Chapter 3 - The Name on the Photograph
I did not sleep.
By sunrise, Emma was curled against me while I sat with the photograph on my lap.
VINCENT.
I wanted it to be a lie.
I also wanted the missing eight minutes to mean Vivien had acted alone.
Neither wish mattered.
At six fifteen, I called Lorenzo.
He answered immediately.
“Sophia?”
“I found something.”
“Don’t touch anything else.”
“Too late.”
“Stay in your room.”
Five minutes later he arrived with two security officers.
Not Vincent.
That told me enough.
Lorenzo put on gloves and examined the envelope.
His eyes paused on Emma’s cardiology-center photograph.
“Where was this taken?”
“Manhattan.”
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“Who knew about the appointment?”
“Payroll knew I needed the morning off. The driver knew. That’s all.”
“Vivien?”
“I never told her.”
“Vincent?”
“The driver reports through security.”
His expression hardened.
“Then Vincent could have known.”
I hated the relief I felt when he said could.
Not did.
Could.
“Where is he?”
“Security office.”
“Does he know about the photograph?”
“No.”
The words had barely left Lorenzo’s mouth when someone knocked.
Three times.
Lorenzo’s hand went beneath his shirt.
One of the guards moved beside the door.
“Who?”
Vincent answered.
“Me.”
Lorenzo opened it.
Vincent saw the photograph.
Everything in his face changed.
Not guilt.
Recognition.
“Where did you get that?”
“It came under her door.”
Vincent stepped forward.
Lorenzo blocked him.
“Explain the name.”
Vincent stared at the back.
Then at me.
“I didn’t take this.”
“Explain.”
“I can’t.”
Lorenzo’s patience ended.
He grabbed Vincent by the shirt and slammed him against the wall.
Emma woke screaming.
I rushed to her.
Lorenzo released Vincent immediately.
His face changed when he heard Emma cry.
“Take this outside.”
We moved into the corridor.
Vincent straightened his shirt.
“Boss.”
“Do not call me that right now.”
Vincent looked genuinely hurt.
Lorenzo did not care.
“You knew about Sophia’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Six weeks.”
“Why?”
“Because I was investigating Vivien.”
Silence.
My heart began pounding.
Lorenzo stared at him.
“You were doing what?”
Vincent looked at me.
Then Lorenzo.
“Vivien has been moving money.”
“What money?”
“Yours.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.
“How much?”
“Eight point four million.”
Even I stopped breathing.
Vincent continued.
“Small transfers. Shell companies. Consulting fees. Property accounts. It took me months to connect them.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I needed proof.”
“You had enough proof to secretly investigate my fiancée.”
“And not enough to accuse the woman you planned to marry.”
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“I trusted you.”
“That’s why I was careful.”
“The library?”
Vincent exhaled.
“She caught me.”
“With a black envelope.”
“Copies of account transfers.”
“So she knew.”
“Yes.”
“And Sophia walked in.”
“Yes.”
“What did Vivien say afterward?”
Vincent looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
“She threatened Emma.”
His face drained.
“What?”
I repeated the words.
Little hearts are so delicate, Sophia.
Vincent swore softly.
Lorenzo looked capable of tearing the corridor apart.
“So explain the photograph.”
Vincent rubbed his jaw.
“I followed Sophia to the cardiology center.”
I stepped forward.
“You what?”
“I wasn’t following you.”
“You photographed my child.”
“I did not take that picture.”
“Then why were you there?”
“Vivien had accessed payroll records. Sophia’s insurance problem appeared in a search on her private laptop. I wanted to know why.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“You broke into her computer.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
It was the first illegal act I had ever heard praised so simply.
Vincent continued.
“I thought Vivien might be planning to bribe Sophia or use the medical debt against her.”
“You could have asked me.”
“I didn’t know who she had inside the house.”
That stopped Lorenzo.
“Inside?”
“I found repeated calls from a prepaid number to one of the estate extensions.”
“Whose?”
“The library.”
Mr. Gray.
I spoke.
“Isabella said a man met Vivien there.”
Vincent went still.
“What man?”
“She calls him Mr. Gray.”
His reaction frightened me.
“You know him.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a no face.”
Vincent looked at Lorenzo.
“Years ago, your father used a fixer named Adrian Gray.”
Lorenzo’s expression darkened.
“My father’s dead.”
“Gray isn’t.”
“What did he do?”
“Whatever your father needed done quietly.”
Lorenzo laughed once without humor.
“Apparently family traditions survive.”
Vincent continued.
“Gray vanished after your father died.”
“And now he’s meeting Vivien?”
“If Isabella is right.”
“She is five, not stupid.”
“I didn’t say she was.”
Lorenzo turned to the guards.
“Find every entry, license plate, delivery log, and garage camera connected to the last six months.”
One guard nodded and left.
Vincent said, “There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
He removed his phone.
“The eight-minute gap was not simply deleted.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“The camera feed was replaced.”
“With what?”
“A loop.”
Vincent played footage.
The children’s sitting room appeared empty.
Curtains still.
Clock visible.
Nothing unusual.
Then he zoomed in.
At 6:47, the second hand moved from nine to ten.
At 6:49, it moved from nine to ten again.
The same two minutes had been copied repeatedly.
“So whoever did this had access to the security system,” Lorenzo said.
“Yes.”
“Vivien doesn’t.”
“No.”
Everyone looked at Vincent.
He nodded.
“I do.”
I understood.
The photograph had his name because someone wanted us to believe he was involved.
Or because he was.
Lorenzo asked the question.
“Who else has administrator access?”
“Three people.”
“Names.”
“Me. You.”
“And?”
Vincent hesitated.
“Your late father’s master credentials were never deleted.”
Lorenzo stared at him.
“Why?”
“They’re hardwired into the original system.”
“Can they still be used?”
“If someone has the authentication token.”
“Where is it?”
Vincent did not answer.
Lorenzo’s face changed.
“Where?”
“In your father’s old safe.”
We went there together.
Lorenzo’s father’s study had been locked since his death seven years earlier.
The room smelled faintly of leather and dust.
A portrait of Carlo Duca hung above the fireplace.
Lorenzo crossed to a painting and pressed two points on the frame.
A hidden safe opened.
Inside were documents.
Cash.
Three watches.
A pistol.
And an empty velvet space.
Vincent stared at it.
“The token was here.”
“When did you last see it?”
“Last year.”
Lorenzo turned.
“Who knows the combination?”
“You.”
“Yes.”
“Me.”
Lorenzo’s eyes hardened.
“And my fiancée.”
Vivien had insisted on learning it during a fire-safety inventory months earlier.
The realization settled heavily.
Vincent searched the safe.
“Something else is missing.”
“What?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
“Why would someone frame Emma?”
I had asked myself that all night.
“Because accusing me is not enough.”
He waited.
“If Vivien accused an adult employee, you would investigate.”
“Yes.”
“But if Isabella’s medicine was found beside another sick child…”
“You’d react emotionally,” Vincent finished.
Lorenzo looked offended.
Then thoughtful.
“She wanted me angry.”
“And distracted,” I said.
“From what?”
No one knew.
A guard entered.
“Mr. Duca.”
“What?”
“We found Gray’s vehicle.”
Lorenzo straightened.
“Where?”
“Not outside.”
“What does that mean?”
The guard swallowed.
“It’s still here.”
We followed him beneath the estate.
The underground garage held twenty-three cars.
Behind the maintenance section was a narrow service bay.
A gray sedan sat beneath a cover.
Dust on top.
Fresh tire marks underneath.
Vincent opened the trunk.
Empty.
Lorenzo checked the glove compartment.
Nothing.
Then I noticed something beneath the passenger seat.
Pink thread.
My stomach dropped.
I reached toward it.
Vincent stopped me.
“Don’t.”
He put on gloves and lifted it carefully.
It was braided pink embroidery thread.
Exactly like Emma’s bracelet.
Lorenzo looked at me.
“Could it be hers?”
“No.”
Then I saw something else.
A tiny plastic charm attached to the end.
A silver star.
I knew that star.
Isabella had used the same one when she made Emma’s bracelet.
I whispered, “Isabella made this.”
Lorenzo’s face changed.
Vincent searched farther under the seat.
His hand came back holding a photograph.
It showed Isabella asleep in her bedroom.
Taken from inside the room.
On the back was tomorrow’s date.
May you like
And one sentence.
NEXT TIME, FOUR BOTTLES WON’T BE ENOUGH.
