Chapter 4 - The Room That Should Not Exist
The first thing I learned about Victor Shaw was that he never needed to raise his voice to frighten anyone.
He simply waited for the world to do what he wanted.
As the floor shuddered beneath my feet, Victor slipped the black remote into his pocket. The hatch slammed shut, and the sound of Dante shouting from below faded beneath the groan of machinery.
“What have you done?” I demanded.
“Closed a door.”
“My husband is down there.”
“So is Mr. Moretti.”
“Open it!”
Victor glanced toward the corridor, where footsteps approached and stopped. His men were waiting outside.
“You should take Sophie to your cottage,” he said. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow, everything will be different.”
I stared at him.
“You expect me to go to sleep while you trap people beneath your house?”
“I expect you to understand that some doors should remain closed.”
He reached for the wooden box.
I swung it at his face.
The corner struck his cheek with a satisfying crack. Victor staggered, and I seized Sophie's hand.
“Run!”
We dashed past him into the corridor.
A guard stepped into our path. He wore the Moretti security uniform, with a black shoulder holster and an earpiece. I recognized him as one of the men who had escorted guests into the mansion earlier.
“Mrs. Alvarez, stop!”
I threw the photograph at his face.
He flinched.
It was enough.
Sophie and I slipped beneath his arm and raced down the staircase.
Behind us, Victor shouted an order.
A gunshot punched through the air.
The bullet struck a framed portrait above our heads, spraying glass across the steps.
Sophie screamed, but she kept running.
I dragged her through the pantry, shoved open a service door, and pulled her into the narrow corridor leading toward the old kitchens.
We needed somewhere to hide.
The cottage was too obvious. The servants' quarters were full of people Victor could control. The main gates were surrounded by armed guards who might already be following his orders.
Then I remembered the one room in the mansion Victor never entered.
Teresa Moretti's private archive.
It was tucked behind the old music room, inside a former chapel that had been converted into a study. Teresa spent hours there reviewing family documents, financial records, and photographs from decades of Moretti history.
She had once told me that the archive contained every important decision the family had ever made.
At the time, I had thought she was speaking metaphorically.
Now I wondered whether she had been warning me.
I pushed Sophie through the music room and tried the chapel door.
Locked.
I struck it with the wooden box.
Nothing.
Then Sophie tugged the hem of my coat.
“Mama, the door with the little star.”
“What?”
She pointed toward the far wall, where a faded tapestry depicted a church beneath a field of stars.
I remembered cleaning the chapel two months earlier. Teresa had asked me to move that tapestry so she could inspect the stonework behind it.
I pulled the fabric aside.
A small brass plate sat between two carved stones.
Three shallow marks had been cut into its surface.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
My daughter's pattern.
I pressed the marks in order.
A click sounded inside the wall.
The stone shifted outward.
Behind it lay a narrow opening just wide enough for a child.
I stared at Sophie.
“How did you know?”
She shrugged.
“The man showed me.”
My blood went cold again.
“When?”
“The second night. He said if I ever got lost, I should look for the stars.”
I pushed the tapestry farther aside.
Beyond the opening was a small chamber lined with shelves. Old ledgers filled the wall, their spines marked with dates and initials. A narrow iron ladder led downward, while another passage disappeared behind a row of wooden cabinets.
I helped Sophie inside and closed the stone panel.
We heard the guards pass outside.
One stopped directly in front of the tapestry.
“Search the music room,” Victor ordered from somewhere nearby. “She has the box.”
Footsteps retreated.
I held Sophie close and listened until the corridor fell silent.
Then I turned on my phone's flashlight.
The hidden chamber contained no window, no obvious ventilation, and only one narrow passage leading farther into the mansion. The air smelled of dust and leather.
On a small table sat a photograph of Teresa with two boys.
Dante stood on her right.
Nico stood on her left.
Between them, Teresa held a third child wrapped in a white blanket.
Someone had scratched the baby's face away.
I turned the photograph over.
The back bore three names.
Dante Moretti.
Nico Moretti.
Miguel Alvarez.
My legs weakened.
My husband had been in Teresa's photographs long before I met him.
I looked closer.
Miguel appeared older than the boys, perhaps by ten years. He stood in the background of what seemed to be a family celebration, wearing a dark suit I had never seen.
Teresa had one hand resting on his shoulder.
Beside her, Dante looked barely twelve.
Nico looked about eight.
On the far edge of the photograph, a man in a police uniform stared directly at the camera.
His face was familiar.
I had seen it on television interviews after Miguel's death.
Detective Raymond Russo.
The detective who had told me that my husband was the victim of mistaken identity.
I pressed a trembling finger against his face.
“You knew Miguel,” I whispered.
Sophie looked at the photograph.
“That's the bad man.”
I turned sharply.
“Which one?”
“The man who came to the window. He had the same watch.”
The detective's wrist was partly hidden behind Teresa's shoulder, but a silver watch glinted beneath his sleeve.
A black face.
A thin gold line around the edge.
The same watch Sophie had described when I first asked about the knocking.
My phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
I answered without speaking.
For several seconds, all I heard was breathing.
Then a man's voice whispered, “Mara?”
I gripped the phone.
“Who is this?”
“Don't trust the police.”
My heart pounded.
“Where is Dante?”
“Below you.”
“Are you Nico?”
Silence.
Then, quietly, “The man who came through the wall is not your enemy.”
A heavy impact shook the chamber.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
The voice became urgent.
“Listen to me. Victor is looking for the ledger. If he finds it before Dante does, everyone in that house will die.”
“What ledger?”
“The one Miguel stole.”
I looked at the shelves.
Rows upon rows of financial records stretched into the darkness.
“Which one?”
The man exhaled shakily.
“The ledger with your daughter's name inside it.”
The call disconnected.
I lowered the phone.
Sophie clutched my sleeve.
“Mama?”
I knelt in front of her.
“Did the man ever tell you why he came to our window?”
She nodded.
“He said he wanted to see if I had grown.”
“Grown?”
“He said he hadn't seen me since I was a baby.”
I stared at her.
Miguel had been dead for three years.
Sophie had been two when he died.
And whoever had been watching her through the cottage window knew her before she could remember him.
I looked back at the photograph.
Then at the hidden shelves.
There was a narrow drawer beneath the table, half concealed behind a stack of dusty folders. I opened it and found a leather ledger secured with a small brass lock.
The key was missing.
But carved into the leather cover were three words.
THE MORETTI CHILDREN.
I opened the ledger as far as the lock allowed.
One page had been torn from its binding.
On the remaining page, six names appeared beside dates and payments.
Five had been crossed out in red ink.
The last name had not.
Sophie Alvarez.
My daughter.
Beside her name was a date three days from now.
May you like
And beneath it, in neat black handwriting, were the words:
TRANSFER APPROVED.
