Chapter 3 - The Children Behind the Locked Door
Dante moved Mia and Toby to the north guest wing before dawn. He called it a precaution. Mia called it another prison. I watched her stand in the doorway holding her sketchbook against her chest, and I knew she was right about one thing: adults kept changing the rules without explaining why.
I asked Dante for five minutes alone with them. He looked at the two frightened faces and stepped aside.
“We know someone has been watching your school route,” I said. “You are not in trouble. We are changing where you sleep while we find out who.”
Toby asked whether the men who killed his father were coming back. I refused to promise what I could not control. “People are working to stop them. I will tell you the truth when I know it.”
At breakfast, Mia showed me a drawing of the broken mirror. She had shaded a little black rectangle behind its frame. It wasn't the strongbox. It was a ventilation grille. Through it, she said, she'd heard Giselle talking to someone the night before the engagement. The woman had said the words 'second ledger' and 'the girl in the laundry.'
My stomach tightened. I had handled dozens of sealed laundry bags that week. One arrived from the Boston townhouse and carried an unfamiliar stitched label. I went to the service basement and found the bag missing from the shelves.
The estate manager, Mr. Bell, claimed it had been sent out for disposal. He couldn't explain why a locked inventory book showed the bag checked in twice. I photographed the page while he was distracted by his ringing phone.
That evening a courier delivered an envelope with no return address. Inside was my torn lace cuff, washed clean, and a message written in blue ink: YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN GIVEN ONE CHANCE TO LEAVE.
May you like
I showed it to Dante. He read the message once, then handed it back instead of taking it away. “What do you want to do?” he asked.
“Find the person who knows what was in that bag,” I said. “And tell the police about the threat.”
