Chapter 3 - The Photograph in the Mirror
The photograph had been taken three weeks earlier.
I knew the moment immediately.
Payroll had asked me to complete a benefits form online.
The servants’ office computer had frozen twice.
I had sat there nearly forty minutes.
In the photograph, my back faced the door.
My employee badge lay beside the keyboard.
And in the mirror above the filing cabinet, a figure stood behind me.
A woman.
Only part of her was visible.
Dark hair.
Blue sleeve.
A diamond bracelet.
Vivien.
Lorenzo enlarged the image.
Nobody needed him to.
I recognized the bracelet.
So did he.
Vivien’s voice came quickly.
“That proves I walked past a room.”
Vincent looked at her.
“It proves you were behind Sophia while her employee badge was sitting on the desk.”
Vivien folded her arms.
“I had no reason to steal her credentials.”
“Someone used them.”
“Then someone else stole them.”
Lorenzo stared at the picture.
“When was Isabella’s file accessed?”
“11:48 last night,” Vincent said.
“Where was Sophia?”
I answered.
“With Emma.”
“Witness?”
“Rosa checked on us at eleven.”
Rosa nodded from the doorway.
“She was asleep. Emma had a fever.”
Vivien looked disgusted.
“This is becoming theater.”
“No,” Lorenzo said.
“It’s becoming evidence.”
She laughed.
“Against me? Because I walked past a computer?”
Lorenzo turned toward the security director.
“Seal her rooms.”
Vivien’s mouth fell open.
“You cannot be serious.”
“Take every laptop, phone, tablet, external drive, keycard, and storage device.”
“You have no right.”
“It’s my house.”
“I’m your fiancée.”
“Not relevant.”
Her expression collapsed for a fraction of a second.
Then hardened.
“You’re humiliating me over a housekeeper.”
I heard the word.
Housekeeper.
Not Sophia.
Not Emma’s mother.
Not the woman she had threatened.
Housekeeper.
Lorenzo heard it too.
His face changed.
“Get her out of this hallway.”
Two security men approached.
Vivien raised her chin.
“No one touches me.”
They stopped.
Not because she had authority.
Because Lorenzo had not yet said otherwise.
Vivien looked at him.
“Are you really doing this?”
He answered without emotion.
“Yes.”
She removed the diamond bracelet from her wrist.
For one wild second, I thought she might throw it at him.
Instead she placed it on the hallway table.
“Then enjoy your investigation.”
She walked away.
The white-flower scent followed her.
Emma buried her face against my shoulder.
Lorenzo turned toward me.
“Pack a bag.”
My stomach dropped.
“You said you weren’t firing me.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why?”
“You and Emma are moving to the guest wing.”
“No.”
“Sophia.”
“No.”
The guest wing was closer to Lorenzo’s rooms.
It also had controlled access.
I understood his logic.
I did not want his protection.
Protection from men like Lorenzo came with invisible costs.
“I can leave the estate.”
“That’s exactly what I don’t want.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever planted those bottles expected you to be blamed.”
“That person is Vivien.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
He looked toward Isabella.
“She may not be working alone.”
Vincent stiffened.
Lorenzo continued.
“If this is about forcing you out, leaving helps them. If it’s about Isabella, taking Emma away may not stop it.”
I hated that he was right.
I hated more that Emma was listening.
“Fine,” I said.
“One night.”
Lorenzo nodded.
“One night.”
It became three.
The investigation spread quietly through the estate.
Nobody called police.
That was not how the Duca family handled internal threats.
Vincent’s team copied hard drives.
Security logs were pulled.
Employees were interviewed.
Isabella’s medicine cabinet was replaced.
Two guards were stationed near her bedroom.
I hated the men with guns.
Emma thought they were “door helpers.”
I did not correct her.
On the second evening, Isabella came to the guest suite.
She carried her stuffed rabbit.
Emma was coloring at a small table.
“Can I stay?”
Isabella asked.
I looked toward the hallway.
Her nurse stood there.
Lorenzo had apparently approved it.
“For a little while.”
Isabella climbed onto the carpet.
Emma pushed a purple crayon toward her.
Neither mentioned the medicine.
Children sometimes had a better instinct for survival than adults.
They understood when the grown-ups had made the world dangerous.
They also understood when the solution was simply to sit beside someone who was scared.
“Your bunny needs a necklace,” Emma said.
Isabella nodded.
They spent twenty minutes drawing one.
I watched them.
Then Lorenzo appeared in the doorway.
He did not enter immediately.
His daughter was laughing.
Softly.
It was the first time I had heard Isabella laugh since the accusation.
Lorenzo looked at me.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For letting her stay.”
“She asked.”
“People often tell Isabella no because they’re afraid of her heart.”
I looked at the two girls.
“I’m afraid of Emma’s heart every day.”
He leaned against the frame.
“How do you live with that?”
“I don’t think about tomorrow until I have to.”
“That sounds impossible.”
“It’s not.”
I looked at him.
“You do the same thing.”
His expression changed.
“With what?”
“Everything.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Vincent appeared.
“Boss.”
The small moment ended.
Lorenzo stepped into the hall.
I followed.
“What did you find?”
Vincent looked uncomfortable.
“The deleted camera footage wasn’t permanently erased.”
Lorenzo’s eyes sharpened.
“Recoverable?”
“Partially.”
My heart began pounding.
“How much?”
“Eleven seconds.”
“Enough to see who touched the bag?”
“Maybe.”
We went downstairs.
The security room smelled of coffee and overheated electronics.
A technician pulled up the recovered fragment.
The image was distorted.
Black-and-white.
Lines ran across the screen.
Timestamp 7:16:32.
Emma’s backpack sat on the hallway chair.
Nothing happened for three seconds.
Then a person entered frame.
Only an arm.
Blue sleeve.
Hand.
Diamond bracelet.
A small object disappeared into the backpack.
I stopped breathing.
Vivien.
Lorenzo’s hand flattened against the desk.
Vincent whispered, “There.”
The technician paused it.
The bracelet was unmistakable.
Lorenzo had ordered it in Milan.
Custom setting.
Only one existed.
“That’s enough,” Vincent said.
“No.”
Lorenzo’s voice was cold.
“Keep watching.”
The video moved forward.
Vivien’s arm disappeared.
A second figure entered frame.
Male.
Dark suit.
We saw only the shoulder.
Vivien turned toward him.
The image corrupted.
Then stopped.
Vincent leaned closer.
“Who is that?”
The technician shook his head.
“Can’t recover the face.”
Lorenzo looked at Vincent.
“You wear dark suits.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“So do twenty men on your staff.”
“Were you in that corridor?”
“No.”
“You lied to me about Vivien.”
“Yes.”
“That means your word isn’t enough.”
Vincent absorbed that without flinching.
“I understand.”
I watched them.
Two men who had trusted each other for years.
Now everything sat on unstable ground.
Lorenzo turned to the technician.
“Find the second person.”
“I’ll try.”
My phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number.
I opened it.
My mouth went dry.
A photograph filled the screen.
Emma asleep in the guest suite.
Taken from inside the room.
Minutes earlier.
Below it were six words.
KEEP TALKING AND SHE MISSES A DOSE.
I nearly dropped the phone.
Lorenzo grabbed it.
His face went blank.
Not shocked.
Not afraid.
Blank.
The kind of blankness people developed before doing something terrible.
“When was this sent?”
“Now.”
He turned toward Vincent.
“Lock the estate.”
Vincent reached for his radio.
Lorenzo handed me the phone.
“Go to Emma.”
I ran.
Up the stairs.
Across the hall.
The guest-suite guard stood outside.
“Has anyone gone in?”
“No.”
I pushed past him.
Emma was asleep.
Exactly as in the photograph.
Blanket beneath her chin.
Stuffed rabbit beside her.
I checked her medication box.
Morning dose.
Evening dose.
All present.
Then I saw something white beneath the pillow.
A folded piece of paper.
My hands shook as I pulled it out.
There were four words printed across it.
YOU SAW THE LIBRARY.
The door behind me clicked shut.
May you like
I spun around.
Someone had locked it from the outside.
