Chapter 3 - THE KEY
Dr. Hayes arrived twelve minutes later.
By then, Camille had been moved to the west sitting room with Lucia and two female security officers outside the door.
Not because she was a prisoner.
Because I no longer trusted what she might do if left alone.
Vincent Caruso had surrendered his phone and security badge after Marco discovered that someone using Vincent’s credentials had accessed restricted camera archives on four separate nights.
Vincent claimed his credentials had been stolen.
Marco did not believe him.
Neither did I.
But Elena was the person I cared about at that moment.
She sat on a sofa in the library while Dr. Hayes carefully removed the wet sleeve from her arm.
The burn looked painful.
Fortunately, it wasn’t as severe as I had feared.
“It should heal,” Dr. Hayes said. “But we need to keep it covered and watch for infection.”
Elena nodded.
“Thank you.”
She never complained.
That bothered me.
People who never complained usually learned silence somewhere painful.
I stood near the fireplace.
“You’re taking tomorrow off.”
Elena looked at me.
“I can work.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
Her eyes narrowed.
For a second I expected her to nod obediently.
Instead she said, “I need the hours.”
The honesty surprised me.
“I’ll pay you.”
“I don’t want charity.”
“It isn’t charity. You were injured at work.”
“By your fiancée.”
“Former fiancée.”
She looked down.
“Right.”
The word carried no satisfaction.
I understood why.
Ending my engagement didn’t heal her arm.
It didn’t bring Margaret back six months earlier.
And it didn’t explain Rosa.
When Dr. Hayes finished, he gave Elena instructions and left.
Margaret remained near the window with Lucia.
Marco entered carrying a laptop.
“We have a problem.”
I almost laughed.
“Only one?”
He ignored that.
“The camera archive from the night Rosa Alvarez disappeared is gone.”
“Gone how?”
“Deleted.”
“By Vincent?”
“That’s what I thought.”
He opened the laptop.
“Except Vincent was in Miami with you that night.”
I frowned.
I remembered the trip.
A shipping conference.
Vincent had been part of my security team.
“So someone used his credentials.”
“Correct.”
“Who had access?”
Marco hesitated.
“That list is short.”
“How short?”
“Me. Vincent. Two system administrators.”
“And?”
He looked at me.
“Camille.”
Lucia cursed quietly.
I stared at Marco.
“Why did Camille have security access?”
“She didn’t.”
He turned the laptop toward me.
“She had your master code.”
My stomach tightened.
I knew exactly where she had gotten it.
Three months earlier, I had been driving to Cape Cod when Camille called because she had locked herself out of the private garage.
I had given her the code.
Six digits.
I never changed it.
A stupid mistake.
My father used to say betrayal rarely entered through a broken window.
Most of the time, you opened the door yourself.
“Change everything.”
“Already happening.”
I looked at Elena.
“The key.”
Her shoulders tensed.
“I don’t have it here.”
“Where is it?”
She hesitated.
Marco said, “If someone has been searching for it, we need to secure it.”
Elena looked at him.
“With respect, Mr. Bellini, security is part of the reason I’m scared.”
Marco absorbed the insult without reacting.
“She’s right,” I said.
He looked at me.
“If Vincent’s credentials were used and the cameras were erased, she has no reason to trust us.”
Marco nodded slowly.
“Fair.”
Elena seemed surprised.
I sat in the chair opposite her.
“Where is the key?”
“I hid it.”
“Can you bring us to it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody knows where it is except me.”
“That’s generally the point of hiding something.”
Lucia almost smiled.
Elena didn’t.
“If I take you there and the wrong person is watching, then it’s gone.”
That was when I understood something important about her.
She wasn’t timid.
She was cautious.
There was a difference.
Camille had mistaken one for the other.
Perhaps I had too.
“What do you suggest?” I asked.
Elena studied me.
“Rosa told me not to trust anyone who already knew what the key opened.”
I leaned back.
“You said you don’t know what it opens.”
“I don’t.”
“But Rosa did.”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you anything else?”
Elena closed her eyes.
I waited.
Finally she said, “She said if anyone asked about a blue ledger, I should say I’d never seen it.”
Marco and I exchanged a look.
“A ledger?” Lucia asked.
Elena nodded.
“Was it in Camille’s office?”
“I think so.”
“What was in it?”
“I never saw it.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“I did.”
Every head turned.
Camille’s former head housekeeper looked ten years older than she had when she entered the dining room.
“You saw the ledger?” I asked.
“Once.”
“When?”
“About a week before I was accused of stealing.”
She clasped her hands.
“I was bringing clean linens upstairs when Camille asked me to put a folder in her office. There was a blue book open on the desk.”
“What kind of book?”
“Accounts.”
I stood straighter.
“You read it?”
“Only what I could see.”
“What did you see?”
Margaret looked toward Lucia.
“Moretti Foundation.”
That got my attention.
The Moretti Foundation was one of the few parts of my family name my mother had been proud of.
Hospitals.
Scholarships.
Domestic violence shelters.
Food programs.
My mother had founded it before cancer took her.
Lucia now chaired it.
Her face went cold.
“What about the Foundation?”
Margaret continued.
“There were payments listed. Large ones. But the company names looked strange.”
Lucia moved toward her.
“What names?”
“I remember one. North Harbor Consulting.”
Lucia went completely still.
I noticed immediately.
“What?”
She turned toward me.
“We paid North Harbor almost two million dollars last year.”
“For what?”
“Community outreach.”
“Do they actually exist?”
“I assumed they did.”
“Who approved them?”
Lucia’s eyes hardened.
“Camille brought them in.”
Silence.
I reached for my phone.
“Get Natalie Ward here.”
Marco nodded.
Natalie was my attorney and one of the few people who could tell me I was being an idiot without losing her job.
Lucia sat beside Elena.
“Did Rosa mention North Harbor?”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
“Any other names?”
“No.”
Margaret suddenly frowned.
“There was another.”
“What?”
“Prescott.”
Lucia looked at me.
Margaret continued.
“Not Camille’s name exactly. Prescott Development Services.”
I knew that company.
Camille’s older brother Adrian owned it.
At least on paper.
Adrian Prescott was charming, expensive, and permanently one bad decision away from bankruptcy.
Camille had asked me twice to invest in his projects.
I refused both times.
Apparently she had found another way into my money.
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“Vincent’s gone.”
The room changed instantly.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“He asked to use the bathroom. Officer stayed outside the door. Window was open.”
I stared at him.
“The bathroom window?”
“Ground floor.”
“Find him.”
Marco was already moving.
“Marco.”
He stopped.
“Quietly.”
He understood.
No dramatic chase.
No armed men tearing through neighborhoods.
I wanted answers, not headlines.
Lucia’s phone buzzed.
Then mine.
Then Margaret’s.
Three devices almost simultaneously.
I looked down.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
Elena walking into the Moretti estate that morning.
Taken from across the street.
Below it was a message.
SHE SHOULD HAVE GIVEN BACK THE KEY.
My eyes lifted.
Elena saw my face.
“What?”
I crossed the room and showed her.
The color disappeared from her cheeks.
Margaret covered her mouth.
Lucia whispered, “Jesus.”
Elena stared at the image.
Then something in her expression changed.
“That isn’t from this morning.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“What?”
“My shoes.”
I glanced down at her feet.
Black flats.
In the photograph, she wore white sneakers.
“When was this taken?”
“Three days ago.”
A worse thought occurred to me.
“So someone has been watching you for at least three days.”
Elena looked toward the tall library windows.
Marco walked over and closed the curtains.
“We move her somewhere secure.”
“No,” Elena said.
“It isn’t optional.”
She stood.
“Yes, it is.”
“Elena—”
“I have a brother.”
I stopped.
“You never mentioned a brother.”
“He’s seventeen.”
“Where is he?”
“At home.”
Every protective instinct in the room changed direction.
“Call him,” I said.
She already had her phone out.
It rang.
Once.
Twice.
Five times.
No answer.
Elena’s face tightened.
“He should be home.”
“Call again.”
She did.
Nothing.
Marco was at the door before I spoke.
“Address?”
Elena gave it.
Marco relayed it to his team.
I reached for my coat.
Elena looked at me.
“Where are you going?”
“With you.”
“You don’t need to—”
“My former fiancée may be involved in threatening you, someone connected to my security system is missing, and your seventeen-year-old brother isn’t answering his phone.”
I put on my coat.
“I’m going.”
Lucia stood too.
“No.”
She glared.
“You don’t order me around.”
“Tonight I do. Stay with Margaret.”
She recognized my tone.
For once, she didn’t argue.
Twenty minutes later, Elena sat beside me in the rear of an SUV as rain streaked across the windows.
Her home was in Somerville.
A small second-floor apartment above a closed bakery.
As we turned onto her street, Marco’s voice came through the radio.
“Gabriel.”
I heard something in his tone.
“What?”
“Our team is inside.”
Elena leaned forward.
“My brother?”
A pause.
Then Marco answered.
“The apartment is empty.”
Elena went white.
I grabbed her hand before she could open the moving car door.
“Wait.”
She looked at me with panic in her eyes.
“Where is Noah?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The SUV stopped.
Elena was out before the driver fully parked.
I followed.
The apartment door upstairs had been forced open.
Drawers covered the floor.
Couch cushions had been cut.
Cabinets stood open.
Someone had searched everything.
Elena ran to a small bedroom.
“Noah!”
Nothing.
She turned in a circle.
Then froze.
On the desk sat a blue envelope.
Her name was written across the front.
ELENA.
She approached slowly.
Marco reached for it.
“Don’t.”
Elena picked it up herself.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
And a photograph.
The photograph showed Noah standing outside his high school that afternoon.
The note contained seven words.
BRING THE KEY IF YOU WANT HIM BACK.
Elena made a sound I would remember for years.
Not a scream.
Something smaller.
Broken.
I took the note from her shaking hand.
Then I noticed something written at the bottom in different ink.
Four numbers.
Elena stared at them.
Her breathing stopped.
“What?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“That’s Rosa’s number.”
“What number?”
Elena swallowed.
“The number she made me memorize before she disappeared.”
My hand tightened around the paper.
“What does it mean?”
May you like
She looked toward the wreckage of her apartment.
“I think it tells us where the key goes.”
