Chapter 3 - THE LETTER UNDER THE FLOORBOARD
By late morning, Sofia was discharged with strict instructions to rest.
Dante’s driver took her not to her apartment, but to the Moretti estate.
She protested until Dante explained that the police had already placed a
guard outside her building and that the estate had a private medical
suite.
“You’re making it sound like a prison,” she said as the car passed
through the iron gates.
“It has better food than prison.”
“That’s not the defense you think it is.”
A corner of his mouth moved, almost a smile. It vanished as soon as they
reached the house.
The dining room remained sealed. The pink camellias had been removed for
testing, leaving a pale ring on the sideboard where the vase had stood.
Dante had ordered every staff member interviewed separately. No one
admitted seeing the woman.
Mrs. Bell met them in the hall. “The police have taken the vase and the
table linens. They also found a small piece of black ribbon beneath the
sideboard.”
Dante accepted the evidence bag. The ribbon looked ordinary, except for
a tiny silver thread woven through its edge.
Sofia’s pulse quickened. “That pattern was on my mother’s photograph.”
Dante looked at her. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
He handed the bag to his security chief. “Send it to the lab. Compare it
with anything found in Sofia’s belongings, with her permission.”
“I’ll give you the letter,” Sofia said before she could change her mind.
She led him to the room where she had been staying while restoring
Isabella’s portrait. Her suitcase sat beside the wardrobe. From a hidden
pocket in her sketchbook, she removed a yellowed envelope. The wax seal
bore a small star.
Dante studied it without touching it. “You brought this here?”
“I planned to ask you about the crest. Then I saw the flowers, and I got
scared.”
“Why didn’t you open it?”
“Because it was addressed to me, but my mother wrote on the back: ‘Only
when the star returns.’ I thought she meant some private family joke.”
Sofia broke the seal. Inside was a letter in her mother’s familiar
handwriting and a small photograph of a young woman standing beside a
greenhouse. Her face was turned away. Around her neck hung the silver
locket.
Sofia read aloud.
“My dearest Sofia, if you are reading this, then the past has found its
way to you. I hoped you would never have to carry what I kept hidden.
Years ago, I worked at the Moretti estate under a different name. I was
young, frightened, and loyal to someone who did not deserve my loyalty.
The night Isabella disappeared, I saw a woman leave the greenhouse
carrying a bundle wrapped in a white blanket. I was told it was a child.
I was ordered to forget what I had seen. I did not forget.”
Sofia stopped reading. Her hands shook.
Dante’s face had gone rigid. “Keep going.”
“Isabella trusted me with a key and a promise. If anything happened to
her, I was to protect the child and wait until the silver star returned.
I never knew whether Isabella survived. I only knew that someone
powerful wanted the truth buried. If you find the woman with the locket,
do not assume she is your enemy. And do not trust the man who says the
fire ended everything.”
At the bottom, her mother had signed the letter: Rosa Reyes.
Dante sat down as if his legs had failed him. “A child?”
“My mother never mentioned one.”
“Do you think she meant me?”
Sofia looked at him, startled. “You were already eighteen when the fire
happened.”
“Then someone else. A child taken from the estate.” He pressed his
fingers against his forehead. “My father never mentioned a child.”
The letter contained one more line, written in a different ink.
“The key is where the music stopped.”
Dante read it twice. Then he rose and walked to the old portrait
gallery. Sofia followed, even though her legs were still weak.
The gallery held paintings of Moretti ancestors, each severe face turned
toward the viewer as if guarding the walls. At the far end stood
Isabella’s portrait, recently restored by Sofia. The painting showed
Dante’s mother in a blue dress beside the greenhouse, her hand resting
on a closed piano.
Dante stopped in front of it.
“My mother played piano every evening,” he said. “The night of the fire,
I heard her playing. Then the music stopped.”
He knelt beside the small upright piano beneath the portrait. Its lid
was locked. Sofia ran her fingers along the carved edge and found a tiny
indentation beneath the left corner. Inside it was a narrow brass key.
The key fit a hidden compartment under the keyboard.
Within lay a folded map of the estate grounds and a note in Isabella’s
handwriting: “If you have found this, then the house has failed to keep
its secrets. Go to the winter greenhouse after dark. Come alone.”
Dante looked at Sofia. “Someone expected me to find this.”
“Or expected my mother’s letter to reach me.”
He folded the map carefully. “We’ll go together.”
“You said you wouldn’t use me as bait.”
“I’m not. I’m done letting other people decide what you’re allowed to
know.”
For the first time since the dinner, Sofia believed him.
But as they left the gallery, neither noticed the small camera hidden
inside the carved frame of Isabella’s portrait.
May you like
Someone had watched them find the key.
And someone was already on the way to the greenhouse.
