Chapter 4 - THE GHOST IN THE ARCHIVES
The drive back to the Gold Coast was suffocatingly tense.
Leo slept soundly in Alessandro’s arms, completely unaware of the bomb that had just been dropped in the backseat of the town car.
I couldn't stop looking at the crayon drawing. The cursive was elegant, old-fashioned, the kind of penmanship they stopped teaching decades ago.
Tell the maid she’s looking at the wrong frame.
“Who else knew I found the fake frame?” I asked quietly, not wanting to wake the boy.
Alessandro kept his eyes on the rain-slicked road outside the tinted window. “Only the people in that ballroom. And my security team. But this…” He tapped the drawing. “This handwriting. I’d know it anywhere. It’s my father’s. Giovanni Romano.”
“Could someone be forging it to mess with your head?”
“To what end?” Alessandro muttered. “Camille and Marcus are greedy, but they aren’t this sophisticated. This is a ghost playing games.”
When we arrived at the mansion, Rossi was already waiting at the front doors.
“Marcus is in custody,” Rossi reported, holding an umbrella over us as we hurried inside. “The police found the eleven stolen paintings in the trunk of his car at the airport. The original seaside painting is back in our vault.”
“Good,” Alessandro said, carrying Leo up the sweeping grand staircase. “Double the perimeter guard. Nobody enters the grounds without my explicit approval. Not even the staff.”
“What about her?” Rossi asked, nodding toward me.
“Claire stays,” Alessandro said without missing a beat. “Put her in the guest suite next to the nursery. She’s not a maid tonight. She’s our guest.”
I started to protest—I had a small apartment in Rogers Park, and my mother was probably wondering why I wasn't home yet—but the look in Alessandro’s eyes stopped me. He needed someone he could trust. And right now, that circle was terrifyingly small.
Ten minutes later, I was in a luxurious guest suite, wrapped in a dry, silk bathrobe provided by the housekeeper. I sat on the edge of the plush king-sized bed, holding my phone.
I called my mother.
“Claire? Honey, it’s late,” her sleepy voice answered.
“Mom, I’m staying at the mansion tonight. There was a security issue at the gala. We’re locked down.”
A pause. “Security issue? Are you safe?”
“I’m fine, Mom. Truly.”
“Okay. Oh, by the way, the strangest thing happened tonight.”
I sat up straight. “What?”
“A man came by the framing shop right as I was closing up. Older gentleman. Well-dressed. He asked about that old seaside painting you told me you were helping Mr. Bennett with.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “What did you tell him, Mom?”
“Nothing! I told him we respect client confidentiality. He just smiled, bought a small wooden frame, and left. Paid with a hundred-dollar bill.”
“Did he say his name?”
“No. But he left his umbrella behind. It had a strange silver handle. Shaped like a falcon.”
I stopped breathing.
When I was in the vault three days ago with Mr. Bennett, he had shown me a glass display case of the Romano family heirlooms. One of them was an antique cane with a silver falcon head. It had belonged to Giovanni Romano.
“Mom. Lock the doors. Turn on the alarm system. Do not open the shop tomorrow.”
“Claire, you’re scaring me—”
“Just do it, Mom. Please.”
I hung up and sprinted out of the room, my bare feet slapping against the marble floors. I ran down the hall to Alessandro’s private study.
I pushed the heavy oak doors open without knocking.
Alessandro was standing by the fireplace, pouring a glass of scotch. He looked up, surprised by my sudden entrance.
“He was at my mother’s shop,” I gasped out. “The man with the handwriting. He bought a frame.”
Alessandro set the glass down hard. The crystal clinked against the wood.
“Are you sure?”
“He left an umbrella with a silver falcon handle. Just like your father’s cane in the vault.”
Alessandro crossed the room in three massive strides, grabbing his keys. “We’re going to the vault. Right now.”
The family vault was located in the sub-basement of the mansion, protected by a steel door and a biometric scanner. Alessandro pressed his thumb to the pad, and the heavy door hissed open.
The room was climate-controlled, smelling of old paper and leather.
He walked straight to the glass display case in the center of the room.
The silver falcon cane was gone.
But that wasn’t what made Alessandro freeze.
In its place, resting on the velvet cushion, was a tarnished gold pocket watch.
Alessandro slowly reached in and picked it up. His hands, usually so steady, were trembling slightly.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“It’s my watch,” he said, his voice breaking. “The one I lost in the river when I was twelve years old. The day my father supposedly drowned.”
He popped the watch open.
Inside the lid, freshly engraved, were the words:
The truth is in the paint, Sandro.
“He’s alive,” Alessandro breathed, staring at the watch. “My father is alive. And he was in this house today.”
I stepped closer to him. “What does he mean, the truth is in the paint?”
Alessandro looked at me, a wild desperation in his eyes.
“The original painting. The one we just got back from Marcus.”
We ran to the art storage rack at the back of the vault. The seaside painting was resting there, safe in its protective wrapping.
We tore the bubble wrap off. The painting looked exactly as it had three days ago.
“Look closely,” Alessandro ordered.
I grabbed a magnifying glass from the restoration desk and held it over the canvas. I scanned the beautiful seaside village, the cliffs, the boats.
Then I saw it.
Right where Alessandro had painted his blue sailboat as a six-year-old child.
The blue mark was there.
But it wasn't just a blob of paint anymore.
Someone had meticulously painted over the blue mark, turning it into a tiny, perfect crest.
A crest I recognized immediately.
“That’s the symbol of the Moretti family,” Alessandro said, stepping back in horror.
The Morettis were the rival syndicate. The family that had supposedly murdered Giovanni Romano twenty years ago.
And hidden in the tiny brushstrokes of the crest were four numbers.
1-9-9-8.
“1998,” I read aloud.
May you like
Alessandro looked at me, his face devoid of all color.
“That’s the year my mother died in a car crash.” He stared at the painting. “He didn't just break in to leave a watch, Claire. He’s trying to tell me my mother was murdered.”
