Chapter 3 - The Photograph Was Pointing at Someone Outside the Frame

Vincent carried the photograph downstairs without explaining the ring.

Ruby stayed with Luca through dinner, which consisted of six bites of buttered pasta, half a strawberry, and a solemn negotiation over peas. The boy refused the high chair but accepted the floor beside the low coffee table. Elena pretended not to notice.

The Romano household seemed built around pretending.

Men arrived through the side entrance and disappeared into Vincent’s study. Phones rang once and stopped. A black sedan idled beneath the kitchen windows for nearly an hour. Nobody raised a voice.

At seven thirty, Luca dragged the wooden train across the rug and pushed it toward Ruby.

“Go,” he said.

She moved it in a circle. “Where?”

He pointed toward the hall.

Ruby followed him at a crawl until he reached a narrow section of wall between the nursery and the old linen closet. There was no door there.

He pressed both palms against the wallpaper.

“No door.”

Elena, carrying folded towels, froze at the far end of the corridor.

Ruby saw it.

“Elena?”

The housekeeper recovered too late. “Bedtime.”

“What used to be here?”

“Nothing.”

Luca hit the wall with the wooden train.

“Door.”

Ruby stood.

Elena’s hands tightened around the towels. “Some things in this house are not your concern.”

“I’m not asking for myself.”

“Then ask his father.”

That was exactly what Ruby intended to do.

She found Vincent in the study with two men she had not met. One was broad and silver-haired. The other was younger, with a scar beside his mouth and a shoulder holster he made no effort to hide.

Vincent dismissed them with a glance.

Ruby waited until the door closed.

“What is behind the nursery wall?”

His face changed by less than an inch.

So there was something.

“Luca showed me.”

“He’s two.”

“Yes. You keep saying that as if two-year-olds don’t remember anything.”

Vincent walked to the cabinet and removed the photograph. He laid it on the desk.

The signet ring bore a black stone cut with a small silver R.

“My uncle Gabriel,” he said. “My father’s younger brother.”

“Luca is afraid of him?”

“Luca loved him.”

“Past tense?”

Vincent ignored the question.

The photograph had been taken at a country property in Westchester. Gabriel had been standing behind the bench. Vincent remembered because Sofia had complained that his uncle kept ruining family photographs by refusing to sit.

“He was at the house the night Sofia died,” Vincent said.

Ruby’s stomach tightened. “How did she die?”

A muscle moved in his jaw.

“Car accident.”

“And the wall?”

Vincent looked toward the ceiling.

“When the estate was built, the nursery connected to a service passage. My grandfather had it sealed before Luca was born.”

“Why?”

“Because old houses have old designs.”

“That is not an answer.”

His eyes returned to hers. “You are very comfortable telling me when I’m lying.”

“I grew up with a father who lied about rent, drinking, jobs, and why there was blood on his shirt. You develop an ear.”

Vincent’s voice lowered. “Is that what your résumé gap is about?”

“No.”

“Then what happened eleven months ago?”

Ruby felt the hospital corridor again.

A doctor.

A plastic chair.

Her younger brother Caleb’s work boots in a bag at her feet.

She stepped backward.

“That has nothing to do with Luca.”

Vincent watched her too closely.

“Your last name does.”

Cold moved through her.

“What?”

Before he could answer, Elena knocked once and entered without waiting.

“Mr. Romano, there is a problem at the gate.”

Vincent looked at her.

“A man asked for Miss Jenkins.”

Ruby’s pulse jumped.

“Who?”

“He would not give a name. He left this.”

Elena placed a white envelope on the desk.

Ruby recognized the handwriting before Vincent touched it.

Block letters. Slight rightward slant. The J made like a hook.

Caleb’s handwriting.

Her knees nearly failed.

“That’s impossible.”

Vincent opened the envelope.

Inside was a photocopy of a maintenance invoice from Romano Motor Works, dated fourteen months earlier.

The vehicle identification number belonged to Sofia’s Mercedes.

Near the bottom was a mechanic’s signature.

CALEB JENKINS.

Ruby stared until the letters doubled.

Vincent’s voice turned dangerously calm.

“Your brother worked on my wife’s car.”

Ruby shook her head.

“He worked at a garage for three months. He said it was fleet maintenance. He never told me whose cars.”

Vincent flipped the page.

Someone had circled one line in red.

BRAKE PRESSURE TEST — PASSED.

Beneath it, a handwritten note said:

Ask her why her brother lied.

Ruby stopped breathing.

“I don’t know what this is.”

Vincent’s face had closed completely now.

An hour ago, she had been the woman his son trusted.

Now she was a stranger whose dead brother’s name sat on the last service record of his dead wife’s car.

Upstairs, something hit the floor.

Luca screamed.

Ruby turned toward the sound.

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Vincent moved first.

But before either reached the door, every light in the house went out.