Chapter 2 - The Photograph My Grandmother Never Explained
Adrian moved before Hannah understood what was happening.
His hand closed around her wrist.
"Inside."
"Who was that?"
"Now, Hannah."
The figure disappeared.
Two of Adrian's security men crossed the terrace, but Adrian didn't send Hannah after them. Instead he guided her through a side corridor and into a private library.
He locked the door.
Hannah stared at him.
"You cannot drag me into a room and refuse to explain."
"I can when someone who should have been dead for twenty-six years is standing outside."
Her anger vanished.
"What?"
Adrian looked toward the locked door.
"My grandfather died when I was thirteen."
Hannah felt cold.
"Vittorio?"
"Yes."
"The man whose initials are on my grandmother's photo?"
"Yes."
"And you think you just saw him?"
"I know what I saw."
Hannah sat down slowly.
The room seemed to tilt.
"My grandmother never talked about anyone named Moretti."
"Families like mine survive by not talking."
"Mine wasn't like yours."
Adrian gave her a strange look.
"Are you sure?"
Hannah wanted to laugh at the absurdity.
Instead she remembered her grandmother's final months.
Evelyn had been eighty-seven when she died.
Sharp until almost the end.
She had raised Hannah after Hannah's parents died in a highway accident when she was eleven.
Grandma Evelyn had taught her to bake, negotiate a contract, change a tire, and never allow a salesman to convince her she needed something before she knew what it cost.
She had also kept secrets.
There was the locked drawer.
The overseas telephone calls.
The annual trip she claimed was to visit an old friend but refused to discuss.
And the photo.
Hannah touched the clutch.
"She gave me this three days before she died."
"What exactly did she say?"
Hannah closed her eyes.
"She said, 'Keep this close. Someday someone may recognize me.'"
Adrian's stare sharpened.
"Anything else?"
"She told me not to trust people who arrived with perfect explanations."
"Did you ask what that meant?"
"Of course."
"And?"
"She smiled and told me I'd know when the time came."
Adrian's phone rang.
He answered.
"Talk."
A male voice spoke rapidly.
Adrian walked toward the window.
Hannah caught fragments.
No identification.
Vehicle gone.
Camera disabled.
No visual after the east gate.
Adrian ended the call.
"Whoever it was prepared for tonight."
Hannah stood.
"Then we should call the police."
His look almost offended her.
"You think someone infiltrated a gathering with four hundred guests, disabled private security cameras and vanished from an estate guarded by former federal officers because they were worried about local police?"
"When you say it like that..."
"I say things the way they are."
She folded her arms.
"All right. What do you think this is?"
Adrian looked at the photograph.
"I think your grandmother and my grandfather were connected."
"Romantically?"
His eyes flicked toward her.
"Possibly."
Hannah blinked.
"That's uncomfortable."
"Only if you're imagining details."
"I'm trying very hard not to."
A faint hint of humor appeared, then disappeared.
He took the photograph.
"May I?"
Hannah nodded.
Adrian held it beneath a desk lamp.
"There's an edge here."
"What?"
He slid a fingernail beneath the backing.
The photograph separated.
Hannah stood quickly.
"You're tearing it."
"No."
A second piece of thin paper had been hidden behind the photograph.
Adrian carefully pulled it free.
It was a handwritten sequence.
17-4-32.
Below it:
E + V.
Hannah's pulse quickened.
"Evelyn and Vittorio?"
"Maybe."
"And the numbers?"
"I don't know."
His phone rang again.
This time he rejected it.
Hannah stared at him.
"You didn't answer."
"I know."
"Why?"
"Because I know who's calling."
"Who?"
"My uncle."
"Why wouldn't you answer your uncle?"
"Because my uncle told me Vittorio died in his arms."
The room became very quiet.
Hannah took the note.
"Could the date mean something?"
"Seventeen-four-thirty-two isn't a valid modern date."
"Could be a combination."
Adrian looked around.
"Combination to what?"
She thought about her grandmother's desk.
The locked drawer.
"No."
"What?"
"I have a safe."
His gaze sharpened.
"Where?"
"In my apartment."
"Did your grandmother own it?"
"Yes."
"Combination?"
"I never knew it. I had the lock replaced after she died."
Adrian swore softly.
"What?"
"If that number opens the original mechanism—"
"It doesn't exist anymore."
"Unless the safe had a second compartment."
Hannah stared.
"You sound like you've seen that before."
"My family likes hidden compartments."
"Of course they do."
Adrian almost smiled again.
Hannah hated how reassuring she found that.
Then she remembered Derek.
Her stomach tightened.
"What did your man mean when he said Derek didn't meet me by accident?"
Adrian's expression changed.
"I don't know yet."
"You know something."
"I know Derek attended a private Langford meeting three weeks before he met you."
"That proves nothing."
"The meeting was about the Reed Foundation."
Hannah went still.
Her grandmother had established the foundation decades earlier.
Scholarships.
Women's shelters.
Educational grants.
Most of its funding came from old investments Hannah had inherited.
"What kind of meeting?"
"We're checking."
"You think Derek targeted me for money?"
"Would that surprise you?"
Hannah looked away.
It shouldn't have.
Derek had become increasingly interested in merging their finances after the engagement.
He encouraged her to give him voting authority over several foundation-related investments.
She refused.
At the time, he had sulked for days.
She had mistaken his frustration for wounded trust.
Now it looked different.
Adrian came closer.
"Hannah."
"What?"
"This is not your shame."
She looked at him.
"I didn't say it was."
"You look like you're trying to figure out how you failed to notice."
The accuracy irritated her.
"I was in love."
"That makes intelligent people overlook stupid things."
"Experience?"
His mouth hardened.
"Yes."
She wanted to ask.
She didn't.
Instead she said, "Why were you at my engagement party?"
Adrian didn't answer.
Hannah's eyes narrowed.
"Derek said he barely knew you."
"He barely does."
"Then why were you invited?"
"I wasn't."
Her breath caught.
"You crashed my engagement?"
"That's an undignified way of putting it."
"What is the dignified way?"
"I came unannounced."
She stared at him.
"Why?"
He looked toward the photograph.
"I received an envelope yesterday."
"What was inside?"
"A photocopy of that exact picture."
The hair on Hannah's arms rose.
"You're lying."
Adrian removed his phone.
He opened a photograph.
There it was.
Grandma Evelyn.
The black car.
Same pose.
Same background.
"Who sent it?"
"No return address."
"Anything else?"
Adrian swiped.
A handwritten message filled the screen.
IF SHE SHOWS YOU THE ORIGINAL, DON'T LET LANGFORD TAKE HER HOME.
Hannah stopped breathing.
"Derek."
"Yes."
She touched the table.
"So you came because of me?"
"I came because someone used my grandfather's handwriting."
Hannah stared.
"You recognized the handwriting?"
"I have hundreds of letters."
"Then the message was written by—"
"Either a very skilled imitator or someone with access to things nobody outside my family should possess."
Adrian's phone vibrated.
This time he answered.
"Yes."
He listened.
His face lost what little softness remained.
"Where?"
Another pause.
"Don't touch anything. I'm coming."
He ended the call.
"What happened?"
"We found the man from your grandmother's locked-desk photograph."
"Where?"
Adrian hesitated.
"Dead."
Hannah felt the room narrow around her.
"Who was he?"
"We're working on it."
"And you're going there?"
"Yes."
"I'm coming."
"No."
"Adrian—"
"No."
"That man's picture was in my grandmother's desk. This involves me."
"Which is exactly why you aren't going."
Hannah stepped toward him.
"You don't get to control me because I kissed you."
His dark eyes held hers.
"No. But if somebody planned your relationship with Derek before you ever met him, I'm going to assume you are in danger until I know otherwise."
She hated that it made sense.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Go home."
"Alone?"
"I'll send security."
She laughed once.
"That sounds completely normal."
"Normal left your evening roughly around the moment you kissed me."
She looked at him.
"Do you regret it?"
The question escaped before she could stop it.
Adrian stared at her.
"No."
One word.
It landed harder than it should have.
Before she could respond, someone knocked.
Three precise taps.
Adrian opened the door.
His security chief spoke quietly.
"Car is ready."
Adrian nodded.
Then he took Hannah's hand.
Not her wrist this time.
Her hand.
"I'll take you home first."
The drive was silent.
Hannah lived in a renovated brownstone in Manhattan's West Village, though lately she had spent most nights at Derek's penthouse.
That fact suddenly made her nauseous.
When the SUV stopped, Adrian exited with her.
Two security men went ahead.
"Necessary?" she asked.
"Yes."
They entered the building.
The hallway appeared normal.
Her apartment door was closed.
Adrian's man checked it.
"Clear."
Hannah unlocked it.
She switched on the lights.
Everything looked exactly as she'd left it.
Books.
Flowers.
A pair of shoes beside the sofa.
Her grandmother's old piano.
For the first time that evening, Hannah breathed properly.
Then Adrian looked toward the hallway.
"Where is the safe?"
"Bedroom."
They walked inside.
Hannah moved to the closet.
The safe stood behind a sliding panel.
She opened the outer door with her current code.
Documents.
Jewelry.
Old letters.
Nothing strange.
Adrian crouched.
"Remove everything."
They emptied the shelves.
Adrian ran his fingers along the back.
Nothing.
Hannah felt foolish.
"Maybe we're imagining—"
Click.
A narrow plate shifted.
Hannah's mouth opened.
Adrian pressed.
A second door appeared behind the safe.
It had three rotating number wheels.
Hannah whispered, "Seventeen. Four. Thirty-two."
Adrian entered the numbers.
The hidden compartment unlocked.
Neither moved.
Finally Hannah reached inside.
There was a red velvet box.
A stack of documents.
And an old cassette recorder.
Hannah lifted the box.
Inside lay a man's gold ring.
The initials V.M.R. were engraved inside.
Adrian stared at it.
"My grandfather's."
Hannah looked at him.
"Why did my grandmother have your grandfather's wedding ring?"
Adrian didn't respond.
She reached for the documents.
The first was a property deed.
The second, a bank record.
Then Hannah found a birth certificate.
Her hands began shaking.
The name at the top was Evelyn Marie Reed.
Mother: Margaret Reed.
Father:
Vittorio Matteo Moretti.
Hannah slowly raised her eyes.
"Adrian..."
He was staring at the certificate.
"My grandfather was your grandmother's father?"
"No."
Adrian took it.
His expression changed.
"The dates don't work."
Hannah blinked.
"What?"
"He would have been twelve."
A sound came from behind them.
Both turned.
The apartment door had opened.
Footsteps entered the hallway.
Adrian moved in front of Hannah.
"Hannah," he whispered, "stay behind me."
The bedroom handle began to turn.
Then a woman's voice called softly from outside.
"Hannah?"
Hannah's blood froze.
Because she knew that voice.
It belonged to someone who had been buried three years ago.
May you like
Her grandmother said her name again.
"Hannah, sweetheart... open the door."
