Chapter 1 - The Girl in My Study
Mia Harper shoved the vacuum across my rug and whispered, “Come on.”
I stepped into the doorway holding the brass key to my private study.
A tiny scratch marked one side of that key.
Three straight lines.
Someone else had been using it.
At 1:47 in the morning, I realized the child in front of me was not the first person who had entered my study without permission.
Mia didn't see me at first.
She was six years old, although with the vacuum handle almost reaching her shoulder and an infant strapped securely against her back, she looked like a child attempting to imitate an adult life that had arrived years too early.
The faded blue-gray shawl wrapped around her chest held her baby sister, Lily, against her back. Lily slept with one cheek pressed against the fabric.
Mia leaned forward.
The vacuum moved three inches.
She exhaled.
“We have to finish before Mr. Duca gets home.”
I stopped breathing.
Mia pushed again.
“If Mama loses this job, we'll have nowhere to live.”
That was when I stepped into the room.
“Mia.”
She spun.
The vacuum handle slipped from her fingers.
Fear appeared instantly in her face, but what happened next bothered me more.
She didn't run.
She backed against my desk and turned slightly, putting her own body between me and Lily.
As though she expected anger.
As though she had learned that when adults became angry, smaller people needed protection.
I lowered my voice.
“Where's your mother?”
“She's sick.”
“Did Grace send you here?”
Mia shook her head violently.
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
Her eyes filled.
“Please don't fire her.”
I stared at her.
Grace Harper had worked in my home for eight years.
Eight years.
She knew where every document belonged, which rooms guests could enter, which ones they couldn't, and precisely how I wanted the library maintained.
I trusted her enough that I rarely noticed her working anymore.
That realization suddenly embarrassed me.
I knew the preferred Scotch of men I met twice a year.
I remembered the birthdays of investors whose signatures mattered.
I knew which senator would answer a private number after midnight and which corporate lawyer could stop a merger with a six-minute phone call.
But I didn't know Grace was sick.
“How sick?”
Mia looked at the carpet.
“She couldn't get out of bed.”
“And you're supposed to be home with her.”
“Mama said she'd come tomorrow.”
“Then why did you come tonight?”
Mia rubbed one hand across the other.
They were red.
“You had important people here yesterday. Mama said everything had to be cleaned before you got home tonight.”
My stomach tightened.
“So you decided to do it?”
She nodded.
“How did you get inside?”
She hesitated.
“Mama's key.”
That answered one question.
Not the one that mattered.
“You brought Lily?”
“I couldn't leave her.”
“Who brought you here?”
Another hesitation.
“We walked.”
I stared at her.
“Mia.”
“Mostly.”
“What does mostly mean?”
“We took the bus first.”
At two in the morning.
A six-year-old and an infant.
Something cold moved through my chest.
I pulled out my phone.
Mia immediately panicked.
“Please!”
“I'm not calling the police.”
“You're calling Mama.”
“Yes.”
“She'll be mad.”
“She should be.”
Mia's face collapsed.
“At me?”
“No.”
That stopped her.
I crouched so we were closer to eye level.
“At herself for not telling someone she needed help.”
Mia studied me suspiciously.
Children know when adults are lying.
Apparently, they also know when adults are discovering something unpleasant about themselves.
“Am I in trouble?” she asked.
“You're going home.”
Her shoulders dropped.
“And your mother isn't losing her job.”
She blinked.
“She isn't?”
“No.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
Her entire body seemed to loosen.
Then something changed.
Not relief.
Her eyes shifted past me.
Toward the library.
“Mia?”
She didn't answer.
Her face had gone pale.
“Mr. Duca?”
“What?”
She lifted one finger.
“Who keeps knocking from inside your wall?”
For several seconds, I thought I had misunderstood her.
“What wall?”
She pointed.
The floor-to-ceiling bookcase occupied nearly the entire eastern side of my study.
Walnut.
Custom-built.
Older than I was.
“Nobody.”
Mia kept pointing.
“Nobody lives behind there,” I said.
“Yes, they do.”
“No.”
“I hear them.”
“When?”
“When Mama works late.”
I stood.
“You've been here at night before?”
“Sometimes Mama can't find anybody to watch us.”
That was another conversation I would be having with Grace.
“What exactly do you hear?”
Mia lowered her voice.
“Scratching.”
I looked at the shelves.
“And knocking.”
“Pipes.”
“No.”
“Old houses make noises.”
“I know.”
The certainty in her voice made me turn back.
“You know?”
“Our apartment makes noises.”
She pointed again.
“This is different.”
“How?”
“They knock three times.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Mia raised one finger to her lips.
“Listen.”
The study became silent.
The vacuum had stopped.
Outside the windows, Boston glowed in scattered rectangles of blue and yellow.
Five seconds.
Nothing.
Ten.
Nothing.
I exhaled.
Then—
Knock.
I froze.
Knock.
Mia looked at me.
Knock.
Three.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Directly behind the bookcase.
Every instinct I had developed across twenty years of negotiating with men who lied for a living suddenly came alive.
I moved toward the shelves.
Mia grabbed my jacket.
“Don't.”
I looked down.
“Why?”
“They don't like it when Mama gets close.”
My skin tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“The scratching gets faster.”
I stared at her.
“Mia, has your mother heard this?”
She nodded.
“What did she do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“She told me never to talk about it.”
That was no longer the answer of a frightened child inventing ghosts.
Grace knew.
I turned back toward the shelves.
The eastern wall should have been brick.
I knew that because my father had told me so.
This house had belonged to the Duca family for sixty-three years. My grandfather purchased it when Beacon Hill addresses still meant something different to men like him.
My father renovated the study when I was twelve.
I remembered contractors.
Dust.
Arguments.
And one sentence.
That wall stays untouched.
I had forgotten it until that moment.
I stepped closer.
Leather-bound volumes filled the shelves.
History.
Law.
Economics.
Several first editions I had inherited and never read.
I placed my palm against the wood.
Cold.
“Mr. Duca.”
“Stay there.”
I crouched.
At first, I saw nothing.
Then the light from the desk lamp caught the floor.
Every section of shelving sat flush against the hardwood.
Except one.
A narrow black line ran beneath the center unit.
Maybe an eighth of an inch.
I touched it.
Air moved across my fingertips.
Cold air.
There was space behind the shelves.
I stood slowly.
“Mia, go to my desk.”
She obeyed immediately.
“Take Lily and stay there.”
“What are you doing?”
“Finding out why my father lied to me.”
I removed several books.
Nothing.
I pushed against the backing.
Solid.
I examined the molding.
There.
A tiny indentation near the frame.
Not decorative.
A latch.
I pressed it.
Nothing happened.
I pressed harder.
A mechanism clicked somewhere inside the wall.
Mia gasped.
The entire center bookcase shifted forward half an inch.
I stepped back.
For thirty-eight years, I had lived with some version of this room in my life.
I had done homework here.
Argued with my father here.
Signed my first acquisition here.
Sat alone here after both my parents died.
And never once had I known that the wall opened.
I pulled.
The shelf swung outward.
Cold air rolled into the study.
Behind it was darkness.
Not brick.
A passage.
Narrow.
Old.
And descending.
“Mia.”
“Yes?”
“You said your mother told you not to talk about the knocking.”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever tell you why?”
“No.”
“Did she ever go inside?”
Mia didn't answer.
I turned.
Her expression told me enough.
“Mia.”
“Once.”
My pulse changed.
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
“How long?”
“I don't know.”
“What happened?”
“She came back crying.”
I stared into the passage.
“Did she say what she found?”
Mia shook her head.
Then Lily stirred.
A tiny sleepy sound escaped her.
Mia adjusted the wrap instinctively.
I took out my phone and called Grace.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
I tried a third time.
Straight to voicemail.
I called my driver, Anthony.
He answered on the second ring.
“Sir?”
“I need you at the house.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Make it five.”
I ended the call.
The passage waited.
I should have closed it.
Taken the children home.
Called security.
Handled the situation rationally.
Instead, I turned on my phone flashlight.
Mia whispered, “Don't go.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
Her eyes moved toward the darkness.
“Because the knocking stopped.”
A simple sentence.
But she was right.
Whatever had been making the noise had gone silent the moment I opened the shelf.
Then my phone vibrated.
Grace.
I answered immediately.
“Grace?”
No response.
“Grace, Mia is with me.”
Static.
Then breathing.
“Grace?”
Her voice finally came.
Weak.
Terrified.
“Mr. Duca?”
“Yes.”
“Is the bookcase open?”
I looked at it.
“How did you know?”
Silence.
“Grace.”
Her breathing quickened.
“Close it.”
“What is behind this wall?”
“Please.”
“What did you find eight years ago?”
She began crying.
Not loudly.
That somehow made it worse.
“Close the bookcase and take my girls somewhere safe.”
“Safe from whom?”
A long pause.
Then Grace whispered something I had not heard anyone say in fourteen years.
“Your father.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“My father is dead.”
“I know.”
“Then explain what you mean.”
“I can't over the phone.”
“Why?”
Another sound came through her line.
A knock.
I stopped.
Grace stopped breathing.
Knock.
My eyes moved toward the passage.
The sound wasn't coming from my house anymore.
It was coming through Grace's phone.
Knock.
Three times.
“Grace?”
She whispered, “Someone's at my door.”
“Don't open it.”
“I wasn't going to.”
“I'm sending someone.”
“No!”
“Grace—”
“They can't see you helping us.”
“Who?”
A floorboard creaked through the phone.
Then Grace whispered, “Oh God.”
The call disconnected.
I immediately dialed Anthony.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
I turned toward Mia.
“We're leaving.”
“But Mama—”
“We're getting her.”
I moved toward the study door.
Then stopped.
Something had appeared inside the passage.
Not a person.
A small rectangle of white paper lay on the first stone step.
It had not been there when the shelf opened.
I was certain of that.
I approached carefully.
Picked it up.
An old photograph.
My father stood in this very study.
He was younger.
Beside him was Grace.
And between them stood a man whose face had been violently scratched away.
On the back, someone had written a date.
October 17, 2008.
Underneath it were four words.
GRACE KNOWS WHERE HE IS.
I looked up.
From somewhere deep inside the passage came the sound of footsteps.
Slow.
Approaching.
Then a man's voice spoke from the darkness.
“Adrian?”
May you like
He knew my name.
And he was getting closer.
