Chapter 2 - THE PHOTOGRAPH IN THE LOCKER
A photograph lay on top of Emily’s folded coat.
She stared at it without touching it.
The picture was old enough that the edges had softened and curled.
A man stood beside a black Lincoln in front of a brick house. He was younger, heavier through the shoulders, his dark hair untouched by gray.
Emily recognized him anyway.
Dominic Russo’s father.
Vittorio Russo.
But it was the woman beside him who made Emily grip the locker door.
Her mother.
Margaret Carter.
Twenty years younger.
Smiling.
Emily picked up the photograph.
On the back, someone had written:
ASK YOUR MOTHER WHAT SHE KEPT FOR VITTORIO.
“Emily?”
Ray stood in the doorway.
She turned the photograph facedown.
“What?”
“You need to leave.”
His voice sounded different now.
Not impatient.
Afraid.
“Did you put something in my locker?”
“No.”
“Did you give someone access?”
Ray hesitated.
Emily’s anger sharpened.
“Ray.”
“Madeline asked for the master key yesterday.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“And you gave it to her?”
“She said she lost an earring.”
“In the employee lockers?”
“I didn’t know that was where she was going.”
Emily laughed once, without humor.
“You never know anything until after it happens.”
Ray flinched.
She immediately regretted it.
Ray had hired her when nobody else would work around her mother’s unpredictable medical appointments.
But regret didn’t erase fear.
“Who was the man with Madeline in Room Seven?”
Ray’s face changed.
So slightly she almost missed it.
“You saw them?”
“You know him.”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
Ray looked toward the hallway.
“Go home, Emily.”
She stepped closer.
“Who is he?”
Before Ray could answer, another voice came from behind him.
“I’d like to know that too.”
Dominic.
Ray went pale.
Dominic had removed his jacket. His sleeves were rolled once at the wrists.
Madeline was nowhere behind him.
His eyes moved to the photograph in Emily’s hand.
“May I?”
“No.”
The answer came faster than Emily intended.
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“Whatever is happening involves my family.”
“It involves mine too.”
That stopped him.
Emily turned the photograph around.
Dominic looked at it.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he took one step forward.
“Where did you get that?”
“My locker.”
His attention moved from Margaret’s face to Vittorio’s.
“You know my mother?”
“No.”
“You recognized her.”
“I recognized my father.”
Emily watched him carefully.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Dominic met her eyes.
“My father knew hundreds of people.”
“Did he take pictures with all of them?”
“No.”
“Then tell me why he knew Margaret Carter.”
“I don’t know.”
She believed him.
That frightened her more.
Dominic Russo was many things, but at that moment he wasn’t pretending.
Ray suddenly spoke.
“Emily, please.”
Dominic turned.
“What do you know?”
“Nothing.”
“Ray.”
The manager lowered his head.
“I was told not to talk about it.”
“By whom?”
Ray looked miserable.
“Your father.”
Emily felt the floor tilt beneath her.
Dominic went completely still.
“My father has been dead fourteen months.”
“I know.”
“When did he tell you?”
“Years ago.”
Ray pulled a chair from the break-room table and sat.
“I worked banquets at the Harbor Crest before Bellucci’s. Your father used the hotel for meetings.”
Dominic waited.
Ray rubbed his forehead.
“Margaret worked there too.”
Emily’s voice came out quietly.
“My mother was a bookkeeper.”
“That’s what she told people.”
Emily stared at him.
Ray looked at her.
“She handled private accounts for Vittorio Russo.”
Dominic’s face darkened.
“How private?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is becoming irritating.”
“I really don’t.”
Ray swallowed.
“But I know Vittorio trusted her.”
Emily looked at the photograph again.
Her mother had spent Emily’s childhood warning her to stay away from men like the Russos.
Now Emily was looking at proof she had once stood smiling beside one.
“Why would somebody leave this for me?”
Ray shook his head.
Dominic reached toward the photograph but stopped before touching it.
“What key was taken?”
Emily looked at him sharply.
“How do you know about the key?”
“Your hand went to your apron when Ray said someone searched your locker.”
She hated how much he noticed.
“A brass key. Small. Number forty-seven stamped on it.”
Ray made a choking sound.
Dominic turned.
“What?”
Ray stood too quickly.
“Nothing.”
“Ray.”
“It could be anything.”
Dominic stepped toward him.
“Then why are you afraid?”
Ray looked from Dominic to Emily.
“Because Bellucci’s has forty-six wine lockers.”
Silence.
Emily’s skin prickled.
“What’s forty-seven?”
“There is no forty-seven.”
Dominic frowned.
Ray shook his head.
“Not anymore.”
Emily waited.
“Ray.”
He exhaled.
“Years ago there was a private cabinet built into Room Seven. Vittorio rented it permanently. Staff called it Locker Forty-Seven.”
Emily’s pulse accelerated.
“What happened to it?”
“Renovation. Wall paneling went over it.”
Dominic was already moving.
“Show me.”
---
Room Seven smelled faintly of cedar and extinguished candles.
Ray locked the door behind them.
Emily pointed toward the fireplace.
“That’s where Madeline was standing.”
Dominic examined the room.
“Where was the envelope?”
“There.”
She pointed at the table.
“And the man?”
“Near the fireplace.”
“What did he look like?”
“Early sixties. Gray hair. Navy overcoat.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“You recognize that description?”
“Maybe.”
He crossed to the paneled wall.
Ray found the narrow seam first.
“There.”
A decorative molding concealed a rectangular panel.
Dominic pushed it.
Nothing.
“The key,” Emily whispered.
Ray nodded.
They searched around the molding.
Near the bottom was a tiny brass keyhole.
Forty-seven.
Emily felt sick.
Madeline hadn’t been searching her locker for evidence of what Emily heard.
She had been searching for access to whatever was behind this wall.
Dominic ran his thumb across the keyhole.
Then stopped.
Something red clung to the brass.
Wax.
Fresh.
“The key’s already been used,” Emily said.
Dominic opened the panel with the thin blade of a pocketknife.
Behind it sat an empty steel compartment.
Almost empty.
A child’s silver bracelet lay in one corner.
Emily reached for it.
“Don’t.”
Dominic’s warning came too late.
She picked it up.
Tiny silver letters spelled a name.
EMILY.
Her knees nearly gave out.
“My mother gave me one like this when I was six.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Like this?”
Emily turned it over.
A tiny crescent-shaped dent marked the clasp.
She remembered making that dent by catching it in the screen door.
“No.”
Her throat tightened.
“Not like it.”
She looked at him.
“This is mine.”
Ray whispered something under his breath.
Dominic’s face had lost its controlled calm.
“Why would my father keep your childhood bracelet inside a hidden cabinet?”
Emily had no answer.
Then she noticed something wedged beneath the steel lining.
A folded piece of cream paper.
Dominic pulled it free.
Half the page had been torn away.
Across the top was the Russo family crest.
At the bottom sat Vittorio Russo’s signature.
Between them remained only three readable lines:
…Margaret Carter shall retain custody…
…until Dominic is prepared to know why…
And beneath that:
…the beneficiary, Emily Carter.
Emily stared at her own name.
Dominic read it twice.
Then the door opened behind them.
Madeline stood there.
She wasn’t smiling now.
She looked at the torn document in Dominic’s hand.
Then at Emily’s bracelet.
And whispered:
May you like
“You were never supposed to find that.”
---
