Chapter 1 - The Little Girl Who Saw the Smoke
Maisie Ellis dropped her yellow crayon and screamed: “Mr. Roman is in the fire!”
Roman Duca was tied to a wooden post, and a silver cuff link lay in the water beside his knee.
Three letters were engraved across its back.
A.D.C.
Roman knew exactly who owned it.
The fire was not an accident.
Three-year-old Maisie Ellis had been sitting on the service terrace behind the Duca mansion with half a cracker balanced on her knee when she noticed the smoke.
At first, she watched it with the solemn curiosity children reserved for things adults had not yet told them were dangerous.
A thin black ribbon climbed above the boxwood hedge.
Then another.
Maisie looked toward the kitchen doors.
Her mother was nowhere in sight.
“Mommy?”
No answer.
Clara Ellis was upstairs changing the linens in one of the guest suites. She had left Maisie on the terrace because Mrs. Bellini, the elderly cook, could see the child through the kitchen window.
Maisie had been given one instruction.
Do not go beyond the fountain.
She remembered it.
She also remembered Roman.
Mr. Roman, as she called him, was the tall man who owned the enormous house but never seemed particularly comfortable living in it.
He frightened most adults.
He did not frighten Maisie.
Two weeks earlier, she had dropped a cup of grape juice on an antique rug. Clara had gone pale when Roman entered the room.
Maisie had looked up at him and confessed immediately.
“I spilled purple.”
Roman had stared at the ruined rug.
Then at Maisie.
Then at Clara.
“Apparently,” he had said, “the rug has survived.”
He had walked away.
Maisie had adored him ever since.
Now she could hear something beyond the hedge.
A thump.
Then another.
She slid off the terrace chair.
The yellow crayon stayed clutched in her fist.
She crossed the lawn.
She passed the fountain.
She knew she was breaking Mommy’s rule.
But smoke was coming from the old service shed.
The door stood partly open.
Orange light moved inside.
“Mr. Roman?”
A man’s head snapped toward her.
Maisie stopped.
Roman Duca was on his knees.
His back pressed against a thick support post. Heavy rope wrapped around his chest, waist, and arms. His black shirt was soaked and torn open near the collar. Rainwater and water from a ruptured pipe spread across the floor around him.
Fire crawled along the rear shelving.
For perhaps the first time in Roman Duca’s adult life, terror entered his face without being invited.
Not because he was trapped.
Because a three-year-old child had just stepped toward the burning building.
“Maisie.”
His voice was rough.
She took another step.
“Stop.”
She froze.
Roman forced his breathing under control.
“Stay right there.”
“You’re stuck.”
“I know.”
“Fire.”
“I know that too.”
Her lower lip trembled.
Roman tested the rope again.
It did not move.
He had awakened less than ten minutes earlier with blood pounding behind his eyes and rainwater soaking through his clothes. His last clear memory was entering the shed after receiving a message from someone he trusted.
COME ALONE. I FOUND THE LEDGER.
He had come alone.
That had been his first mistake.
Believing the sender had been his second.
Now the eastern wall was burning, and the smoke was thickening.
“Maisie,” he said carefully. “I need you to do something for me.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Mommy?”
“Yes. Go get your mommy.”
“But you—”
“Do not come in here.”
A burning strip of wood dropped from a shelf.
Maisie jumped.
Roman raised his voice.
“Go!”
She ran.
Her tiny white shoes slapped against the wet stone path.
“Mommy!”
Clara heard the scream from the second floor.
She dropped the folded sheet in her hands.
“Mommy!”
That second scream was different.
Every parent knew the difference.
Clara ran.
She took the servants’ staircase two steps at a time, nearly colliding with Mrs. Bellini at the bottom.
“Where’s Maisie?”
The cook pointed toward the open terrace door.
Clara’s heart stopped.
She ran outside.
Maisie came around the hedge.
Her face was streaked with tears.
“Mommy! Mr. Roman is stuck!”
Clara grabbed her.
“What happened?”
“Fire!”
Clara looked up.
Smoke.
A lot of it.
She lifted Maisie into her arms and ran toward the shed.
Two security men appeared from the side entrance.
One was Daniel Voss, Roman’s head of security.
Forty-two. Broad shoulders. Gray suit. Calm eyes.
Too calm.
“Clara.”
“The shed is burning!”
“We know.”
She stopped.
Those two words hit her strangely.
We know.
Then why was nobody running?
“Roman’s inside.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Clara saw it.
“How do you know?”
“My daughter saw him.”
Daniel looked at Maisie.
For one second, the mask slipped.
Clara felt her daughter tighten her arms around her neck.
Daniel stepped closer.
“Take Maisie back to the house.”
“What?”
“We’ll handle it.”
“He’s tied up!”
Daniel’s eyes sharpened.
Clara had not told him that.
Neither had Maisie.
Silence stretched between them.
Then Daniel reached for Clara’s arm.
“Your daughter saw something she was never supposed to see.”
Clara stared at him.
His fingers tightened.
“If you’re smart, you’ll take her and disappear.”
Clara calmly pulled her arm away.
Then she handed Maisie to Mrs. Bellini, who had followed them across the garden.
“Keep her with you.”
“Clara—”
“Please.”
She ran toward the shed.
Daniel called after her.
She ignored him.
Heat struck her before she reached the doorway.
“Roman!”
His head lifted.
For the first time since waking, Roman looked relieved.
Then he saw Daniel behind her.
The relief vanished.
“Clara, get out.”
She spotted a garden knife on a workbench near the entrance.
The flames had not reached it.
She grabbed it.
Daniel stopped outside.
“Clara.”
She looked back.
“Leave him.”
Those two words told her everything she needed to know.
She entered.
Smoke burned her eyes.
Roman twisted his wrists.
“Cut the rope behind the post.”
Clara crouched.
Her hands shook.
“Who did this?”
“Later.”
“Daniel told me to leave you.”
Roman looked toward the doorway.
Daniel was gone.
That frightened him more than if the man had stayed.
“Hurry.”
Clara sawed at the rope.
Fibers snapped.
A beam cracked overhead.
“Mommy!” Maisie screamed from outside.
“I’m okay!”
She was not.
The fire had reached the shelf nearest them.
Roman pulled.
“Again.”
Clara cut harder.
The rope gave way.
Roman tore one arm free.
Then the other.
He collapsed forward.
Clara caught his shoulder.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
He tried.
His legs disagreed.
She wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
Together they stumbled toward the door.
Behind them, something crashed.
Heat rolled across Clara’s back.
They reached the rain.
Roman fell to one knee.
Maisie broke away from Mrs. Bellini and ran toward him.
“Mr. Roman!”
Roman lifted one hand.
“Hey, trouble.”
She threw her arms around his neck.
Clara almost laughed from relief.
Almost.
Then Roman saw something shining in the water running from the shed.
A silver cuff link.
He picked it up.
Clara watched his face change.
“What is it?”
Roman rubbed soot from the engraving.
A.D.C.
He closed his fist around it.
“Nothing.”
“That isn’t your nothing face.”
Roman looked toward the mansion.
Dozens of windows stared back at him.
Someone in that house had arranged the meeting.
Someone had drugged him.
Someone had tied him to the post.
Someone had started the fire.
And Daniel Voss had apparently been willing to let him burn.
Sirens sounded beyond the estate gates.
Roman looked at Clara.
“Who called the fire department?”
“I thought security did.”
“They didn’t.”
Mrs. Bellini approached.
“I did.”
Roman nodded.
Then he looked for Daniel.
The head of security was nowhere in sight.
“Where did Voss go?”
Nobody knew.
Roman pushed himself upright.
“Clara, take Maisie inside.”
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“You nearly died because someone in that house wanted you dead. That same man threatened my daughter.”
“I can protect you.”
“Someone tied you to a post in your own backyard.”
Roman had no answer for that.
Clara lowered her voice.
“Maybe you don’t know who you can trust.”
Roman stared at her.
She was right.
He hated that she was right.
Firefighters rushed past them.
Roman opened his hand again.
The silver cuff link belonged to Adrian DeCaro.
His cousin.
His adviser.
The man Roman had trusted with every financial account connected to the Duca estate.
But something was wrong.
Adrian had been in Chicago since yesterday.
Roman himself had watched his car leave for the airport.
Unless Adrian had never gone.
Roman turned toward the house.
A light appeared in the third-floor study.
His study.
Nobody was supposed to be there.
Then a shadow crossed the window.
Roman went still.
Clara followed his gaze.
“Roman?”
The study light went out.
His phone vibrated inside his wet pocket.
Impossible.
Whoever had tied him up had left the phone on him.
Roman pulled it out.
One new message.
No number.
He opened it.
WE KNOW THE CHILD SAW YOU.
A second message appeared before he could breathe.
BRING CLARA TO THE WINE CELLAR.
Then a photograph loaded.
It showed Clara entering the burning shed.
The photograph had been taken from inside the mansion.
Roman slowly raised his eyes toward the dark windows.
Someone was still watching them.
And then Clara’s phone began to ring.
May you like
The caller ID showed a name she had not seen in three years.
Her dead husband.
