Chapter 2 - “Folded?”
“No.”
“Under your door?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone see you pick it up?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you touch both sides?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“This isn’t a test.”
“I know.”
But she clearly didn’t.
So he changed direction.
“What made you apply here?”
She blinked.
“What?”
“The job.”
“Oh.”
“Why this estate?”
Claire hesitated.
“Money.”
“Only money?”
She gave him a look.
“You pay almost twice what hotels do.”
“Fair.”
She folded her hands.
“My mother has medical bills.”
Adrian’s expression shifted.
Claire immediately regretted saying it.
“She’s fine.”
“You just said medical bills.”
“She’s alive. Stable.”
“I didn’t ask for details.”
She looked at him.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
She seemed surprised.
“For what?”
“Making you think I expected them.”
Claire looked away.
After a moment she said:
“My father died last year.”
Adrian remained silent.
“My mother had depended on him for everything.”
She gave a small smile that wasn’t really a smile.
“I found out how expensive grief is.”
That sentence hit him unexpectedly.
Funeral costs.
Bills.
Rent.
Medication.
Paperwork.
Grief apparently had invoices.
“So you took this job.”
“Yes.”
“And Dean knew?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he ever ask about money?”
Claire frowned.
“Once.”
“When?”
“The day after I started.”
“What did he ask?”
“If I had debts.”
Adrian’s eyes sharpened.
“What did you say?”
“That everybody has debts.”
“And?”
“He laughed.”
Claire thought.
“He said people with enough debt become useful.”
Silence.
Adrian leaned back.
That was new.
“What exactly did he say?”
She repeated it.
He wrote nothing down.
He remembered.
“Did he ask you to do anything?”
“No.”
“Carry anything?”
“No.”
“Open rooms?”
Claire paused.
Adrian saw it.
“What?”
“He asked me once whether I cleaned your study.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“And what did you say?”
“That Mrs. Ruiz does.”
“Then?”
“He asked whether she ever left the key unattended.”
Adrian’s expression went cold.
Claire swallowed.
“I thought he was checking procedure.”
“Maybe he was.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
The missing study key was discovered thirty minutes later.
Not the main key.
A backup.
Signed out four weeks earlier for hinge repairs.
Never returned.
The signature:
Dean Russo.
Marco stared at the log.
“We’ve been looking at cameras.”
Adrian nodded.
“He was looking at paper.”
“What’s in the study worth stealing?”
James answered from across the room.
“Depends which cabinet.”
Adrian’s private office held financial records, property documents, internal business agreements and old family archives.
But the most sensitive current material was not kept there.
Unless Dean didn’t know that.
Or unless he wanted something older.
They inspected the cabinets.
Nothing appeared missing.
Then Claire, standing at the doorway, noticed a pale rectangle on the bottom shelf.
“Was something there?”
Adrian turned.
“What?”
She pointed.
Dust outlined the shape of a removed box.
A narrow archival box.
Adrian crouched.
Marco swore quietly.
“What was stored there?”
Adrian stared at the empty space.
He knew.
“My father’s correspondence.”
“Business?”
“Some.”
“Personal?”
“Yes.”
James frowned.
“Why would Dean want letters from a dead man?”
Adrian stood.
“That is what we’re going to find out.”
That night, Claire refused to sleep outside Adrian’s door.
He had moved her room temporarily to the upstairs guest corridor, between Marco’s office and Emma Ruiz’s suite.
“I feel ridiculous,” she said.
“You shouldn’t.”
“Everyone knows now.”
“They know you were moved.”
“Why?”
“Renovation.”
Claire raised an eyebrow.
“That’s a lie.”
“An administrative explanation.”
“Sophisticated lie again?”
“Exactly.”
She smiled.
Then the smile faded.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Adrian.”
She looked startled.
“Staff call you Mr. Moretti.”
“You’re not on duty.”
Her pale blue eyes held his.
“Adrian.”
His name sounded different in her voice.
Less like a title.
More like a person.
“Yes?”
“What if Dean was never going to hurt me?”
Adrian frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“What if he wanted me afraid?”
“Why?”
“So I’d do exactly what I did.”
Silence.
Claire looked toward the corridor.
“Sleep outside your room.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
She continued slowly.
“If someone knew I was sleeping outside your bedroom…”
“They would know the hallway was occupied.”
“Yes.”
“That works against them.”
“Unless they wanted me to hear something.”
Adrian went still.
Claire’s face paled as the thought finished forming.
“What if that conversation outside your study wasn’t accidental?”
He looked at her.
“Why frighten you first?”
“So I’d believe it.”
The room fell silent.
That was possible.
Which meant Claire might not simply be a witness.
She might have been used to deliver a message.
But why?
Adrian returned to his study.
He examined the threatening note again.
Then the missing-box outline.
Then the altered camera schedule.
Three different threads.
Maybe connected.
Maybe designed to look connected.
At midnight, Marco called.
“We found Dean.”
“Where?”
“At his apartment.”
“And?”
“He wants to come back.”
“Why?”
“Says he knows you’re investigating him.”
Adrian said nothing.
Marco continued.
“He says Claire misunderstood everything.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“He says the real traitor isn’t him.”
Adrian looked toward the guest corridor.
Claire stood at the far end, watching.
Marco finished:
“He says the missing box proves it.”
Adrian’s voice lowered.
“What does he know about the box?”
“Apparently enough.”
Then Marco said the words that shifted the entire investigation.
“Boss, Dean says your father left a letter naming the person he believed would betray you someday.”
Adrian went still.
“And according to Dean…”
Marco paused.
“…that name was yours.”
Dean returned to the estate the following morning.
Not in handcuffs.
Not surrounded by armed men.
He arrived through the front entrance wearing a dark suit and an expression Adrian had never seen on him before.
Fear.
Real fear.
Claire did not attend the meeting.
That was Adrian’s decision.
She had already spent enough time being treated like evidence in someone else’s problem.
Dean sat opposite Adrian.
Marco stood near the window.
James remained beside the desk.
Adrian placed the threatening note between them.
“Did you write this?”
“No.”
“Did you have it delivered?”
“No.”
“Did you alter the east-hall camera schedule?”
Dean hesitated.
“Yes.”
Marco’s shoulders tightened.
“Why?”
Dean looked at Adrian.
“To see who would notice.”
Silence.
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“Explain.”
Dean rubbed both hands together.
“For two months, I’ve believed someone inside the estate has been accessing old family records.”
“You had access.”
“Yes.”
“You took the box.”
“Yes.”
James leaned forward.
“So you admit it.”
“I admit taking it.”
“Why?”
Dean looked at Adrian.
“Your father told me to.”
The room became still.
“My father has been dead eight years.”
“I know.”
“Try again.”
Dean reached into his jacket slowly.
Marco’s hand moved instinctively.
Dean stopped.
“Paper.”
Adrian nodded once.
Dean removed an envelope.
Old.
Yellowed.
Vittorio Moretti’s handwriting covered the front.
FOR DEAN RUSSO — ONLY IF ADRIAN BEGINS REOPENING THE EAST ESTATE RECORDS.
Adrian stared.
He knew the handwriting.
There was no question.
“Where was that?”
“In the box.”
“You opened it.”
“Yes.”
“It was addressed to you.”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
Dean looked exhausted.
“That your father suspected somebody close to him had been feeding private business information to competitors.”
“Who?”
“He didn’t know.”
“Then what does my name have to do with it?”
Dean swallowed.
“He believed you might discover it one day.”
“That isn’t what Marco said.”
“No.”
Dean looked down.
“I told Marco the letter named you because I needed you to let me back inside.”
Marco’s face went cold.
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
Adrian said nothing.
Dean continued.
“I thought if I said anything less, you’d never hear me.”
“That was probably correct.”
Dean nodded once.
Adrian pointed toward the note.
“Claire.”
Dean closed his eyes.
“I was drunk.”
“That is not an explanation.”
“No.”
“You humiliated her.”
“Yes.”
“You frightened her.”
“Yes.”
Dean looked toward the floor.
“I thought she’d seen me near the study.”
Adrian stared.
“So you tried to scare her quiet.”
“Yes.”
“Then later she overheard you talking.”
Dean’s eyes lifted.
“That conversation wasn’t about killing you.”
“What was it about?”
“Testing the security gap.”
Marco stepped forward.
“You altered cameras without telling me.”
“I thought whoever was accessing the estate would use the gap.”
“You created an unauthorized vulnerability.”
“Yes.”
May you like
“And the bedroom comment?”
Dean rubbed his forehead.
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