Chapter 2 - THE ROOM BENEATH THE CONSERVATORY
The silence in the room was absolute.
I looked at the tiny silver key resting in Sophie’s palm.
Dominic didn’t move. He stared at the key as if it were a venomous snake.
“Where did he give you this, Sophie?” Dominic’s voice was completely steady. It was the calmness of a man holding back an ocean of rage.
Sophie looked at her feet. “In the garden. The day after Mommy’s funeral. Uncle Adrian said if I was very quiet, Mommy would call for me when she was ready.”
Dominic’s jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth would crack.
He turned to Victoria.
“You knew Adrian was talking to her.”
Victoria shook her head violently, tears ruining her expensive makeup.
“No! Dominic, I swear! Adrian gave me the speaker, yes! But he told me it was a therapeutic device from a specialist in Europe! He said playing Grace’s voice would soothe her!”
“And the man on the speaker tonight? The driver at the south gate?”
Victoria started sobbing. “Adrian told me he was sending a car to take Sophie to a private clinic in Switzerland! He said the trauma was too much, that you were in denial, and she needed professional help away from Chicago!”
“You were going to let my brother take my daughter out of the country?”
“I thought I was helping!” she screamed.
Dominic didn’t yell back.
He simply looked at her with a profound, terrifying disgust.
“You thought you were securing your place as the only woman in this house,” Dominic said softly.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
“Marco,” Dominic spoke into the receiver. “Lock down the south gate. If there is a vehicle waiting, detain the driver. If he resists, shoot him.”
He ended the call.
He looked at me. “Hannah.”
“Yes, Mr. Romano.”
“Take Sophie to the main security office. Do not leave her side.”
I nodded, gripping Sophie’s small hand tightly.
“Daddy, where are you going?” Sophie asked, her voice trembling.
Dominic knelt down, taking the tiny silver key from her hand.
“I’m going to find out what Uncle Adrian is hiding, sweetheart.”
I led Sophie down the grand staircase, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The security office was a fortress of glass and steel in the center of the mansion. Marco, the head of security, was already barking orders into his radio when we arrived.
“Sit here, honey,” I told Sophie, placing her in a heavy leather chair.
I watched the security monitors on the wall.
On screen four, I saw Dominic walking alone through the dark, sprawling gardens behind the mansion. He was heading toward the old glass conservatory.
It was a beautiful, gothic structure that Grace had supposedly loved. Since her death, it had been locked and abandoned.
I watched Dominic approach the heavy iron doors of the conservatory.
He inserted the tiny silver key.
The doors swung open.
My breath caught in my throat.
Answer one: Adrian wasn’t trying to soothe Sophie. He was psychologically torturing a six-year-old girl to lure her out of the house.
Open two: Why was Adrian’s escape vehicle waiting tonight? What was inside the conservatory that made him so desperate?
Suddenly, one of the security monitors went black.
Then another.
“What’s happening?” I asked Marco.
Marco cursed loudly, typing furiously on his keyboard.
“Someone is cutting the camera feeds in the east wing. And the garden.”
Before Marco could restore the video, his radio crackled.
It was the guard from the south gate.
“Marco! The vehicle at the gate... it’s not a clinic transport.”
“What is it?” Marco demanded.
“It’s a coroner’s van.”
My blood ran cold.
A coroner’s van.
“Marco,” I whispered, staring at the blank screen where Dominic had just been. “Adrian isn’t trying to kidnap Sophie.”
Marco looked at me, his face pale.
I remembered my father’s lessons about electronics. About old radios and signal ranges.
“That speaker in Sophie’s room,” I said quickly. “It was a short-range Bluetooth receiver. The signal only travels about fifty feet.”
Marco’s eyes widened.
“Which means,” I continued, panic rising in my chest, “whoever was speaking to her wasn’t outside the house. They were inside.”
A heavy, slow clap echoed from the doorway of the security office.
We turned.
Standing in the doorway was Adrian Romano.
He was holding a suppressed pistol.
And wearing a pair of dark leather gloves.
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“Very smart, Hannah,” Adrian smiled. “But you’re a little too late.”
TITLE: THE GLOVES THAT BELONGED TO A DEAD WOMAN
