Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Red Coat
Damian pulled Clara inside.
Anthony shut the door.
The footsteps stopped outside.
Nobody breathed.
Damian held one finger to his lips.
A shadow crossed beneath the door.
Then continued.
Anthony waited several seconds before checking the security monitor.
The corridor was empty.
“Who was that?” Clara whispered.
“We'll find out.”
Damian looked at her bleeding hand.
“What happened?”
Clara opened her fingers.
The cut was shallow.
“The key was taped underneath the drawer in the room Aunt Rosa gave me. I found it because someone had pulled the drawer out crooked.”
“Why were you looking?”
“I wasn't.”
She paused.
“I dropped an earring.”
Anthony looked at Damian.
Coincidence had become difficult to believe.
“Whose room was it?” Damian asked.
“Blue guest room,” Clara said.
He knew it.
The room had belonged to his grandfather's personal secretary decades ago.
Damian took the key using a handkerchief.
“Don't touch anything else.”
Clara gave him a tired look.
“I learned that lesson when someone poured a gallon of paint over me.”
Despite everything, Anthony almost laughed.
Damian didn't.
But something close moved behind his eyes.
He showed Clara the photographs from the memory card.
Her face changed when Vanessa appeared beside Richard Vale.
“You know him?”
“I've seen him.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
“When?”
Clara thought.
“Three nights ago.”
Damian became still.
“Richard wasn't supposed to be here three nights ago.”
“He was.”
“Where?”
“The west corridor.”
That corridor contained Damian's private office.
“Was he alone?”
“No.”
Clara hesitated.
“Vanessa was with him.”
Damian stared at her.
“Why didn't you report it?”
“Because your fiancée walking through your house didn't seem suspicious.”
“And Richard?”
“I assumed he had permission.”
Reasonable.
Which made Damian dislike the answer more.
Anthony's phone buzzed.
Hotel security had found archived footage.
“Send it.”
A video appeared.
Room 314.
Vanessa entered.
Richard followed.
Then another figure appeared.
A woman wearing a red coat.
Her face remained hidden beneath a hat.
Clara stepped closer.
The woman moved strangely.
A slight drag in her left leg.
Clara whispered, “I know her.”
Damian turned.
“Who?”
“I don't know her name.”
“Then how?”
“She came to the estate.”
“When?”
“Six months ago. She asked about the portrait.”
Silence.
“What exactly did she ask?”
“Whether Mr. Moretti had ever removed it from the gallery.”
Damian frowned.
“Which Mr. Moretti?”
Clara looked at him.
“She said Lorenzo.”
His dead grandfather.
That night, the engagement celebration dissolved into controlled chaos.
Guests were questioned and released one by one.
Vanessa refused to leave.
“This is my home too,” she said.
“No,” Damian replied. “It isn't.”
Her face tightened.
“We're getting married in three weeks.”
“Not until I understand what happened tonight.”
“You're punishing me because of her.”
Vanessa pointed toward Clara.
Clara stood near Rosa, now dressed in borrowed clothes.
Damian followed Vanessa's finger.
“No. I'm investigating because you knew about a memory card you shouldn't have known existed.”
Vanessa laughed.
“You've known that woman for two years and suddenly she's more trustworthy than me?”
“I didn't say that.”
“You don't need to.”
Clara looked uncomfortable.
Damian saw it.
Vanessa did too.
That was why she smiled.
“You think he cares about you?”
“Vanessa,” Damian warned.
“She needs to understand.”
Clara spoke before he could stop her.
“I don't think Mr. Moretti cares about me.”
Her voice was calm.
“I think he cares about finding out why his fiancée panicked when she saw something hidden inside his grandfather's portrait.”
Vanessa's smile disappeared.
Rosa's appeared.
Later, after Vanessa had been escorted to another wing under security watch, Damian found Clara in the kitchen.
She was making coffee.
“You have staff for that,” he said.
“I am staff.”
“Not tonight.”
Clara poured another cup.
“Coffee?”
He accepted.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Damian asked, “Why did your father stop restoring paintings?”
Clara's hand paused.
“He died.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Eleven years ago.”
“What was his name?”
“Thomas Hayes.”
Damian's cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
Clara noticed.
“What?”
Damian placed it down.
“Your father was Thomas Hayes?”
“Yes.”
He knew the name.
Thomas Hayes had restored Lorenzo Moretti's art collection.
Including the portrait.
“Your father worked here.”
Clara frowned.
“No. He worked for museums and private collectors.”
“He worked for my grandfather.”
“When?”
“About fifteen years ago.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
“Why?”
“Because he never mentioned the Morettis.”
Damian understood immediately.
People remembered working for his family.
Especially people who knew what the family really was.
Anthony entered.
“Damian.”
He placed a file on the counter.
“We found Thomas Hayes in the old employment archives.”
Clara stared.
Anthony opened it.
A photograph showed her father.
Younger.
Standing beside Lorenzo Moretti.
Clara touched the photograph.
“My father.”
“There's more,” Anthony said.
Thomas hadn't merely restored paintings.
He had been Lorenzo's confidential archivist.
For four years.
Until he abruptly resigned.
Three months later, someone broke into his workshop.
Six months after that, he died in a supposed highway accident.
Clara looked at Damian.
“You think he was killed.”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying.”
Damian held her gaze.
“I think we need to find out.”
Anthony produced another page.
Thomas had been assigned one final restoration before leaving.
Lorenzo's portrait.
The same portrait containing the memory card.
Clara sat down.
Her coffee went untouched.
“My father hid it.”
“Possibly.”
“Why?”
Damian looked at the brass key marked 314.
“Maybe he expected someone to find both.”
At 2:17 a.m., hotel security called again.
They had identified the woman in the red coat.
Not by her face.
By her credit card.
The name meant nothing to Anthony.
It meant everything to Rosa.
Damian found his aunt in the library.
He placed the name before her.
Evelyn Mercer.
Rosa went white.
“Where did you get this?”
“You know her.”
Rosa stood.
“We should not discuss this here.”
“Aunt Rosa.”
“Not here.”
She locked the library door.
Then she crossed to an antique cabinet and removed a photograph.
Lorenzo Moretti stood beside a younger Rosa.
Beside them was another woman.
Red hair.
Elegant face.
Clara recognized the eyes from the hotel footage.
“Evelyn,” Rosa said.
“Who was she?” Damian asked.
Rosa looked at him.
“Your grandfather's accountant.”
“That isn't all.”
“No.”
Rosa's fingers trembled around the photograph.
“She disappeared seventeen years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because Lorenzo discovered someone was stealing from him.”
“Evelyn?”
Rosa shook her head.
“Evelyn discovered it.”
Clara felt a chill.
“Who was stealing?”
Rosa looked toward the locked door.
Before she could answer, the lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the library.
A phone began ringing.
Not Damian's.
Not Clara's.
Not Rosa's.
The ringing came from inside the antique cabinet.
Damian opened it.
Behind the photograph was an old cell phone.
The screen glowed.
One incoming call.
The caller's name appeared.
Rosa whispered, “That's impossible.”
May you like
Because the name on the screen belonged to Lorenzo Moretti.
And Lorenzo had been dead for twelve years.
