Chapter 2 - The Secret In The Wood
The mansion was completely silent by midnight.
The gala guests had gone home.
The caterers had packed away the crystal glasses.
Teresa Moretti was finally asleep upstairs, her door wide open, with a fourteen-year-old beagle snoring softly on a folded green blanket beside her bed.
I was exhausted. My feet ached from standing in heels for six hours, and my black uniform was still damp at the cuffs.
But I couldn't stop thinking about the outdoor storage shed.
When I found Scout, I had dropped my flashlight and my good umbrella in the mud. I knew if the head housekeeper found them ruined in the morning, the cost would come out of my paycheck.
And with my mother’s hospital bills, I couldn't afford to lose a single dollar.
I slipped a heavy wool coat over my uniform and walked out the kitchen doors.
The autumn rain had turned into a freezing drizzle.
The garden was pitch black, except for the dim yellow glow of the security lights near the greenhouse.
I hurried across the wet grass, pulling my coat tight against the wind.
When I reached the old storage shed, the door was swaying slightly on its hinges.
I reached for the handle.
Then I froze.
A narrow beam of light was moving inside the shed.
Somebody was in there.
I held my breath and stepped closer to the gap in the wooden planks.
Vanessa Bellini was standing in the center of the dirt floor.
She was still wearing her red evening gown, though the hem was ruined with thick black mud. She had a heavy iron crowbar in her perfectly manicured hands.
She wasn't looking for a lost umbrella.
She was violently tearing apart the small wooden doghouse that Frank Moretti had built for Scout years ago.
Crack.
The wood splintered loudly as Vanessa jammed the crowbar beneath the floorboards of the doghouse. She was breathing heavily, her face pale and frantic in the glow of her cell phone flashlight.
Why would the fiancée of a billionaire be destroying a doghouse in the freezing rain at midnight?
She pulled a broken plank away and threw it over her shoulder.
She reached her hand into the dark cavity beneath the doghouse floor.
She felt around, her expression desperate.
Then, her face twisted in pure rage.
“Where is it?” she hissed to herself. “He said it was in the wood.”
She raised the crowbar to smash the rest of the structure.
I accidentally shifted my weight.
My shoe scraped against a loose piece of gravel.
Vanessa whipped around, shining the flashlight directly into my eyes.
“Who’s there?” she snapped.
I stood frozen in the doorway.
“Hannah,” she sneered, lowering the crowbar. “Spying on me?”
“I came to get my umbrella, Mrs. Bellini.”
Vanessa stepped over the ruined doghouse. Her eyes were cold, calculating.
“You caused a lot of trouble tonight,” she said, her voice dangerously quiet. “Luca is angry. His mother is hysterical. All over a filthy animal.”
“I was just doing my job,” I said, keeping my distance.
“Your job is to clean,” she stepped closer, the iron bar still in her hand. “If you ever humiliate me in front of my guests again, I won't just fire you. I will make sure your crippled mother loses her spot in that charity hospital.”
My stomach turned to ice.
She walked past me, deliberately knocking her shoulder against mine, and disappeared into the rain.
I stood alone in the dark shed for a long time.
My hands were shaking.
I slowly turned on my phone’s flashlight and pointed it at the shattered doghouse.
Frank Moretti had built it with his own hands. Teresa had told me he spent a whole weekend sanding the wood so Scout wouldn't get a splinter.
I knelt in the dirt to gather the broken pieces.
As I reached for the floorboard Vanessa had ripped away, I noticed something strange.
The cavity she had searched was empty.
But Frank had been a craftsman. He wouldn't leave a jagged, uneven gap beneath the floorboards.
I ran my fingers along the inside edge of the wood.
There was a tiny metal latch hidden flush against the back panel. A secondary compartment.
Vanessa had torn up the floor, but she hadn't checked the back wall.
I pressed the latch.
A small wooden panel popped open.
Inside was a rusted, vintage tobacco tin.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I pulled the tin out. It was heavy, sealed with a strip of old electrical tape.
I peeled the tape back and pried the lid open.
Inside lay three objects.
A heavy silver rosary.
A faded train ticket to Milwaukee, dated exactly fourteen years ago.
And a polaroid photograph.
I picked up the photograph, shining my light on it.
It showed Frank Moretti, looking much younger, standing in a diner. He was smiling, holding a tiny beagle puppy in one arm.
But he wasn't alone.
He was standing next to a young woman.
The woman was looking at the camera with an expression of profound terror.
I stared at her face.
May you like
I stopped breathing.
It was my mother.
