanic.”
Margaret whispered, “No.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
She pointed at the photograph.
The teenage Laura Shaw stood beside Anthony, Evelyn, and Victor.
In the background was a man partly hidden behind a car.
I recognized him immediately.
My father.
Young.
But unmistakable.
I picked up the photograph with both hands.
“My dad knew your family?”
Margaret looked at me with a kind of grief that made my stomach twist.
“Rachel…”
“What?”
“Thomas Hayes wasn’t your biological father.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I laughed because the alternative was screaming.
“My mother was married to him for thirty-four years.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know anything about my family.”
“I know your mother.”
I stopped.
Margaret reached for my hand.
“Her name was Susan.”
“Yes.”
“She was my daughter Laura’s best friend.”
Nicholas stared between us.
Margaret continued.
“After Laura died, Susan took you.”
I could barely hear her.
“Took me from where?”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“From the DeLuca house.”
Nicholas stood slowly.
“What are you saying?”
Margaret looked at him.
Then at me.
“Rachel isn’t Thomas Hayes’s daughter.”
A pause.
“She’s Laura’s.”
My knees weakened.
Nicholas asked the question I couldn’t.
“Who was Rachel’s father?”
Margaret’s face broke.
Before she answered, Michael’s phone rang.
He listened.
His expression changed.
“Sir.”
Nicholas turned.
“What?”
“We found Camille.”
“Where?”
“Not far.”
Michael swallowed.
“She’s at Pennsylvania Hospital.”
Nicholas frowned.
“Why?”
“She walked into the emergency department twenty minutes ago covered in blood.”
I stood.
“Whose blood?”
May you like
Michael looked directly at Nicholas.
“Anthony’s.”
