Chapter 2 - The Camera Above the Kitchen Door
The door opened three inches.
Vincent crossed the room before anyone else moved.
He yanked it wide.
Mrs. Caruso, the estate housekeeper, stood outside holding fresh towels.
A silver bracelet circled her wrist.
Norah’s stomach dropped.
Mrs. Caruso was sixty-two.
She had worked for the Rossi family for thirty years.
She looked from Vincent to the frozen security image.
Her face drained.
“Mr. Rossi?”
Vincent stepped aside.
“Come in.”
Mrs. Caruso did.
Enzo locked the door.
Norah watched the older woman carefully.
Fear.
Confusion.
Then recognition.
Mrs. Caruso stared at the screen.
“That’s my bracelet.”
Vincent’s voice stayed level.
“I noticed.”
“But that isn’t me.”
“Convenient.”
Mrs. Caruso pulled the bracelet off.
“My husband gave me this twenty-eight years ago.”
Norah held out her hand.
“May I?”
Vincent glanced at her.
Mrs. Caruso surrendered it.
Norah examined the clasp.
A tiny scratch ran beside the hinge.
She looked back at the enlarged video.
“Can you sharpen the wrist?”
The operator tried.
Pixels shifted.
Norah pointed.
“The bracelet in the video doesn’t have the scratch.”
Enzo leaned closer.
“You can tell from that?”
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
Norah continued, “But I can tell something else.”
She enlarged another frame.
“The person in the kitchen is left-handed.”
Mrs. Caruso frowned.
“How?”
“They opened the drawer with their right hand but moved everything with their left. People use their dominant hand for precise movements when they aren’t thinking.”
Norah handed the bracelet back.
“Mrs. Caruso is right-handed.”
Vincent looked at his housekeeper.
“Show me.”
Mrs. Caruso instinctively reached for the towels with her right hand.
Vincent’s gaze returned to the screen.
“Someone copied her bracelet.”
“Or borrowed it,” Enzo said.
Mrs. Caruso stiffened.
“No one touches it.”
Norah asked, “Do you remove it?”
“At night.”
“Where?”
“My bedside table.”
Vincent looked at Enzo.
“Search her room.”
Mrs. Caruso looked wounded.
“Vincent.”
The use of his first name softened something in him.
“I have to.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
The search found nothing.
But Norah’s uneasiness grew.
Someone had entered the kitchen.
Someone had manipulated the security archive.
Someone had deliberately resembled a trusted employee.
And that meant the enemy wasn’t outside the estate.
The enemy understood its routines.
For the next week, Vincent doubled security.
Norah changed hers.
She stopped following patterns.
She bought ingredients from different stores.
She sealed containers with strips of tape and signed across them.
She photographed the refrigerator before leaving.
Vincent teased her exactly once.
Then she showed him that a jar of salt had moved overnight.
He stopped teasing.
Their strange routine continued.
Norah cooked.
Vincent ate.
And slowly, dangerously, they talked.
Not about crime.
Not about poison.
About ordinary things.
Vincent hated raisins.
Norah loved terrible detective shows.
Vincent could speak Italian but swore his grandmother claimed his accent sounded like a tourist from New Jersey.
Norah’s mother had died when she was nineteen.
Caleb had been twenty-two and convinced he could become the man of the family.
Instead, he became a gambler.
“You hate him?” Vincent asked one evening.
Norah stirred risotto.
“No.”
“You should.”
“That would be easier.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“Because I remember who he was before he started losing.”
Vincent understood that answer too well.
“What about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
“Family.”
His face closed.
“Dead.”
“All of them?”
“Enough.”
She didn’t push.
That night, Vincent finished dinner and placed the fork down.
“I’m hungry.”
Norah froze.
“What?”
“I’m still hungry.”
A grin escaped her before she could stop it.
Vincent stared.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re smiling.”
“You complained about being hungry.”
“So?”
“That’s good.”
He looked almost offended.
Then he laughed.
It was brief.
Rough from disuse.
Norah realized nobody else in the room had ever heard it.
Enzo, standing near the door, looked stunned.
The moment ended when Norah’s phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
She opened the message.
A photograph appeared.
Caleb.
He was sitting in a chair.
Alive.
A newspaper rested on his lap.
Today’s date.
Under the photograph were seven words.
COOK FOR ROSSI AND YOUR BROTHER DIES.
Norah stopped breathing.
Vincent noticed immediately.
“What?”
She locked the phone.
“Nothing.”
“Norah.”
“I said nothing.”
She carried the plates to the sink.
Vincent rose.
“Look at me.”
She didn’t.
He took the plate from her hand.
“Whatever just happened, you went white.”
“It’s personal.”
“Is it Caleb?”
That made her turn.
Vincent saw the answer.
“Show me.”
“No.”
“Norah.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“If someone is threatening you because of me—”
“You don’t get to decide what happens to my brother.”
“I can protect him.”
“You don’t even know where he is.”
Vincent stopped.
Because she was right.
Norah walked away.
She locked herself in the staff bathroom and reread the message.
Then another arrived.
Tomorrow.
8:00 p.m.
Make Rossi mushroom soup.
A photograph followed.
A small glass vial.
Norah knew what it meant.
They wanted poison in his food.
Her hands trembled.
Then she noticed something in Caleb’s photograph.
Behind his chair was a wall.
Gray concrete.
A red electrical panel.
And reflected faintly in its metal door was part of a logo.
Norah enlarged it.
Three letters.
RMC.
She had seen them before.
On delivery trucks entering Vincent’s estate.
Rossi Maritime Company.
She ran upstairs.
Vincent was waiting in his study.
She placed the phone before him.
He read everything.
His face became terrifyingly still.
“I’ll find him.”
Norah shook her head.
“We find him.”
“No.”
“They contacted me.”
“Which is exactly why you stay here.”
“You hired a cook, Vincent. Not a prisoner.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’m trying to keep Caleb alive.”
Vincent looked at her for a long time.
Then he nodded.
“Fine.”
Enzo entered.
Vincent showed him the photograph.
Enzo examined the reflection.
“RMC has nine warehouses.”
Norah enlarged the image again.
“There.”
A yellow number was painted behind Caleb.
Enzo looked up.
“Warehouse Seventeen.”
Vincent reached for his jacket.
Norah’s phone vibrated again.
This time there was no message.
Only a video.
Caleb looked directly into the camera.
His lip was bleeding.
“Norah,” he whispered, “don’t trust—”
A hand grabbed his hair.
The video ended.
Then a final text appeared.
A name.
Norah read it once.
Then again.
Vincent stepped closer.
“Who does it say?”
She slowly lifted the phone.
May you like
The message contained only two words.
TRUST ENZO.
