Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Hallway
“Rachel, sweetie? Open the door. It’s Vanessa.”
The voice was sickly sweet, carrying a deceptive calm that made the hair on my arms stand up. I backed away from the door, pulling Margaret with me. The elderly woman’s eyes were wide with terror as she clutched the toxicology report to her chest.
“Mr. Russo told me not to open the door for anyone,” I called out, trying to keep my voice steady. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might crack my ribs.
A low, humorless laugh echoed from the other side of the heavy oak wood.
“Gabriel is currently tearing the East Wing apart looking for me, Rachel,” Vanessa said smoothly. “He thinks I’m trying to leave. But I couldn't leave without my grandmother’s jewelry box. Now, be a good maid and unlock the door.”
“I don't have the box!” I shouted back. “You took it weeks ago!”
“I know I did, you stupid girl,” Vanessa’s voice lost its sweetness, replaced by a sharp, venomous edge. “But I don't have the key. And I know Margaret is in there with you. She knows where Caroline hid it.”
Margaret let out a terrified whimper. She looked at me, shaking her head frantically. She didn't know Gabriel had just found the key inside the silver hairbrush.
“Mrs. Sullivan doesn't know anything,” I said, stepping between the bed and the door.
The doorknob stopped rattling. For a moment, there was complete silence in the hallway.
Then, Vanessa spoke again. Her voice was much softer now. Almost conversational.
“Rachel, your mother is at the Oak Creek Care Facility, isn't she?”
My blood ran completely cold. I stopped breathing.
“Room 214,” Vanessa continued, her tone conversational and entirely lethal. “She requires oxygen at night, doesn't she? It would be a terrible tragedy if the facility experienced a sudden power failure. Those backup generators are so unreliable.”
“Don't you dare touch her,” I whispered, stepping closer to the door, my hands balling into fists.
“Then open the door, Rachel,” Vanessa commanded. “Hand over the old woman, and your mother lives to see tomorrow. I’ll even let you keep your job.”
I looked back at Margaret. The elderly widow was weeping silently, her silver hair catching the dim light of the bedroom lamps. She had lost her husband, lost her daughter, and now she was trapped in a room with a monster trying to erase the last traces of her family.
I thought of my mother. Kind, tired, struggling to breathe in a hospital bed across the city.
You can lose a job and find another, Rachel. But you can't get back the moment you should have stood up for someone.
“Go to hell, Vanessa,” I said loudly.
A heavy, violent thud hit the door. Someone was trying to kick it in. It wasn't Vanessa; she didn't have the strength. She had brought someone with her.
“Break it down,” Vanessa ordered coldly.
I grabbed Margaret’s hand and pulled her toward the large walk-in closet at the back of the room. “Come on, Mrs. Sullivan, quickly.”
We hurried inside the dark closet, pushing past rows of Caroline’s old winter coats. I pulled the heavy cedar door shut behind us just as a loud splintering sound echoed from the bedroom. The deadbolt had given way.
Footsteps entered the room. Heavy, deliberate boots.
“Find the key,” Vanessa’s voice ordered. “Tear the room apart if you have to. And if the old woman screams, silence her.”
Inside the closet, it was pitch black. Margaret was trembling violently against me. I held her tight, pressing my hand gently over her mouth to muffle her crying. I could hear the sounds of drawers being pulled out and thrown to the floor. The sound of porcelain shattering against the hardwood.
They were destroying Caroline’s memory piece by piece.
Then, a sudden, sharp gasp echoed from the bedroom.
“Miss Laurent,” a gruff male voice said. “Look at the vanity.”
I held my breath, straining to hear.
“The silver hairbrush,” Vanessa murmured. “It’s broken in half. The center is hollow.”
A terrible silence fell over the room.
“Gabriel,” Vanessa whispered, her voice trembling with sudden panic. “He found the key. He took it.”
“What do we do now, Miss?” the man asked.
“We leave,” Vanessa said frantically. “If Gabriel realizes I’m not in the East Wing, he’ll lock down the estate. We have the box. We’ll just have to force it open later and risk the incendiary.”
The heavy footsteps moved quickly toward the door. But before they could exit, a calm, deep voice drifted in from the hallway.
“You aren't leaving, Vanessa.”
Gabriel Russo stood in the doorway.
Even from inside the dark closet, I could feel the shift in the air. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
“Gabriel,” Vanessa stammered, trying to sound innocent. “Darling, this isn't what it looks like. This man is security, he was helping me look for—”
“Shut up.”
Two words. Said without raising his voice. But the sheer authority in them made Vanessa instantly quiet.
“I checked the security cameras, Vanessa,” Gabriel said softly. “You didn't go to the East Wing. You came straight here. Why?”
“I was looking for Rachel,” she lied smoothly. “To apologize for losing my temper downstairs.”
“You kicked in a solid oak door to apologize to a maid?” Gabriel asked.
I heard the sound of a gun cocking. The heavy, metallic click echoed loudly in the quiet room.
“Put the gun down, Mr. Russo,” the gruff man said.
“I don't think I will,” Gabriel replied calmly. “Because you are currently holding a blue wooden box that belongs to my late wife. And you are standing in a room you have no right to be in.”
“Gabriel, please,” Vanessa pleaded. “If you just give me the small brass key, I’ll explain everything. I swear.”
“I have the key,” Gabriel said. “And I’m going to open the box right now. But you aren't going to be the one holding it when I do.”
“If you open that box, Gabriel,” Vanessa’s voice turned desperate, “you are going to start a war you cannot win.”
“I’m Gabriel Russo,” he said coldly. “I don't start wars. I end them. Now put the box on the bed.”
A heavy silence followed. Then, the soft thud of the wooden box hitting the mattress.
I couldn't stay in the closet any longer. I slowly pushed the cedar door open just a crack.
I could see Gabriel standing near the bed, his gun aimed steadily at the large man standing next to Vanessa. Gabriel reached out with his free hand and slid the tiny brass key into the lock of the blue wooden box.
He turned it. A soft click echoed in the room.
Gabriel opened the lid.
He looked inside.
For five seconds, the most powerful man in New York stood completely paralyzed. The color drained from his face. The gun in his hand slowly lowered to his side.
Vanessa smiled, a cruel, triumphant expression. “I warned you, Gabriel.”
Gabriel stared into the box, his voice barely a whisper when he finally spoke.
“This isn't a ledger.”
He reached into the box with a trembling hand and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. Not a document. A photograph.
But it wasn't an old photo. The glossy paper was brand new.
Gabriel turned the photo around so Vanessa could see it. Even from the closet, I could see what it was.
It was a picture of a little boy, no older than four years old, playing in a park. He had dark hair and piercing dark eyes. He looked exactly like Gabriel.
May you like
Written across the bottom of the photo in red ink was one sentence.
If you want to see your son again, bring the ledger to Evelyn Laurent.
