Chapter 3 - The Room Behind the Wine Cellar
Dominic reached the mansion in eleven minutes.
He did not remember most of the drive.
Victor DeLuca had been part of his life before Dominic understood what family meant.
When Dominic’s father suffered his first heart attack, Victor had run the organization for six months.
When Anna disappeared, Victor had been the man who held Dominic outside the Coast Guard station and told him hope could become cruelty if he refused to let go.
Now Victor had been standing inside Dominic’s bedroom with a gun.
And someone had been hiding in the closet behind him.
By the time Dominic entered the mansion, Victor was gone.
No broken doors.
No forced windows.
No alarm.
Nothing.
“He had access,” Luca said.
Dominic walked directly upstairs.
The bedroom was untouched.
On the bed lay a single photograph.
Dominic picked it up.
It showed himself and Anna as children.
Dominic was eleven.
Anna was eight.
Their father stood between them.
Victor stood behind all three.
A black X had been drawn over Dominic’s father.
Another X covered Victor.
Nothing covered the children.
On the reverse was a message.
Your father started it. Victor finished it.
Dominic read it twice.
Elena entered behind him carrying Lily.
“You should both be somewhere safe.”
Elena laughed bitterly.
“Apparently nowhere in this house is safe.”
Dominic could not argue.
Lily pointed toward the photograph.
“Who’s that?”
“My sister.”
“The lady from the warehouse?”
“Yes.”
“She looks different.”
“She was younger.”
Lily studied the picture.
Then pointed toward Victor.
“Who’s that?”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“Someone I used to trust.”
Lily seemed satisfied with that explanation.
Children accepted betrayal more simply than adults.
If somebody was bad, they were bad.
Adults spent years inventing reasons the truth might be more complicated.
Dominic looked at Elena.
“Tell me everything you remember from the recording.”
“The one with Anna?”
“Yes.”
“She was sitting in a room. Concrete wall. Small window. She said something to the camera.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t hear clearly.”
“Try.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“She said, ‘He thinks it burned.’”
Dominic frowned.
“What burned?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anything else?”
“There was a clock behind her.”
“What time?”
“Three seventeen.”
“Was it running?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic turned toward Luca.
“The wine cellar.”
Luca stared.
“What?”
“The fire.”
Dominic’s family had owned another property twenty-three years earlier.
A smaller estate outside Newark.
The basement wine cellar had burned after an electrical fault.
His father had rebuilt the property and later sold it.
At least, that was the official story.
“Get the old plans.”
Within thirty minutes, architectural drawings were spread across Dominic’s dining table.
Elena sat with Lily nearby.
Dominic studied the cellar layout.
The old plans showed a storage chamber behind the western wine racks.
A later renovation plan showed the same wall as solid concrete.
“That room disappeared,” Dominic said.
Luca leaned closer.
“Maybe it was sealed after the fire.”
“Or hidden.”
Dominic looked at the property records.
The old estate had never been sold.
A shell company owned it.
That shell company belonged to an investment trust.
And the trustee was Sebastian Vale.
“Find Sebastian.”
Bennett entered.
“We did.”
Dominic looked up.
“Where?”
“County hospital.”
“What happened?”
“Someone found him unconscious in his car.”
“Alive?”
“Barely.”
Dominic grabbed his coat.
At the hospital, Sebastian lay under guard.
His face was bruised.
One wrist was broken.
A tube ran beneath his nose.
Dominic stood beside the bed.
Sebastian opened one eye.
“Dominic.”
“Who did this?”
Sebastian tried to sit.
Pain stopped him.
“Victor.”
“Why?”
“Because I failed.”
“At what?”
“Keeping Elena quiet.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“You forged my signature.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To get her out.”
“You could have told me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Sebastian laughed weakly.
“Because you were the last person I could tell.”
Dominic leaned closer.
“That is the second time someone has said that to me tonight.”
“Maybe you should listen.”
“Start talking.”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
“Your father built something.”
“What?”
“A system.”
“For what?”
“Leverage.”
Dominic waited.
“Files. Recordings. Contracts. Judges. Police. Politicians. Businessmen. Everybody who ever owed him or threatened him.”
Dominic felt sick.
His father had always been secretive.
That was not surprising.
But Sebastian continued.
“Victor helped him.”
“Then why did they turn on each other?”
“Anna.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“What did she do?”
“She found the archive.”
“How old was she?”
“Twenty-six.”
The age when she disappeared.
“She wanted to expose everything.”
“And my father?”
“He tried to stop her.”
Dominic stared at Sebastian.
“My father killed Anna?”
“No.”
“Victor?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Sebastian looked afraid.
“Anna disappeared herself.”
Dominic stepped back.
“What?”
“She arranged the boat. The blood. The abandoned coat.”
“Why?”
“To escape.”
“From my father?”
“From everyone.”
“Why didn’t she contact me?”
Sebastian’s eyes filled with something close to pity.
“Because Victor convinced her you were part of it.”
Dominic went completely still.
“Part of what?”
“The archive.”
“I didn’t even know it existed.”
“She didn’t know that.”
Dominic remembered twelve years of silence.
Birthdays.
Christmases.
Funerals.
Every empty search.
Every investigator who had returned with nothing.
All because his sister had believed him guilty.
He turned away.
Sebastian whispered, “Dominic.”
“What?”
“Victor knows she’s back.”
“I noticed.”
“He’ll kill her this time.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
Sebastian swallowed.
“The old estate.”
“The room behind the wine cellar?”
His face changed.
“How did you know?”
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“What’s there?”
Sebastian stared toward the door.
“The original archive.”
Dominic left the hospital immediately.
By midnight, he, Luca, and Bennett were inside the abandoned estate.
Dust covered the rooms.
The basement smelled of damp stone and old ash.
The western wine racks were still in place.
Bennett knocked against the wall.
Hollow.
They moved the racks.
Behind them was a steel door.
No handle.
Only a keypad.
Dominic tried his father’s birth date.
Nothing.
Anna’s.
Nothing.
His own.
Nothing.
Then he remembered the clock in Elena’s description.
3:17.
He entered 0317.
The lock clicked.
The steel door opened.
Inside was a narrow room filled with metal cabinets.
Old videotapes.
Hard drives.
Paper files.
Photographs.
Dominic walked slowly between shelves.
Names were written on boxes.
Some he recognized.
Some belonged to people long dead.
At the far end was a desk.
On it sat a tape recorder.
Beside it was an envelope marked:
DOMINIC.
He opened it.
Inside was a letter in his father’s handwriting.
Son, if you are reading this, Anna survived.
Dominic’s hands tightened around the paper.
He continued.
Victor lied to both of you. He told Anna you had joined me. He told you she was dead. I allowed the lie because I believed separation would keep you alive. That was my greatest mistake.
Dominic closed his eyes.
Luca stood quietly behind him.
Dominic kept reading.
There is one person Victor fears more than Anna. Her name is Evelyn Russo.
Dominic stopped.
Russo.
He looked at Luca.
“Elena.”
Luca nodded slowly.
Dominic returned to the letter.
If Evelyn’s daughter ever comes to this house, protect her. She carries proof Victor can never survive.
Dominic’s mind raced.
“Evelyn’s daughter.”
“Elena?” Bennett asked.
Dominic shook his head.
“Elena is too young.”
He searched the archive.
Russo.
Russo.
Russo.
Then he found a folder.
EVELYN RUSSO.
Inside was a photograph.
Dominic stared at it.
The woman standing beside Anna in Elena’s hidden photograph was there again.
Same dark hair.
Same eyes.
On the back:
Evelyn Russo. Federal forensic accountant.
Dominic understood.
Elena’s mother.
He grabbed his phone and called Elena.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then Arthur called.
Dominic answered.
“Sir.”
“What happened?”
Arthur sounded terrified.
“Mrs. Russo received a visitor.”
“Who?”
“She said it was her mother.”
Dominic’s blood ran cold.
“Elena’s mother is alive?”
“I assumed so, sir.”
“Where are they?”
Arthur said nothing.
“Arthur?”
“The visitor showed Mrs. Russo something.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
“And then?”
“She left with Lily.”
Dominic nearly shouted.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Arthur added something worse.
“Sir, I recognized the woman.”
Dominic tightened his grip on the phone.
“From where?”
“She worked in this house twenty years ago.”
Dominic froze.
“What was her name then?”
Arthur whispered:
“Anna Carbone’s nanny.”
Behind Dominic, one of the archive cabinets suddenly clicked.
A hidden compartment opened by itself.
Inside was a live monitor.
The screen flickered on.
Elena and Lily appeared.
They were sitting in a dark room.
A woman stood behind them.
Then another figure walked into frame.
Victor DeLuca.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Now you know who Evelyn is,” he said.
He reached down and placed one hand on Lily’s shoulder.
“But you still don’t know who Lily’s father was.”
Dominic stopped breathing.
Victor smiled.
May you like
Then he said the name.
And the monitor went black.
