The Watch Under the Pillow

The bronze letter opener slipped from my fingers, hitting the carpet with a dull thud.

I couldn’t breathe.

I stared at the Polaroid on the floor. My mother. And Martin Hale.

Our little girl, Rachel.

Martin Hale, the jeweler who had just exposed Vanessa’s theft over the phone. The man who had been in the bridal room this afternoon.

Was he my father?

I had never known my father. My mother had always told me he died before I was born. But here he was, young and smiling, holding my mother.

Why had someone slid this under the door right after Luca was attacked?

I looked at the locked door. Luca was out there. Hurt. Maybe worse.

I turned back to Leo, who was still hiding behind the leather sofa, his dark eyes wide with terror.

“Leo,” I whispered, forcing my voice to stay steady. “I have to look outside. I need you to stay exactly where you are. Do not make a sound.”

He nodded once, his small hands gripping the edge of the leather cushion.

I picked up the letter opener. My hands were slick with sweat. I reached for the deadbolt.

Click.

I pulled the heavy door open just an inch.

The hallway was empty.

But on the Persian rug, exactly where Luca had been standing, was a smear of dark crimson blood.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I stepped out into the hall, my eyes darting in every direction.

“Mr. Moretti?” I whispered into the gloom.

No answer.

I followed the smear of blood. It led toward the grand staircase, then disappeared near the entrance to the east wing. The wing that housed the library. And the bridal room.

I couldn’t leave Leo alone. I backed into the study, relocked the door, and ran to the desk. I picked up the landline phone to call the estate security gate.

There was no dial tone. The line had been cut.

Panic threatened to choke me. I looked wildly around the room. My eyes landed on the massive portrait of Isabella Moretti above the fireplace.

She dropped it in the cellar, Leo had said. When the monster locked her in.

Isabella hadn’t died in a car crash.

Vanessa had locked her in the wine cellar.

But if Isabella had been in the cellar four years ago, how did she drop my rosary? I had lost that rosary last week.

Unless Isabella was still down there.

No. That was impossible. There had been a funeral. A closed casket, but a funeral nonetheless.

I needed to find Luca. I couldn’t just wait in this room while he bled out somewhere in the mansion.

I looked at the heavy velvet drapes. Behind them was a window that led out onto the terrace.

“Leo,” I said, rushing over and pulling him out from behind the sofa. “We’re leaving. We’re going to the guardhouse at the front gate.”

I opened the window. The cold October wind swept into the room, smelling of rain and crushed leaves. I climbed out first, then reached back in and lifted Leo through.

We stayed low, moving through the shadows of the stone terrace. The moon was hidden behind thick clouds. The massive estate grounds felt like a graveyard.

As we neared the corner of the house, I heard a voice.

I pulled Leo behind a large stone planter, clamping my hand gently over his mouth.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel path just a few feet away.

“I don’t care how much blood there is,” a man’s voice hissed. “Put him in the trunk. If he wakes up, finish it.”

I held my breath. I recognized the voice.

It was Daniel. Luca’s head of security.

“What about the maid?” a second voice asked.

“She’s locked in the study. We’ll deal with her and the kid after we dump the body.”

Tears burned my eyes. Luca’s own head of security was working for Vanessa. They had him. They were going to kill him.

I had to do something.

But I had a six-year-old child in my arms.

I waited until their footsteps faded toward the garage. Then I picked Leo up and ran. Not toward the guardhouse—if Daniel was involved, the guards were compromised too.

I ran toward the only place I knew they wouldn’t look.

The old greenhouse at the edge of the property. It had been abandoned for years.

I pushed through the rusted iron door, the glass panes rattling in the wind. Inside, it smelled of damp earth and rotting wood. I set Leo down in the corner, behind a massive, dead oak planter.

“Don’t move,” I whispered, kissing his forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

I ran to the back of the greenhouse where the gardening supplies used to be kept. I needed a weapon. A shovel, shears, anything.

As I rummaged through the dark shelves, my hand brushed against something soft.

Fabric.

I pulled it down. It was a heavy wool coat.

A man’s coat.

I frowned, running my hands over it. It was expensive. Cashmere. Why was it hidden in an abandoned greenhouse?

My fingers brushed against a tear in the silk lining near the hem.

Something stiff was tucked inside the tear.

I pulled it out, holding it up to the faint moonlight filtering through the dirty glass roof.

It was a train ticket.

A first-class ticket from Boston to New York.

Dated four years ago. The exact night Isabella Moretti supposedly died in a car crash on a wet highway.

I flipped the ticket over.

Written in faded ink on the back was a single sentence:

Tell Rachel I’m sorry.

The breath left my lungs.

My name. On a ticket hidden in a coat four years ago. Long before I ever applied for a job at this estate.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

I spun around, dropping the coat.

Standing in the doorway of the greenhouse, silhouetted against the moonlight, was Martin Hale.

The jeweler.

My father.

He stepped inside, closing the rusted door behind him. He wasn’t running. He looked perfectly calm.

“You shouldn’t have come out here, Little Bird,” Hale said softly.

Little Bird.

That was what my mother used to call me.

“Who are you?” I demanded, gripping the bronze letter opener so tight my knuckles ached.

Hale sighed. “I’m the man trying to keep you alive. Give me the ticket, Rachel.”

“No. Where is Luca?”

“Luca Moretti is a fool,” Hale said, taking a step closer. “He thought he could play a game with the Romano family and win. Vanessa belongs to the Romanos. She always has.”

“Did she kill Isabella?” I yelled, not caring who heard.

Hale stopped. He looked at me with a profound, crushing sadness.

“No, Rachel,” he whispered. “Vanessa didn’t kill Isabella.”

He pointed at the heavy cashmere coat on the floor.

“The man who wore that coat killed Isabella.”

I looked down at the coat.

I recognized the stitching on the collar. The custom monogram embroidered into the lapel.

L.M.

Luca Moretti.

“You’re lying,” I gasped.

Hale reached into his pocket. I raised the letter opener, ready to fight.

But he didn’t pull out a gun.