Chapter 3 - THE MAN INSIDE THE HOUSE
|
Vincent didn't speak for several seconds.
Neither did I.
The photograph lay between us, showing Elena Ruiz smiling beside a man who had spent six years working under Vincent's protection.
“His name is Thomas Reed,” Vincent finally said. “He's been with my family for eleven years.”
“Then you know him.”
“I thought I did.”
His voice had gone dangerously quiet.
I had begun to understand that Vincent's anger was most frightening when it stopped showing on his face.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“Outside my bedroom.”
Vincent called his security chief and gave him three short instructions. Within minutes, the estate's internal security system had been locked down. No employee could enter or leave without authorization.
But Thomas was gone.
His guard station was empty. His personal vehicle remained in the garage, and his apartment above the security wing looked untouched.
On his desk, Vincent found a single envelope.
Inside was a photograph of me standing beneath the circus canopy on the night of my accident.
Across the front, someone had written four words.
SHE SHOULD HAVE DIED.
I had to grip the edge of the desk.
Vincent stepped closer, but he didn't touch me.
“Look at me, Grace.”
I forced myself to meet his eyes.
“You're safe in this room.”
“You can't promise that.”
“No,” he admitted. “But I can promise I won't lie to you about the danger.”
For some reason, that honesty frightened me more than a comforting lie would have.
He ordered additional guards to secure the estate. I insisted on accompanying him to the security office because I refused to spend another night waiting for strangers to decide what happened to my life.
We reviewed the footage from the engagement party.
At 8:41 p.m., Vanessa had approached the aerial rigging.
At 8:43, she had spoken with Thomas.
At 8:46, the camera feed had gone black for exactly ninety seconds.
When it returned, Vanessa was standing beside the champagne fountain, smiling at a group of guests.
Vincent rewound the footage.
“Zoom in.”
The technician enlarged the image.
Vanessa's lips moved. Thomas leaned toward her.
Neither of us could hear the conversation, but his expression changed when Vincent paused the frame.
Thomas looked frightened.
Vanessa looked furious.
Then Vincent opened the estate's maintenance records.
The rigging had been inspected the morning of the party. The technician's report showed that the equipment was safe, but the digital signature had been added after the inspection time.
Someone had altered the record.
“Your fiancée knew you would notice me,” I said slowly. “She wanted me to climb those silks.”
Vincent looked at me.
“Why would she risk killing you in front of a hundred witnesses?”
“Because she thought I would fall.”
He stared at the frozen image of Vanessa.
“And if you had died, she could have called it an accident.”
A cold silence settled over the office.
Then I noticed something in the footage.
“Go back.”
Vincent rewound it.
“Right there.”
A woman in a black dress crossed the background carrying a silver tray. Her face was partially hidden, but I recognized the bracelet on her wrist.
The same diamond bracelet Vincent had shown me.
I leaned toward the screen.
“That isn't Vanessa.”
He looked closer.
The woman was younger, with dark hair pulled into a tight bun. She wore the uniform of a catering assistant.
“Who is she?” Vincent asked.
“I don't know. But she was standing backstage the night I got hurt.”
I remembered a woman watching me warm up. She had asked whether I was afraid of heights.
I'd laughed and told her that the higher I climbed, the more at home I felt.
Then she had said something strange.
Sometimes the people who applaud you are the ones hoping you'll fall.
I had assumed she was joking.
Now the memory made my skin crawl.
Vincent ordered his men to identify the woman. While they worked, I returned to my room to search my old belongings. I still kept a small box of circus photographs beneath my bed, along with the hospital bracelet I had worn after the accident.
I had never been able to throw it away.
Inside the box, beneath a faded program, I found a folded letter.
It was addressed to me in my mother's handwriting.
I had never seen it before.
My mother had died two years after my accident, and I had packed most of her belongings without sorting through every envelope.
The letter contained only three sentences.
Grace, if anything happens to me, find the woman who wore the silver bracelet.
She knows why you fell.
Do not trust the man who tells you he saved you.
My fingers went numb.
Someone knocked.
“Grace?” Vincent called from the hallway.
I opened the door with the letter hidden behind my back.
He took one look at my face and knew something had changed.
“What did you find?”
I hesitated.
My mother's final warning echoed in my mind.
Do not trust the man who tells you he saved you.
Vincent held out his hand.
“Grace, whatever it is, let me help.”
I wanted to trust him.
I wanted to believe that the man who had ended his engagement to defend me would never deliberately hurt me.
But I had already learned how easily a beautiful story could conceal a terrible lie.
I handed him the letter.
He read it once.
Then again.
When he reached the final sentence, all the color drained from his face.
“What is it?” I asked.
He folded the letter carefully.
“Your mother knew my father.”
Before I could ask another question, a guard appeared at the end of the hallway.
“Mr. Moretti, we identified the woman from the footage.”
Vincent turned.
“Name?”
The guard swallowed.
“Isabella Moretti.”
May you like
Vincent went completely still.
His younger sister had been dead for seven years.
