Chapter 4 - The Blood on the Photograph
Dominic found the first trail of blood beside the library's broken window.
For one terrifying second, he thought his mother had been shot.
Then he heard a muffled cry from behind the overturned reading chair.
Margaret was alive, pressed against the floor with Elena shielding her body.
Elena's sleeve was torn. A thin line of blood ran down her forearm.
“Are you hit?” Dominic demanded.
“Just glass, sir.”
She had moved Margaret away from the window before the second shot struck the wall.
Dominic looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.
“You saved her.”
Elena glanced at Margaret.
“She shouldn't have to survive another night in that room.”
The words silenced him.
Marcus's men secured the corridor, but the shooter was already gone. A vehicle had been spotted leaving through the rear service gate. The guards found no license plate, only a small black envelope beneath the window.
Inside was a photograph of Dominic as a child.
Someone had drawn a red circle around his face.
On the back were four words:
STOP ASKING ABOUT YOUR BIRTH.
Dominic's hands went cold.
Margaret stared at the photograph.
“Frank.”
“You're certain?”
“He always threatened you when I refused to cooperate.”
Dominic turned to Marcus.
“Find him. Quietly. No one outside this house hears about the shooting.”
Marcus nodded and left.
Elena helped Margaret onto the sofa. She spoke softly, asking whether she was dizzy, whether she could breathe comfortably, whether she wanted water.
The ordinary kindness seemed to confuse Margaret more than the gunfire.
“What's your name, dear?”
“Elena Carter.”
“Have you worked here long?”
“Almost two years.”
Margaret studied her face.
“Then you've seen the locked doors.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“And you never opened them?”
“No.”
Margaret's shoulders relaxed slightly.
“Good. Your curiosity is not the dangerous thing. It's what people do when they believe nobody will ever question them.”
Dominic stood at the desk, examining the blue folder.
The missing page had contained a list of payments and a handwritten note about an original ledger. Whoever had taken it knew exactly which evidence mattered.
He looked at Elena.
“Who else knew you found the invoice?”
“The house manager. And the contractor.”
“Anyone else?”
Elena hesitated.
“I told one person I needed to make a telephone call. I didn't tell them why.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Bell, the cook. She was worried when I asked whether anyone had been working in the east wing after midnight.”
Dominic called for the house manager.
But the man did not answer.
A guard soon reported that the manager's office was empty. His coat was still hanging behind the door, and his car remained in the garage.
On his desk sat a sealed envelope addressed to Dominic.
Inside was a resignation letter, unsigned.
Beneath it lay a receipt for a storage unit rented six months earlier.
Dominic looked at the date.
The same week Vanessa had paid to replace the blue room's lock.
He sent Marcus to investigate the storage unit while he remained with Margaret.
His mother had begun speaking more freely now that the room was open.
She told him Antonio had been investigating irregular transfers from the family's businesses. The money had passed through shell companies before reaching accounts controlled by Frank Bellini and an unknown partner.
Antonio planned to turn over the original ledger to federal investigators.
“But the night he died,” Margaret said, “he told me he had changed his mind.”
“Why?”
“Because someone had shown him proof that the people responsible were connected to you.”
Dominic frowned.
“I was a child.”
“Exactly. They threatened to use you.”
She looked down at her hands.
“I begged him to leave with us. He refused. He said he could not abandon the organization without putting everyone who depended on him in danger.”
Dominic swallowed.
“Did Vanessa kill him?”
Margaret's face crumpled.
“I didn't see who struck the final blow. I heard an argument. Then a gunshot. When I reached the library, your father was on the floor.”
“Who was standing over him?”
Margaret looked at him.
“Vanessa.”
Dominic stepped away from the desk.
For two years, he had planned a wedding with a woman who might have watched his father die.
He had defended her, trusted her, and given her access to every corner of his life.
Now he couldn't tell whether the tears she had shed were guilt or fear.
Marcus returned just before midnight.
The storage unit was empty.
But someone had left a new photograph inside.
It showed Elena standing outside a small apartment building, holding the hand of a little girl.
On the back, a message had been written in black marker.
SHE HAS A DAUGHTER. ASK HER WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FATHER.
Dominic looked toward Elena.
She had gone pale.
“Mr. Moretti,” she whispered, “please don't let them near my daughter.”
Then the security alarm sounded.
A guard's voice crackled through the radio.
“Boss, we've got a child at the front gate.”
Dominic ran toward the entrance.
The guard opened the gate just enough to reveal a little girl standing alone in the rain.
She clutched a stuffed rabbit.
May you like
And tied around the rabbit's neck was the same brass key that had opened the hidden room.
---
