Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN BEHIND THE WALL
“Dominic?”
The whisper came again.
This time, Dominic knew exactly who it was.
Not Elena.
Camille.
Michael moved first, crossing toward the bookcase with his hand inside his jacket.
Dominic caught his wrist.
“Wait.”
Hannah stood near the desk, staring at the wall.
Camille’s car was outside.
Her phone was upstairs.
And somehow Dominic’s fiancée was behind a bookcase in a part of the house Dominic had lived in since childhood.
Dominic walked to the shelves.
“Camille.”
A shaky breath answered him.
“Please.”
He ran his hand along the molding.
Nothing.
Michael stepped closer.
“There used to be service passages in houses this old.”
“Not here.”
“You sure?”
Dominic looked at him.
“No.”
That answer bothered him.
His father had renovated the west wing when Dominic was seventeen. Half the work had been done without architects, permits, or questions.
Dominic pressed one section of carved wood.
It moved.
Barely.
Michael shoved harder.
The entire bookcase shifted three inches with a dry groan.
Cold air came through the opening.
Then Camille fell forward.
Dominic caught her before she hit the floor.
Hannah gasped.
Camille’s elegant black dress was torn near one shoulder. Dust covered her knees. A thin line of blood ran from her temple.
But Dominic saw only what she held in her fist.
Elena’s crescent necklace.
He went still.
“Where did you get that?”
Camille closed her fingers around it.
“Lock the passage.”
Dominic didn’t move.
“Where did you get it?”
“Dominic, please.”
Michael checked behind her.
The narrow passage ran into darkness.
“No one else,” he said.
Dominic lifted Camille to her feet.
She flinched.
Not theatrically.
Not for sympathy.
She was genuinely afraid.
That changed the room.
Hannah had spent seven months watching Camille move through the estate like she owned every inch of it.
She had never seen her afraid.
Dominic had.
Once.
Three years ago, when a car had followed them from New York.
Camille had been frightened then.
But not like this.
This looked older.
“Sit.”
Camille ignored him.
Her eyes found Hannah.
The fear became anger.
“You.”
Hannah stepped back.
Dominic moved between them.
“Don’t.”
Camille laughed once, bitterly.
“You have no idea what she’s done.”
“I carried soup.”
“You took the key.”
“I found it.”
“You took it.”
“And somebody put a tack through my shoe.”
Camille’s mouth closed.
Dominic watched her.
“That somebody wasn’t you?”
Camille looked at him.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly to be rehearsed.
Dominic believed it.
That surprised him more than anything else.
Michael put the recorder beside Elena’s photograph.
“Then explain why this was in your pocket.”
Camille stared at it.
“I was trying to get rid of it.”
Hannah whispered, “Why?”
“Because you were never supposed to hear it.”
Dominic’s voice hardened.
“Play the rest.”
Camille’s face changed.
“No.”
Dominic reached for the recorder.
She grabbed his hand.
“Not here.”
He looked at her fingers around his wrist.
Camille released him.
“You still think I’m the danger.”
“You slapped an employee in my dining room.”
“Because I panicked.”
“You threatened her mother.”
“I never threatened her mother.”
“You asked about St. Catherine’s.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Camille’s eyes filled with something Dominic hadn’t expected.
Guilt.
“Because that’s where I saw Elena.”
Nobody spoke.
Hannah’s lips parted.
Michael slowly turned toward her.
Dominic did not move at all.
“You saw my sister.”
Camille nodded.
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
The words landed harder than a gunshot.
Dominic stared at her.
“Alive?”
Camille’s answer was barely audible.
“Yes.”
Dominic turned away.
For one terrible second, Hannah thought he might break something.
He didn’t.
He placed both hands on the desk.
His burned hand was beginning to blister.
He didn’t seem to feel it.
“Six weeks.”
“I was trying to confirm it.”
“Six weeks.”
“I couldn’t come to you until I knew.”
“You are engaged to me.”
“I know.”
“My sister has been gone eleven years.”
“I know.”
“And you knew for six weeks?”
Camille’s chin trembled.
“Yes.”
Dominic turned around.
“Why?”
Camille looked toward Elena’s photograph.
“Because she asked me not to tell you.”
That was the reversal none of them expected.
Hannah shook her head.
“Why would she do that?”
Camille swallowed.
“Because she’s afraid of someone in this family.”
Dominic’s face went cold.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to hate me.”
She set the necklace down.
“But Elena didn’t remember everything. Some days she remembered me. Some days she didn’t. She remembered this house. She remembered Dominic. She remembered a child.”
Dominic stared at her.
“What child?”
Camille closed her eyes.
“That’s what I was trying to find out.”
Michael picked up the brass key.
“Number thirty-seven.”
Camille nodded.
“It opens a locker.”
“Where?”
“Thirtieth Street Station.”
Hannah frowned.
“You knew?”
Camille looked at her.
“Elena gave me the key six weeks ago.”
Hannah’s face tightened.
“Then why was it in your dressing room?”
“Because I hid it there.”
“And I found it.”
“Yes.”
“Then somebody took it from my apron.”
Camille looked confused.
“I did.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“When?”
“After dinner started. I passed Hannah near the pantry and took it before she could use it.”
“So you sabotaged her shoe?”
“No.”
“Disabled the camera?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Camille looked toward the hidden passage.
“I was trying to find out.”
Dominic pressed play on the recorder again.
Static.
Elena’s weak voice returned.
“Dominic, if you’re hearing this…”
A long pause followed.
Then Elena whispered:
“…it means Camille failed to keep you away.”
Camille shut her eyes.
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
The recording continued.
“I know you’ll want to come for me. Don’t. Not yet.”
A faint sound came through.
A child crying.
Hannah stared at the recorder.
Elena spoke again.
“He knows about the boy now.”
Dominic’s head lifted.
“What boy?”
But the recording could not answer him.
Elena’s next words were broken by static.
Then came one clear sentence.
“Ask Mother what happened at Saint Gabriel’s.”
Dominic went pale.
His mother.
The woman sitting upstairs discussing flower arrangements as if nothing were wrong.
Michael whispered, “Saint Gabriel’s?”
Dominic knew the name.
It had been the private maternity hospital where Elena was born.
It had closed twelve years ago.
Camille reached toward him.
“Dominic—”
He stepped away.
“No.”
“Listen to me.”
“My mother knew?”
“I don’t know.”
“You brought this into my house, hid it from me, threatened Hannah with information about her mother, and crawled through a wall rather than tell me the truth.”
Camille’s anger finally broke through her fear.
“Because somebody attacked me in that passage.”
Silence.
Michael turned.
“What?”
Camille pulled up the sleeve of her dress.
A bruise was already darkening around her wrist.
“He grabbed me from behind. I got away because the passage split near the old linen room.”
Dominic looked toward the opening.
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
Camille hesitated.
“A watch.”
Hannah looked at her.
“What kind?”
“Silver. Black face.”
Dominic’s eyes moved immediately toward the closed study door.
At dinner, only one man had been wearing a watch like that.
His younger brother.
And when Dominic looked down at the photograph of Elena again, he noticed something he had never noticed before.
Someone had written two words across the white border in faded blue ink.
FOR MATTHEW.
Dominic stared at it.
May you like
Then he whispered, “Who the hell is Matthew?”
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