Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW THE HOUSE
By sunrise, every employee at the Rossi estate had been searched, questioned, and temporarily confined to the property.
Harper hated the idea.
She hated more that she understood it.
Victor wanted her moved somewhere secure.
She refused.
He wanted guards outside her apartment.
She refused that too.
Finally they compromised.
One plainclothes guard in a parked car across the street.
Harper hated compromises with Victor because they usually looked suspiciously like Victor getting eighty percent of what he wanted.
At nine, Mrs. Alvarez called.
“Finn won't go to school.”
Harper closed her eyes.
“Did he sleep?”
“Two hours.”
“Has he eaten?”
“Toast.”
“Any vomiting?”
“No.”
“Nightmares?”
“Three.”
Harper looked toward Victor.
He stood beside her cousin's kitchen table studying security photographs.
He heard everything.
“Put him on.”
A small voice answered.
“Harper?”
“Hi, bug.”
“Are you coming home?”
Harper's heart twisted.
“No.”
Silence.
“But I'm going to see you today.”
Victor looked up sharply.
Harper ignored him.
“When?”
“After lunch.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Finn breathed out.
“Okay.”
“Can you do something for me first?”
“What?”
“Eat eggs.”
“No.”
“One egg.”
“No.”
“Half an egg.”
Finn considered.
“Can it be triangle?”
Harper frowned.
“How does Rosa make an egg triangle?”
“I don't know.”
Mrs. Alvarez shouted something in Spanish in the background.
Finn giggled.
Harper smiled.
“That sounded promising.”
“Okay. Triangle egg.”
“Deal.”
They hung up.
Victor stared.
“What?”
“Triangle egg?”
“Don't ask.”
“I own six restaurants.”
“And none of them can make an egg your son will eat when he's upset.”
Victor said nothing.
Harper regretted the sharpness.
Almost.
Marco entered.
“We found something.”
He placed three employee files on the table.
“Tablet logs show someone accessed it physically at 12:58.”
Harper frowned.
“Finn was still home then?”
“Yes. In the library with Rosa.”
“So who was in the playroom?”
“Camera covering the hall went offline for nine minutes.”
Victor's jaw flexed.
“Convenient.”
“Three staff badges entered that wing around that period.”
Marco opened the files.
“Daniel, maintenance. Elise, house staff. Nathan, private tutor.”
Harper looked immediately at the third photograph.
“No.”
Victor watched her.
“What?”
“Nathan wasn't there.”
Marco frowned.
“His badge says he was.”
“He teaches Finn Tuesdays and Fridays. Yesterday was Friday?”
“Thursday.”
“Exactly.”
Victor's eyes narrowed.
“So why was he there?”
Harper grabbed her phone.
She opened old calendar messages.
“Nathan canceled all Thursday sessions six months ago because he started teaching at St. Matthew's.”
Marco looked at Victor.
Victor's expression darkened.
“Nobody updated his access privileges.”
Harper stared at him.
“I sent three emails about that.”
Victor's gaze shifted.
“To whom?”
“Security administration.”
Marco swore softly.
Victor turned.
“Find who handled them.”
Marco left.
Harper folded her arms.
“This is what I mean.”
Victor looked at her.
“What?”
“You have a giant system everybody is terrified to challenge, so when something fails, people hide it instead of correcting it.”
“My security team is one of the best in the country.”
“Your five-year-old walked through the gate yesterday.”
Victor's nostrils flared.
Harper held his gaze.
He didn't argue.
Progress.
Ugly progress, but progress.
Nathan's apartment was empty.
His phone had been disconnected.
His bank account had received eighty thousand dollars three weeks earlier.
Victor wanted him found.
Marco found something better.
A photograph.
Nathan standing outside a coffee shop with a man in a baseball cap.
The man's face was partially turned.
Victor stared at it.
Then sat down.
Harper noticed his hand.
It trembled once.
“Who is he?”
Victor didn't answer.
Marco did.
“Gabriel.”
Harper's stomach dropped.
Victor looked older suddenly.
Not weak.
Just tired in a way Harper had never seen.
“Your brother is alive.”
Victor stared at the photograph.
“Yes.”
“Five years.”
“Yes.”
“And he came back for Finn?”
Victor's eyes lifted.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if Gabriel wanted Finn dead, Finn would be dead.”
Harper hated how calmly he said it.
“Then what does he want?”
Victor's expression hardened.
“Me.”
Finn's afternoon visit took place at Harper's apartment.
Victor disagreed.
Harper won.
Barely.
Finn arrived carrying his green dragon and a backpack apparently packed for a six-month expedition.
He ran into Harper's arms.
She caught him.
Victor stood in the doorway.
Harper looked over Finn's shoulder.
Victor's eyes lingered on them.
Something complicated moved across his face.
He turned away first.
For two hours, Harper and Finn built a cardboard city on the living room floor.
Victor sat at the kitchen table pretending to read emails.
He watched.
Harper noticed.
She said nothing.
Finn placed a cardboard bridge between two cereal-box towers.
“Dad, yours is jail.”
Victor looked up.
“Excuse me?”
Finn handed him a small shoe box.
“Build jail.”
Victor stared at it.
Harper bit the inside of her cheek.
“Why am I building jail?”
“Because you know jail.”
Harper choked.
Victor slowly looked at her.
“Don't.”
“I didn't say anything.”
Finn frowned.
“Dad hasn't been to jail.”
Victor relaxed slightly.
“He sends people there.”
Harper coughed violently.
Victor closed his eyes.
“Who told you that?”
“TV.”
“No more news channels.”
Finn continued coloring.
Harper watched Victor.
For the first time, she saw him not as the terrifying man everyone described but as an exhausted father hopelessly unprepared for a child who asked direct questions.
Then Finn said, “Harper, Dad says you don't want to live with us.”
Victor froze.
Harper's head snapped up.
“I said she doesn't work for us anymore.”
Finn looked confused.
“Same thing.”
Harper sat beside him.
“I still care about you.”
“But you won't come back.”
“No.”
“Because Dad said you're fat?”
Victor nearly dropped his phone.
Harper stared.
Finn continued.
“I think you're soft.”
Harper's throat tightened.
Victor looked like he wanted the floor to open beneath him.
Finn climbed into Harper's lap.
“Soft is better.”
Harper kissed his head.
“Thank you.”
“Dad is hard.”
Victor's eyebrows rose.
“Apparently I'm participating in this conversation now.”
Finn poked Victor's stomach when he came closer.
“Hard.”
Then poked Harper's arm.
“Soft.”
“Scientific,” Harper said.
Finn nodded.
“I like soft.”
Victor looked at Harper.
She met his gaze.
The humiliation she had felt two nights earlier was still there.
But Finn's little arms around her reminded her of something Victor had tried to make her forget.
Her body had never been the problem.
People who believed kindness depended on size were the problem.
Finn yawned.
Harper checked the time.
“Home.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Sleep here.”
Victor opened his mouth.
Harper gave him a look.
He closed it.
“Finn,” Harper said, “your bed is at home.”
Finn's face tightened.
“Gabriel can get me.”
The room froze.
Victor stood so fast the chair scraped backward.
“What did you say?”
Finn flinched.
Harper grabbed his hand.
“Victor.”
He lowered his voice.
“Finn, who told you that name?”
The boy stared at the cardboard city.
“Nathan.”
Harper's blood turned cold.
“When?”
Finn shrugged.
“What did Nathan say?” Harper asked.
“He said Uncle Gabriel watches us.”
Victor went white.
“What else?”
Finn began picking at tape.
“He said don't tell Dad.”
“Why?”
“Because Dad made Gabriel go away.”
Victor crouched.
“When did he tell you this?”
“A lot.”
Harper stared.
“Nathan was grooming him.”
Victor's face changed instantly.
A predator had entered his son's safe world and trained him to keep secrets.
Victor looked close to murder.
Harper touched his arm.
“Not in front of Finn.”
Victor controlled himself.
Barely.
Finn suddenly pointed toward the cardboard house.
“Nathan said if Harper ever goes away, I'm supposed to look for the red door.”
Harper frowned.
“What red door?”
Finn shrugged.
“The one Mommy knew.”
Victor stopped breathing.
“Finn.”
The boy looked at him.
“What red door?”
“I don't know.”
Victor turned toward Marco.
“Get the property blueprints.”
“Which property?”
Victor's eyes stayed on Finn.
“All of them.”
The red door belonged to a storage structure on the abandoned Rossi family estate north of the city.
Victor hadn't visited it in thirteen years.
Elena had.
Harper discovered that from an old photograph.
Elena stood beside the building six months before her death.
Behind her was a narrow red door.
On the back of the photograph she'd written:
If Victor won't listen, this is where I keep the truth.
Victor stared at the handwriting.
Harper looked at him.
“She left you evidence.”
“Yes.”
“And you never found it.”
“No.”
“Because?”
His jaw tightened.
“I never saw this photograph.”
Marco looked from the photograph toward the security screen.
“Then someone wanted us to find it now.”
Harper's skin prickled.
Victor understood immediately.
“It's a trap.”
Marco nodded.
The phone rang.
Victor answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He looked toward Finn.
“When?”
Harper stood.
Victor lowered the phone.
“There's been an explosion.”
“Where?”
“The old estate.”
Silence.
Marco swore.
Victor looked again at Elena's photograph.
Gabriel wasn't merely returning.
May you like
He was erasing whatever Elena had left behind.
And he had started before Victor even knew where to look.
