Chapter 1 - The Door That Should Have Been Locked
Sofia stood on a paint-streaked stool, whispering:
“She needed one more butterfly.”
When Vincent Moretti entered, he found a tiny yellow-handled paintbrush beside the portrait of his dead daughter.
Three letters were scratched into the wooden handle:
“L.M.”
Vincent realized Sofia had not found the brush by accident.
Maria Alvarez reached her daughter before anyone else could move.
She wrapped both arms around the little girl and lifted her from the stool so quickly that Sofia gave a startled squeak. Yellow paint streaked Maria’s black housekeeping dress. A dot of blue landed on her cheek.
Maria did not notice.
She was staring at Vincent Moretti.
Every employee in the estate knew what that room meant.
Nobody entered.
Nobody cleaned it.
Nobody opened the curtains.
Nobody touched the doorknob.
The eastern corridor ended with that door, and for the eleven months Maria had worked in the Moretti residence, she had never once seen it unlocked.
Until today.
“Sir,” Maria said.
Her voice failed.
She swallowed.
“She slipped away while I was serving lunch downstairs. I didn’t know she had come up here.”
Vincent did not answer.
He stood just inside the doorway, one hand still around the brass knob.
The man who frightened senators, businessmen, policemen, and men who had spent half their lives carrying guns looked as if someone had punched the air from his lungs.
He was not looking at Maria.
He was looking at the wall.
Butterflies covered the faded plaster.
Pink ones.
Blue ones.
Purple ones with uneven wings.
Along the bottom were flowers painted in the careless, joyful strokes of a child who had never worried whether colors belonged together.
At the center stood a painted girl in a yellow dress.
The figure had remained unfinished for four years.
Until Sofia.
The toddler had added a left hand, three yellow flowers, and one final pink butterfly hovering beside the painted girl’s face.
Vincent took one step closer.
Then another.
Maria tightened her grip on Sofia.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I’ll fix it. I’ll pay for the wall. I know I shouldn’t have brought Sofia to work, but my neighbor canceled and—”
“Stop.”
Vincent’s voice was quiet.
That frightened Maria more than shouting would have.
She stopped.
Sofia peeked over her mother’s shoulder.
The little girl studied Vincent with the fearless curiosity only children possessed.
“Are you mad?” she asked.
Maria shut her eyes.
“Sofia.”
“What?”
“You don’t ask Mr. Moretti things like that.”
Vincent finally looked at the child.
His dark eyes were wet.
“No,” he said.
Sofia frowned.
“You look mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“You look sad, too.”
Maria wanted the floor to swallow her.
Vincent did something even more unexpected.
He crouched.
His expensive trousers touched a patch of dried paint near the wall.
He held up the tiny brush.
“Where did you get this?”
Sofia pointed toward a low wooden cabinet beneath the window.
“In there.”
Vincent looked at the cabinet.
It had three drawers.
All three were closed.
“That drawer was locked,” he said.
Sofia shrugged.
“It wasn’t.”
Vincent’s head turned sharply.
Maria caught the movement.
So did the two guards standing outside the room.
One of them, Marco, immediately straightened.
Vincent rose.
“Who opened this room?”
Nobody answered.
“Who opened that drawer?”
Silence.
Vincent’s face changed.
The grief remained, but something colder moved beneath it.
Maria had seen that expression only twice before.
Once when a stranger had tried entering the estate with a false delivery badge.
Once when Vincent had discovered an employee stealing medication prescribed for his elderly aunt.
Both men had disappeared from the property before sunset.
Sofia reached for the brush.
Vincent looked down.
“It’s hers,” she said.
“Whose?”
“The girl.”
Vincent stared at her.
Sofia pointed at the framed photograph above the little art table.
A younger Vincent smiled from inside the frame.
Beside him stood a child of perhaps five.
She had dark curls.
A yellow sundress.
A smile so wide it seemed impossible that grief could ever have existed in the same world as her.
Lucia Moretti.
Vincent’s daughter.
Dead at six.
Everyone in the house knew her name.
Nobody spoke it.
“She told me,” Sofia said.
Maria froze.
Vincent’s face emptied.
“What did you say?”
“Sofia,” Maria whispered.
But the child continued.
“She said the butterfly was missing.”
Vincent took one slow step toward her.
Maria instinctively backed away.
He stopped immediately.
For the first time, she saw something almost like fear in him.
Not fear of her.
Fear of what he wanted to ask.
“Sofia,” he said carefully, “did somebody bring you here?”
“No.”
“Did somebody tell you about this room?”
“No.”
“Did somebody tell you the girl’s name?”
Sofia shook her head.
Vincent glanced toward Maria.
She knew what he was thinking.
“No,” Maria said. “I’ve never spoken to her about your daughter.”
Marco entered the room.
“Boss.”
Vincent did not turn.
“What?”
“We checked the corridor camera.”
“And?”
Marco hesitated.
Maria saw the hesitation.
Vincent heard it.
“And?”
“The camera went dark at eleven fourteen.”
“For how long?”
“Nine minutes.”
Sofia had disappeared from the downstairs servants’ sitting room at approximately eleven sixteen.
Maria felt the blood drain from her face.
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
“Who has access?”
“Security. You. Mr. Bellini.”
Rocco Bellini.
Vincent’s consigliere.
His oldest friend.
The man who had worked for Vincent’s father and had known Lucia since the day she was born.
Vincent looked toward the painting again.
His fingers tightened around the brush.
“Find Rocco.”
Marco nodded.
“And lock the estate.”
Maria stepped forward.
“Mr. Moretti, I should take Sofia home.”
“No.”
The word came fast.
Maria stiffened.
Vincent looked at her.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly. My daughter went somewhere she shouldn’t have gone. I apologized. We’re leaving.”
“You’re not.”
Maria’s fear turned instantly into anger.
“She is my daughter.”
“And somebody disabled my security system at the exact moment she walked into the only room in this house nobody is allowed to enter.”
Maria stared at him.
“You think someone wanted her here?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Sofia rested her head against Maria’s shoulder.
Suddenly she looked very small.
Vincent lowered his voice.
“Until I know who opened that door, neither of you leaves this house.”
Maria almost laughed from disbelief.
“You can’t keep us prisoner.”
“No.”
His eyes went toward the corridor.
“But I can keep you alive.”
That sentence changed the room.
Maria looked toward Marco.
The guard was no longer watching Vincent.
He was watching the staircase.
His hand hovered near the inside of his jacket.
Vincent noticed.
“What?”
Marco pressed a finger to the radio in his ear.
His expression changed.
“Boss, we found something downstairs.”
“What?”
“A package.”
“From who?”
“No name.”
“Where?”
“On the kitchen counter.”
Maria frowned.
“I was in the kitchen twenty minutes ago.”
Marco met her eyes.
“It wasn’t there then.”
Vincent handed the paintbrush to Maria.
“Stay here.”
He turned toward the door.
Sofia suddenly grabbed the sleeve of his suit.
Vincent stopped.
“Don’t go,” she said.
He looked down at her tiny hand.
“Why?”
The little girl pointed toward the painting.
“The sad girl said the bad man came back.”
No one spoke.
Then footsteps pounded down the eastern corridor.
A second guard appeared at the doorway holding a white envelope between two gloved fingers.
“Boss.”
Vincent turned.
“What’s inside?”
The guard looked at Maria.
Then at Sofia.
Then back at Vincent.
“A photograph.”
“Of what?”
The guard slowly raised it.
Maria saw herself in the picture.
She was walking Sofia to preschool three days earlier.
A red circle had been drawn around the child’s head.
And beneath it were six words.
Vincent read them once.
His entire expression changed.
Then Rocco Bellini’s voice came from the corridor behind them.
“What the hell happened in here?”
Vincent turned toward his oldest friend.
The photograph slipped slightly between his fingers.
On the back was a handwritten name.
May you like
Vincent had not seen that handwriting in four years.
It belonged to a dead man.
