Chapter 7 - THE LETTER
We reached the estate thirteen minutes later.
Roman entered first.
Lucia was directly behind him.
The mansion was bright again, but nothing felt safe.
Anna ran to Lucia.
Lucia dropped to her knees and held her.
“I’m okay,” Anna said into her shoulder.
“I know.”
“You’re squeezing.”
Lucia loosened her grip immediately.
“Sorry.”
Anna considered her.
“You can squeeze a little.”
Lucia laughed and cried at the same time.
Roman watched them.
Then looked at Cassandra.
“Where were you when the power failed?”
“With Anna.”
“Evelyn?”
“Kitchen.”
“Guards?”
“Two at the front entrance. One at the security panel.”
Daniel frowned.
“The backup system should have restored power instantly.”
“It didn’t,” Cassandra said.
“How long?”
“Maybe forty seconds.”
Daniel looked disturbed.
“That requires an administrator override.”
Roman’s eyes shifted toward him.
Daniel didn’t avoid the implication.
“Mine is one of three administrator codes.”
“Who has the others?”
“You.”
“And?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Vincent.”
Roman’s face became unreadable.
They checked the security logs.
Someone had used Vincent’s code.
But Daniel immediately noticed a problem.
“The code was entered from the internal security office.”
Roman looked at him.
“Vincent knows the room.”
“He hasn’t had unrestricted access in years.”
“Could he still enter?”
“With help.”
The insider question returned.
But it wasn’t Daniel.
At least not necessarily.
We reviewed footage from earlier that evening.
For three minutes before the blackout, the internal hallway camera had been partially blocked by a catering cart.
Accident?
Maybe.
Then I recognized it.
“That cart isn’t ours.”
Everyone looked at me.
“Our banquet carts have brass handles.”
This one had black handles.
I had worked enough events to notice.
Cassandra stared at me.
“Where did it come from?”
“The rental company brought supplemental service equipment.”
Roman called the catering manager.
Ten minutes later, we had an answer.
The black-handled cart belonged to an outside staffing agency.
One temporary server had left early.
His employment paperwork listed an address that did not exist.
Daniel said, “Vincent planted someone inside the house.”
Roman shook his head.
“Or someone wants us to believe Vincent did.”
Lucia looked frustrated.
“How much proof do you need?”
“Enough that I don’t destroy the wrong person because I’m angry.”
That silenced her.
It was the first moment I saw why Roman had survived whatever world he lived in.
He did not confuse suspicion with certainty.
Cassandra opened Margaret’s recipe book again.
“If Vincent stole the letter, he knows we’re getting close.”
Evelyn disagreed.
“He already knew.”
Roman looked at her.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because he didn’t destroy the bracelet.”
Lucia frowned.
“It’s gone.”
“Yes. Gone.”
Evelyn folded her hands.
“If he had wanted to erase Anna’s connection to the family, he would have destroyed it years ago.”
Roman considered this.
“So he needs it.”
“For something.”
Daniel picked up the family register.
“The crest might authenticate transfers.”
Roman looked toward the missing final page.
“The original trust record.”
Cassandra whispered, “The archive box.”
Everyone reached the same conclusion.
The hospital archive opened at seven.
Vincent might be waiting for it.
Roman did not send armed men rushing into a children’s hospital archive.
Instead, he called St. Matthew’s chief administrator, explained that an old family item was connected to a potential theft, and asked that locker 214’s box be held without release.
The administrator agreed.
At 6:55 the next morning, Roman, Lucia, Cassandra, Daniel, Evelyn and I were there.
Anna stayed at the estate with two women Lucia trusted.
Roman had insisted Anna choose whether she wanted Cassandra to stay.
Anna had said, “Mommy Cass goes.”
Lucia had not objected.
That mattered.
The archive clerk brought out a dusty cardboard box.
Blue ribbon circled the lid.
Cassandra’s eyes filled.
“My mother tied bows like that.”
Inside were children’s holiday cards, volunteer badges and a sealed plastic envelope.
Margaret Whitmore’s name was written across it.
Cassandra opened it.
A letter.
Not from Annalisa.
From Margaret.
She read aloud.
If Cassandra ever finds this, I hope she is old enough to hate what I did without believing hatred is the same as truth.
Cassandra stopped.
Roman said nothing.
She continued.
Margaret had helped Lucia disappear.
That part was true.
Vincent had approached her after discovering she worked with families at St. Matthew’s.
He told Margaret that Lucia had stolen money and that Roman intended to take Lucia’s unborn baby as punishment.
Margaret believed him.
At first.
Months later, she discovered Vincent had fabricated documents.
She tried to convince Lucia to return.
Then Daniel Crowe’s father—Thomas—approached her.
Daniel closed his eyes.
Margaret wrote that Thomas was not helping Vincent.
He was trying to expose him.
Lucia whispered, “Thomas tried to save me.”
Daniel stared at the floor.
Margaret and Thomas began secretly moving Anna’s rightful medical funds through Vincent’s own trust network.
That explained the payments.
Then Thomas died in what everyone had called a heart attack.
Daniel whispered, “He was forty-nine.”
Roman put a hand on his shoulder.
Brief.
Solid.
Cassandra kept reading.
Before Thomas died, he gave Margaret one item.
The missing final page of Rafael’s family register.
She hid it at St. Matthew’s.
Cassandra searched the plastic envelope.
Nothing.
No page.
Only Margaret’s letter.
Lucia laughed bitterly.
“We’re late again.”
But I noticed the cardboard box felt too heavy.
I lifted it.
Something shifted underneath.
The clerk frowned.
“That box has a double base.”
Daniel carefully opened it.
There was the missing page.
Everyone crowded around.
Rafael had transferred controlling interest in the family trust to Annalisa.
Upon her death, it passed equally to her children.
Roman and Lucia.
Vincent had never owned the controlling share he had exercised for decades.
Cassandra whispered, “You can remove him.”
Roman shook his head.
“This proves fraud. It doesn’t prove what happened to Lucia.”
“No,” Daniel said.
“But this might.”
He pointed to the bottom of the page.
Two witness signatures.
Anthony DeLuca.
Thomas Crowe.
And beneath them, one additional notation.
Original duplicate entrusted to V.D. pending Annalisa’s twenty-fifth birthday.
Lucia stared.
“Vincent was entrusted with it.”
Roman nodded.
“He was supposed to protect her inheritance.”
Instead, he had erased it.
Then Cassandra noticed a fourth line.
A handwritten addition in different ink.
If V.D. contests the transfer, refer to recording held by E.H.
Everyone looked at Evelyn.
She stared back.
“I don’t know what that means.”
Roman pointed.
“E.H.”
Evelyn Harper.
Her face went pale.
“No.”
“You’re E.H.”
“I know my initials.”
“Then what recording?”
“I have never had a recording.”
Lucia suddenly stood.
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
Evelyn became angry.
“I have lived in that house for thirty-five years. I have buried my husband, raised two generations of DeLucas and forgotten where I put my glasses approximately six thousand times. I would remember hiding a recording from Rafael DeLuca.”
The archive clerk politely looked away.
Roman almost smiled.
Then Evelyn froze.
“My husband.”
Roman’s smile vanished.
“What?”
“Edward Harper.”
E.H.
Evelyn whispered, “It wasn’t me.”
Her husband had worked as Rafael’s driver before becoming ill.
He had died eight years earlier.
Evelyn gripped the table.
“Edward kept an old cassette recorder in the garage.”
Roman asked, “Where are his things?”
“In my room.”
The room Cassandra had tried to remove her from.
Everyone stared at Cassandra.
She looked horrified.
“I didn’t know.”
Evelyn’s eyes sharpened.
“But somebody might have.”
Roman was already calling the estate.
A guard answered.
Roman ordered him into Evelyn’s room.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then a minute.
The guard returned to the phone.
“Her husband’s storage trunk is open.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Roman asked the only question that mattered.
“Is anything missing?”
The guard hesitated.
“There’s an empty cassette case.”
On its label, Edward Harper had written one date.
The date Roman and Lucia’s mother died.
And one name.
May you like
VINCENT.
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