Chapter 2 - The Room That Had Been Locked for Eighteen Months
“There,” Sophia said again, pointing one tiny finger at Dante’s face.
“You don’t look grumpy anymore.”
Nobody laughed.
Nobody except Dante.
Another short sound escaped him before he seemed to remember who he was.
His expression settled.
But it did not become cold again.
Then Sophia raised both arms.
“Up.”
Rosa nearly stopped breathing.
“Sophia Bennett.”
Her daughter ignored her.
“Up, Mister.”
Dante Falcone stared down at the three-year-old standing in front of him.
Men had begged Dante for money.
For mercy.
For second chances.
Nobody in recent memory had ordered him to pick them up.
Especially not while wearing sparkly sneakers and carrying a broken purple crayon.
Dante glanced at Rosa.
“Does she always issue commands?”
“When she’s awake.”
A guard near the staircase coughed suspiciously.
Rosa shot him a murderous look.
Dante bent.
He slid one arm beneath Sophia and lifted her against his chest.
The hallway went completely still.
Sophia immediately placed both hands behind her back.
Dante looked at her.
“What are you doing?”
“Walking.”
“You’re not walking.”
“You are.”
For the second time in less than a minute, something almost resembling amusement moved across his face.
Then Sophia noticed the locked door.
“What’s in there?”
Everything changed.
Rosa saw it happen.
The softness disappeared from Dante’s eyes.
“That room is closed.”
“Why?”
“Sophia,” Rosa warned.
“Because nobody uses it.”
Sophia studied the brass handle.
“Somebody does.”
Dante stopped.
Rosa felt the hairs rise along her arms.
“What did you say?” he asked.
Sophia pointed.
“Lady.”
Nobody moved.
Dante’s voice became very quiet.
“What lady?”
“The pretty one.”
Rosa crossed the hallway.
“That’s enough.”
But Dante didn’t look at her.
“When?”
Sophia shrugged.
“Yesterday.”
“That door has been locked for eighteen months.”
Sophia frowned as though Dante was being difficult.
“She came out.”
Dante lowered her carefully.
“Describe her.”
Sophia looked toward Rosa for help.
Rosa crouched.
“Honey, did you actually see someone come through this door?”
Sophia nodded.
“What did she look like?”
“Yellow hair.”
Marina had blond hair.
So did two women on the housekeeping staff.
Rosa relaxed slightly.
Then Sophia said, “She had the shiny bird.”
Dante’s face emptied.
Rosa noticed.
“What bird?”
Dante reached beneath his shirt.
A thin chain appeared.
Hanging from it was a tiny silver falcon.
Sophia pointed excitedly.
“That!”
Dante looked toward the locked door.
“Carmela owned another one.”
Rosa stood.
“Could Sophia have seen a photograph?”
“No.”
His answer came immediately.
“The pendant was custom-made. Two pieces. I have one.”
“And Carmela had the other?”
Dante nodded.
“It was buried with her.”
The corridor suddenly felt colder.
Dante extended his hand toward a guard.
“Key.”
“Sir?”
“The sitting room.”
The guard hesitated.
“Nobody has—”
“I know.”
A master key appeared.
Dante unlocked the door.
For eighteen months, he had walked past it.
Now he entered.
Dust floated through amber afternoon light.
A piano stood near tall windows.
Books lined one wall.
A half-finished embroidery hoop rested beside a chair as if Carmela might return from lunch to complete it.
Dante stopped inside.
Rosa remained at the threshold.
Sophia slipped beneath her arm.
Before Rosa could catch her, the little girl walked toward the fireplace.
Dante whispered, “Don’t touch anything.”
Sophia stopped.
Then pointed underneath a small writing desk.
“Bird.”
Dante crossed the room.
He knelt.
Something metallic glinted behind the desk leg.
He reached beneath it.
When his hand emerged, a silver falcon rested in his palm.
Nobody spoke.
Rosa stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Dante turned the pendant over.
His thumb froze.
There was dried red wax pressed into the back.
“Not impossible,” he said.
His voice had changed.
It was no longer grief speaking.
It was the man everyone outside the estate feared.
“Planted.”
Rosa’s stomach tightened.
“By whom?”
Dante stood.
“Someone who wanted me to open this room.”
A sound came from behind them.
Click.
The door slammed shut.
The lights died.
Rosa grabbed Sophia.
Dante moved immediately.
“Down.”
Rosa dropped behind the sofa with her daughter.
Glass shattered.
Something struck the wall where Dante had been standing.
A suppressed gunshot.
Then another.
Dante overturned a table.
“Stay down!”
Footsteps raced through the service corridor.
Dante drew a pistol from beneath his jacket and fired once toward the broken transom.
A man cried out.
Running followed.
Then silence.
Guards burst through the door seconds later.
Dante stood beside the desk, weapon lowered.
Rosa held Sophia against her chest.
Sophia was trembling now.
The game was gone.
Dante saw it.
He crossed the room, knelt, and gently touched Sophia’s cheek.
“You’re safe.”
Sophia stared at him.
“Bad man?”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“Did he make you lonely?”
That question hit harder than the bullet.
Dante looked toward the silver falcon.
“No.”
He slowly turned it over again.
This time Rosa saw what he had noticed.
Four tiny numbers had been scratched beneath the wax.
4-17-9-3.
Dante whispered them.
Rosa’s eyes moved toward Carmela’s bookshelf.
Something about the numbers bothered her.
“Could they be a book reference?”
Dante looked at her.
Rosa flushed.
“I read a lot.”
For the first time, he seemed to look at his maid as someone other than an employee.
“Try.”
Book four.
Page seventeen.
Line nine.
Third word.
They found the fourth book Carmela had arranged beside her chair.
Rosa opened to page seventeen.
Her finger found line nine.
She counted.
One.
Two.
Three.
The word was:
Brother.
Dante stared at it.
He had only one brother.
Matteo Falcone.
May you like
The man who had been sitting beside Carmela when she died.
And the man Dante had trusted with his life for thirty-four years.
