Chapter 2 - The Missing Nephew, the Broken Camera, and the First Lie

The first person Vincent questioned was Frank Caruso.

Not because Frank was the most likely traitor, Dominic explained, but because loyalty had rules. The closer someone stood to Vincent, the less room there was for uncertainty.

Alina learned this from the kitchen doorway while pretending to make tea she did not want.

The estate had been sealed for nearly three hours. Police had been told there had been suspected vehicle tampering and a missing employee, but Vincent’s private security team was conducting its own internal review at the same time. Nobody said which investigation mattered more.

Mia sat at the breakfast table drawing with crayons someone had found in a supply cabinet. She drew a black car, gray rain, a yellow flashlight, and a man with a large circle on one hand.

Alina watched every line.

“Was his face like this?” she asked carefully.

Mia shook her head.

“Did you see his face?”

“No. Hat.”

“What kind?”

Mia drew a dark shape over the stick figure’s head. Then she added a long mark beside him.

“What is that?”

“Door.”

Alina frowned. “What door?”

“Little door by cars.”

The service entrance beside the underground garage.

Someone using that door would need a code or an access badge.

Dominic entered carrying a paper cup of coffee and looking as if he had forgotten to drink it. He paused over Mia’s drawing before speaking, photographing it with his phone and asking Alina not to fold or alter the page. The seriousness with which he treated a three-year-old’s crayons made Alina realize that, for the first time since the warning, someone besides her was preserving Mia’s memory as evidence rather than dismissing it as childhood imagination.

“Vincent wants to speak with you.”

“About what?”

“Everything Mia remembers.”

Alina glanced at her daughter.

Dominic understood.

“He won’t question her alone.”

“That isn’t what I’m worried about.”

“What are you worried about?”

She met his eyes. “That the person who did this knows she saw him.”

Dominic’s face tightened.

“That possibility has occurred to us.”

It was not reassuring.

He led them to the smaller sitting room off Vincent’s office. The main office had dark wood, old maps of Chicago, and windows facing the lake. The sitting room felt softer, though Alina suspected that was because Mia was there.

Vincent sat on the edge of a low table rather than behind his desk.

Frank was nowhere in sight.

“Mia,” Vincent said, “I’m going to ask you something, but if you don’t know, you can say you don’t know. You won’t be in trouble.”

Mia nodded solemnly.

“Did the man under the car see you?”

She looked at Alina.

“It’s okay,” Alina said.

Mia thought for a long time.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Curtain.”

Alina remembered the lace curtain in Mia’s room. The child often stood behind it while watching birds or delivery trucks.

Vincent continued. “Did you see him come inside?”

“No.”

“Did you see him leave?”

Mia nodded.

“Where?”

She pointed toward the hallway, then became frustrated.

Alina put paper in front of her. “Can you draw it?”

Mia drew the garage, the little door, and a figure walking toward the carriage building. Then she made a rectangle with two circles beneath it.

“A car?” Vincent asked.

“Truck.”

“What color?”

“White.”

Dominic checked something on his tablet.

“Three white service trucks were on the property that night. Landscaping storage, kitchen supplier, and plumbing contractor.”

“The plumbing contractor left at six,” Vincent said.

“Badge log says so.”

Vincent’s eyes lifted. “Badge logs can be changed. We already know cameras can.”

Mia tapped the crayon against the paper.

Before she spoke again, Alina studied the drawing. Children did not preserve perspective, but they preserved importance. The ring was larger than the man’s hand. The flashlight was brighter than the rain. The little garage door had been outlined three times in black crayon. Mia was not drawing the scene as it had looked. She was drawing the pieces that had frightened her.

Vincent seemed to understand the same thing. He did not ask whether the figure was tall or short, thin or heavy. He asked about objects, movement, sounds. The questions were slow enough that Mia never felt pushed. Alina noticed and disliked that she noticed. She had spent eight months treating Vincent as a danger to navigate professionally. Watching him speak to her child with patience complicated a judgment she preferred simple.

“Man had candy.”

The adults paused.

“What kind?” Alina asked.

“Yellow.”

She mimed unwrapping something.

“Lemon drops?”

Mia brightened. “Yes.”

Alina felt a strange pressure in her chest.

Mateo had carried lemon candies constantly. He said they helped him stay awake on long drives. For a year after his death, Alina could not smell citrus without thinking of the inside of his old sedan.

Vincent noticed her expression.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing.”

She hesitated. “My husband used to carry lemon drops.”

Dominic looked down at his notes. “Your husband was Mateo Ruiz.”

Alina’s head snapped toward him.

“You knew that?”

“Employment screening.”

She stared at Vincent. “Did you know?”

His silence answered first.

“Yes.”

Heat rose behind her ribs.

“Then why did you hire me?”

“Because you applied for a housekeeping position and passed the screening.”

“That is not an answer.”

Vincent’s tone remained even. “Your husband worked for one of my transportation companies for eleven months.”

“He died while working for that company.”

“The crash happened after his shift.”

“That was what I was told.”

Mia looked between them, sensing the change.

Alina forced herself to lower her voice.

Mateo had been dead three years. The official story was simple: rain, exhaustion, a curve taken too fast. He had been driving his own car, alone, thirty miles from the route he usually took home. The insurance settlement arrived six months later. No one from Marchetti Logistics ever called again.

Vincent stood.

“Dominic.”

The security director looked up.

“Pull Mateo Ruiz’s old personnel file and everything connected to the crash.”

Alina stared at him. “Why?”

“Because you reacted to the lemon candy, and I no longer believe in coincidences today.”

Before she could answer, Dominic’s radio sounded.

Matteo Caruso had been found.

Alive.

He was at a small urgent-care clinic in Highland Park under a false name, being treated for a deep cut above his right ear and two cracked ribs.

Frank demanded to go with the security team.

Vincent refused.

This produced the first open argument Alina ever saw between them.

“He’s my sister’s boy,” Frank said in the office, voice rough. “You think I’m staying here while your men drag him out of a clinic?”

“If he runs when he sees us, I need someone here who can tell me why.”

“He’s not a traitor.”

“Then he has nothing to fear from questions.”

Frank stepped closer. “You know what my family gave yours.”

Vincent’s face went still.

“That sentence is why you’re staying.”

Frank looked as if he had been struck.

He walked out without another word.

Alina was not supposed to be present. She had come to ask permission to return with Mia to the staff apartment, only to arrive in the middle of the argument.

Vincent saw her by the door.

“No.”

She blinked. “I didn’t ask yet.”

“You were going to ask if you could take Mia back to your apartment. No.”

“Where are we supposed to sleep?”

“In the west guest wing.”

“That seems excessive.”

“Someone compromised the estate. Your daughter saw something. Excessive is appropriate.”

Alina folded her arms. “And if the person is already inside?”

His gaze held hers.

“That is why Dominic is putting two guards on your corridor.”

“I don’t want my daughter growing up surrounded by armed men.”

“Neither do I.”

Something in his answer made her pause.

There was no time to ask what he meant because Dominic returned with news from the team at the clinic.

Matteo had not resisted.

He had asked one question before agreeing to come back.

“Is Uncle Frank alive?”

Frank, standing at the far end of the office, went motionless.

Vincent turned slowly.

“Why would he think you were dead?”

Frank’s mouth opened, then closed.

Dominic’s radio crackled again. The clinic team had found Matteo’s clothes in a plastic bag. His jacket pocket contained a bloodstained note.

Three words were written on it.

YOU MISSED HIM.

Vincent looked at Frank.

This time Frank did not protest.

He lowered himself into a chair.

“I should have told you,” he said.

Vincent’s voice became dangerously quiet. “Told me what?”

Frank rubbed both hands over his face.

“Two weeks ago, someone left an envelope in my mailbox. No stamp. No camera hit. Inside was a photograph of Matteo leaving a bar.”

Dominic stared at him. “And?”

“A message. It said if I didn’t change Wednesday’s vehicle rotation, my nephew would disappear.”

Alina’s skin prickled.

Vincent did not move.

“Did you change the rotation?”

Frank looked at him.

“Yes.”

The word fell heavily.

Dominic swore.

Vincent’s expression showed nothing, which somehow made his anger clearer.

“You altered my security schedule after receiving a threat and told no one.”

“I thought I could control it.”

“You thought wrong.”

Frank stood too quickly. “I was trying to protect Matteo.”

“You may have delivered my route to whoever threatened him.”

“No. I only swapped two drivers.”

“You changed a system designed to prevent predictability.”

Frank’s shoulders sagged.

Vincent stepped closer.

“What else did they ask you to do?”

“Nothing.”

The answer came too fast.

Alina saw it.

Dominic saw it.

Vincent definitely saw it.

“Frank.”

“Nothing.”

Vincent stared at him for several seconds.

Then he looked toward Dominic.

“Take his access.”

Frank’s head jerked up. “Vincent.”

“Badge. Phone. Keys. Everything.”

“You’re treating me like an enemy.”

“I’m treating you like a man who just admitted he concealed a threat against this house.”

Frank’s face went red. For a moment Alina thought he might refuse.

Instead he removed his key ring, then his security badge, then the phone issued by the estate. Each item hit the desk with a small metallic sound.

Dominic escorted him out.

Vincent remained by the window.

Alina should have left.

Instead she said, “He lied because he was afraid.”

Vincent turned.

“That does not make the lie harmless.”

“No. But it may tell you what kind of pressure someone is using.”

“You think I don’t understand fear?”

“I think you understand what people do when they fear you. That is not the same thing.”

The room became very quiet.

Alina regretted the sentence only after it was too late.

Vincent walked toward her, not threateningly, but with the deliberate pace that made everyone else step back.

She did not.

“You’ve worked in my house eight months,” he said. “You think you know me?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“But I know what fear looks like.”

His eyes stayed on hers.

Before he could answer, Dominic returned carrying a thin archived file.

Mateo Ruiz’s personnel record.

He placed it on the desk.

“There’s a problem.”

Vincent opened the folder.

Dominic continued.

“Mateo wasn’t scheduled the night he died.”

Alina’s throat tightened.

“That’s impossible. He called me and said he had to take an extra route.”

Dominic looked at her.

“According to this, there was no extra route.”

Vincent turned a page.

A photocopied fuel receipt was clipped to the back. Time stamped 11:48 p.m. at a station near an industrial property outside Joliet.

Dominic said, “That property was owned by a shell company we investigated two years later.”

Alina’s hands went cold.

“Who owned it?”

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Vincent looked up from the file.

“My father.”