Chapter 4 - THE BROTHER WHO DIED TWICE
Vincent watched the recording six times.
Each time, he listened to the woman's voice with the desperate concentration of someone trying to pull a loved one back from the grave.
Finally, he turned off the tablet.
"Anthony is dead," he said.
He sounded as though he were trying to convince himself.
I held up the paper I'd found beneath the desk.
"Then someone wants you to believe otherwise."
Vincent looked at me.
"Or someone wants me to believe Elena is alive."
"Why would anyone do that?"
"Because grief makes a man careless."
The words were cold, but his eyes betrayed him.
He wanted to believe the recording.
He wanted it so badly that I feared what would happen if it turned out to be a trap.
That evening, Vincent summoned the people closest to him.
His mother, Margaret Moretti, arrived wearing a black silk suit and a diamond brooch. His cousin, Sofia, came directly from her law office. Finally, his trusted adviser, Marcus Bell, entered carrying a leather folder.
Margaret looked at the disturbed sitting room and immediately blamed the staff.
"Someone should have been watching this corridor."
"I was watching it," Vincent replied.
"Then someone should have been watching you."
He ignored her.
Instead, he placed the photograph of the intruder on the table.
"Anthony's ring."
Margaret's expression barely changed.
"That ring was buried with him."
"Then someone stole it."
"Or someone wants you to believe your brother survived."
Vincent studied his mother.
"You sound remarkably certain."
"Because I buried two sons in my heart that night. Anthony and the man you became afterward."
The insult landed, but Vincent said nothing.
Margaret turned to me.
"And who is this woman?"
"Claire Parker. She works here."
"I know what she does. I want to know why she's standing in a family meeting."
Vincent placed the paper about Daniel on the table.
"Because her daughter's father worked for Elena."
Margaret's face changed.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
So did Vincent.
"You know the name," he said.
"I knew hundreds of employees."
"Daniel disappeared four years ago."
"Then perhaps he had something to hide."
"Did Elena know he had a child?"
Margaret looked directly at me.
"Did she?"
"I don't know."
"How convenient."
Emma had been brought downstairs after dinner, and she now stood in the doorway holding a stuffed rabbit. Her gaze moved between the adults.
"Why are you talking about Mommy's friend?"
Everyone turned.
Vincent crouched beside her.
"What friend, sweetheart?"
"The lady in the picture. Mommy showed me."
My blood turned cold.
"Emma, when did you see her?"
"In my dream."
Margaret gave a short, humorless laugh.
"Children invent things."
Emma frowned.
"I'm not inventing."
She opened her little hand.
Inside lay a tiny brass key.
"Mommy's friend gave me this."
Vincent took the key carefully.
"Where did you get it?"
"Under my pillow."
"When?"
"Yesterday."
I stared at my daughter.
She had slept in the mansion for three nights. Every morning, I'd checked her room, and I'd never seen the key.
Vincent examined it.
A number had been stamped into the metal.
417\.
Sofia, his cousin, went pale.
"What?" Vincent demanded.
She shook her head.
"Nothing."
"Tell me."
Sofia swallowed.
"Four-seventeen was Elena's security code for the private archive."
Margaret stood so abruptly that her chair scraped across the floor.
"That archive was destroyed."
"Apparently not," Vincent said.
He ordered Marcus to bring the archive's original inventory.
While the others searched through the documents, I took Emma upstairs. She was exhausted, and I didn't want her caught in the middle of a family war.
At the top of the stairs, she tugged my sleeve.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Are we going to leave because the sad man is angry?"
I knelt and brushed a curl from her cheek.
"No. We're going to be careful."
She hugged my neck.
"Can I help him again tomorrow?"
I held her tightly.
"I don't know, baby."
Because I was beginning to understand something terrifying.
Emma hadn't simply wandered into Vincent's life.
Someone had placed her there.
And whoever it was had known exactly what her presence would do to him.
Downstairs, Vincent opened the archive inventory.
A single page had been inserted between two old records.
It contained a photograph of Elena holding a newborn baby.
On the back, someone had written:
If Vincent discovers the truth, the child must disappear before her fifth birthday.
May you like
Beneath the note was a signature.
Margaret Moretti.
