Chapter 4 - The Room Where the Sea Was Kept|
The mansion's servants' corridor had never felt dangerous before.
I had spent two years walking through it with laundry baskets, cleaning supplies, and trays of food. I knew which floorboards creaked and which doors stuck during damp weather.
Now every shadow seemed deliberate.
Dante crouched beside the black rose.
"Nobody leaves this corridor," he ordered.
A guard hurried away to seal the adjoining hallways.
I stared at the message.
"Someone knew about my mother's box."
"Someone knew you brought it here."
"Which means they were watching me."
"Yes."
He said it without pretending otherwise.
I folded my arms.
"How long have you been investigating my family?"
"I wasn't investigating your family. I was investigating the mechanism."
"That isn't the same thing as an answer."
Dante's expression tightened.
"I started looking into the succession test after my grandfather's lawyer warned me that the will contained a sealed condition. I knew there was a hidden archive. I didn't know it was connected to a living heir."
"Convenient."
"I have many flaws, Clara. Lying about what I know won't help either of us."
I wanted to believe him.
That frightened me more than the locked doors.
A security officer returned with footage from the corridor camera. The recording showed a woman in a housekeeping uniform entering my locker room fourteen minutes earlier.
Her face was obscured by a cap.
But she wore a distinctive silver ring shaped like a crescent moon.
I knew that ring.
Mrs. Evelyn Shaw, the mansion's head housekeeper, had worn it for as long as I had worked there.
"Where is Evelyn?" I asked.
The officer checked his radio.
"No response."
Dante's face hardened.
"Find her."
We searched the old servants' wing, the laundry room, and the narrow passage leading toward the kitchens. Finally, we found Evelyn inside a disused pantry.
She was sitting on the floor, her hands tied behind her back.
A bruise darkened her cheek.
When she saw me, she began crying.
"Clara, I'm sorry."
Dante knelt beside her.
"Who did this?"
Evelyn shook her head.
"I can't tell you."
"Someone threatened you?"
She looked at me.
"Someone told me your mother was alive."
The words struck the room like a gunshot.
I knelt in front of her.
"My mother is dead."
"I attended her funeral. I watched them lower the coffin. But three nights before she died, a woman came to the service entrance asking for you. She had the same eyes as your mother."
My throat tightened.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was afraid."
"Of whom?"
Evelyn looked toward Dante.
"His father."
Dante rose slowly.
"Explain."
Evelyn told us that twenty-five years earlier, Gabriel Moretti had discovered evidence that his younger brother, Adrian, was diverting money from the family's shipping companies into an illegal network.
Gabriel wanted to expose him.
Adrian wanted the empire.
After Gabriel disappeared, Adrian inherited control of the family and began eliminating anyone who knew the truth.
Evelyn had helped a pregnant woman escape the mansion. The woman had later returned with an infant girl.
"My mother," I whispered.
Evelyn nodded.
"She wanted to know whether Gabriel's records were safe. She said your father had hidden something that could destroy Adrian's entire operation."
"Where is it?"
"I don't know. She told me she had placed the key where the sea could never be stolen."
Dante studied the missing box's description.
"The lighthouse painting."
"Yes," Evelyn said. "But the painting wasn't just a painting. It had a compartment behind the frame."
I remembered the tiny brass lighthouse.
"It was inside the box."
"Then whoever stole the box knows what it opens," Dante said.
A sharp crash echoed from the far end of the corridor.
The lights went out.
Someone shouted.
When the emergency lights came on, Evelyn was still on the floor, Dante was beside me, and the guard at the doorway was unconscious.
The stolen box lay open on the tiles.
The key was gone.
So was the black rose.
A phone on the floor began vibrating.
Dante picked it up.
A distorted voice spoke through the speaker.
"Bring the girl to Pier Forty-Seven before midnight."
"Who is this?" Dante demanded.
The voice laughed.
"Ask your father."
Then the call ended.
Dante stared at the dark screen.
"My father has been dead for six months."
The phone vibrated again.
This time, a photograph appeared.
It showed a woman standing beside a lighthouse.
She had my mother's face.
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And beneath the photograph was a message:
SHE ISN'T DEAD.
