Chapter 2 - Twenty-Three Letters
Matteo moved before Naomi understood what was happening.
He stepped between her and the door.
Luca drew his weapon.
“Open it.”
The door swung inward.
Rosa Bellini stood there.
She looked terrified.
In her hands was a bundle tied with faded blue ribbon.
Naomi recognized it instantly.
“My letters.”
Rosa raised both hands.
“I found them.”
“Where?” Matteo demanded.
“In the laundry chute.”
Nobody spoke.
Rosa explained quickly.
One of the night maids had reported paper caught behind a service panel. Rosa had opened it and found the letters.
Matteo examined the bundle.
None appeared damaged.
Naomi reached for them.
Then stopped.
One envelope was different.
It was newer.
White instead of yellowed.
Her name was written across the front.
NAOMI PARKER.
She stared.
“That isn’t my father’s handwriting.”
Matteo opened it only after she nodded.
Inside was one sentence.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT WHEN YOU WERE WARNED.
Naomi’s stomach turned.
“Warned?”
Matteo crouched in front of her.
“When were you warned?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Think carefully.”
She did.
Then remembered.
Three weeks earlier, an anonymous note had appeared inside her locker.
She had assumed it was a cruel prank.
A maid like you should know when she doesn’t belong.
Naomi had thrown it away.
Matteo’s expression darkened.
“You should have told me.”
“Why? So the billionaire owner could investigate somebody being rude to a maid?”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of his answer silenced her.
Samuel called.
The laboratory had identified a sedative in the capsule.
Not enough to kill her.
Enough to cause dizziness, weakness and confusion if taken repeatedly.
Matteo ordered every staff member’s access record checked.
The mansion had cameras almost everywhere except private bedrooms and bathrooms.
Luca began reviewing footage.
Naomi was taken back upstairs.
This time she did not argue.
Fear had replaced embarrassment.
Matteo remained beside her.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Doing what?”
“Acting like this matters.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You think it doesn’t?”
“I’m an employee.”
“You’re a person.”
“That isn’t how men like you usually see people.”
“What do you know about men like me?”
“Enough.”
He leaned back.
“That sounds dangerous.”
“So does your reputation.”
For the first time that night, Matteo smiled.
It transformed him.
Only briefly.
Then Luca entered.
“We found someone.”
Security footage showed a figure entering the staff corridor at 2:14 a.m. three nights earlier.
The person wore housekeeping clothes and kept their face turned away.
But there was something distinctive.
A limp.
Naomi immediately knew who it was.
“Evelyn.”
Evelyn Grant was another maid.
Forty-two.
Quiet.
Recently hired.
Matteo ordered her brought upstairs.
Security found her room empty.
Her clothes remained.
Her phone remained.
Her identification did not.
Then one guard discovered a service exit unlocked.
Evelyn was gone.
“Find her,” Matteo said.
Luca hesitated.
“There’s more.”
He placed a photograph on the table.
It had been found beneath Evelyn’s mattress.
Naomi looked at it.
Her father stood beside another man twenty-five years earlier.
The other man was Matteo’s father.
Naomi looked up.
“Why did she have this?”
Matteo did not answer.
Because he was asking himself the same question.
Naomi’s father, David Parker, had supposedly been an accountant for a regional construction company.
He had died when Naomi was seventeen.
Matteo remembered the name.
Parker.
A memory surfaced.
His father shouting inside an office.
A man carrying boxes.
An investigation.
Missing money.
Then a disappearance.
Matteo turned toward Naomi.
“What exactly did your father do?”
“He was an accountant.”
“For whom?”
“Marino Development.”
Silence.
Naomi watched recognition cross his face.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You knew my father?”
“I was seventeen when he left the company.”
“Left?”
Matteo realized the mistake.
Naomi’s eyes narrowed.
“My mother told me he was fired.”
Matteo said nothing.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I know pieces.”
“Then give me the pieces.”
Matteo walked toward the window.
His father, Alessandro Marino, had died six years earlier.
He had left Matteo businesses, enemies, secrets and enough unfinished grudges to poison generations.
“There was an accusation,” Matteo said.
“What accusation?”
“Embezzlement.”
Naomi laughed once.
It contained no humor.
“My father?”
“Nearly two million dollars.”
“He didn’t steal.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
“You thought it.”
“I was seventeen.”
“And now?”
“Now somebody is drugging his daughter inside my house.”
That changed the conversation.
Naomi looked at the letters.
“My father wrote these before he died.”
“What do they say?”
“Mostly apologies.”
“For what?”
“Working too much. Missing birthdays. Fighting with my mother.”
“Anything about my family?”
“No.”
“Have you read every one?”
Naomi paused.
“All except the last.”
“Why?”
“He told me not to.”
Matteo looked at her.
“What?”
Naomi removed one envelope from the bundle.
It had remained sealed for thirteen years.
On the front:
FOR NAOMI. OPEN ONLY IF THE MARINOS COME LOOKING.
Matteo stared at it.
“You never opened that?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the Marinos never came looking.”
“Until now.”
Naomi’s fingers trembled.
She opened the envelope.
Inside was a key.
And a handwritten address.
No explanation.
Luca recognized the address.
“It’s a storage facility in Brooklyn.”
Matteo immediately ordered cars.
“You’re not going,” he told Naomi.
She stood.
“Yes, I am.”
“You nearly collapsed.”
“My father left it for me.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“Then why are you going?”
“Because dangerous is my job.”
Naomi folded her arms.
“And apparently being poisoned is mine.”
Matteo stared.
Luca looked away to hide a smile.
Twenty minutes later they were driving toward Brooklyn.
Naomi sat beside Matteo in the rear of an armored SUV.
Neither spoke for several minutes.
Finally Naomi asked, “Did your father kill mine?”
Matteo turned.
“No.”
“You answered quickly.”
“Because if I believed he had, I would tell you.”
“Even if it destroyed your family?”
“Yes.”
She studied him.
“That’s difficult to believe.”
“Most true things are.”
The storage facility stood between two warehouses.
Luca’s team cleared the building.
Unit 317 was untouched.
Naomi inserted the key.
Inside sat one metal box.
Nothing else.
Matteo remained behind her.
Naomi opened it.
Documents.
Photographs.
Accounting ledgers.
And a cassette recorder.
Luca picked up one ledger.
His face changed.
“These are old Marino accounts.”
Naomi found an envelope addressed to her.
She opened it.
The first sentence made her knees weaken.
Naomi, if you are reading this, then Alessandro failed to keep his promise.
Matteo read over her shoulder.
The documents showed that David Parker had discovered money being stolen from Marino Development.
But David had not stolen it.
He had traced it.
To someone inside the Marino family.
Matteo turned pages.
Then stopped.
The signatures were unmistakable.
His uncle.
Vittorio Marino.
Matteo’s father had apparently agreed to expose him.
But something had happened first.
David had been framed.
Disgraced.
Forced out.
Naomi’s eyes filled.
“My father died believing everyone thought he was a thief.”
“No,” Matteo said.
“He died protecting this.”
Luca found another photograph.
Vittorio Marino stood beside Evelyn Grant.
Taken recently.
Naomi stared.
Evelyn had never been a random maid.
She had been planted inside the mansion.
Matteo’s phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“You found Parker’s box.”
Matteo’s expression went cold.
“Who is this?”
“You should have let the maid die quietly.”
Naomi heard it.
So did Luca.
The voice continued.
“Come home, Matteo.”
The call ended.
Luca immediately contacted security.
No response.
Then another.
Nothing.
Matteo looked at Naomi.
His mansion’s security system had gone offline.
Every camera.
Every alarm.
Every electronic lock.
At the same time.
Then Naomi’s phone lit up.
A photograph appeared.
It showed Matteo’s bedroom.
Taken seconds earlier.
May you like
Someone was inside.
And on his pillow sat Naomi’s missing bottle of capsules beside a loaded gun.
