Chapter 2 - A House Where Every Alibi Had a Door

I did not sleep that night.

That was not unusual.

What was unusual was sitting in my own study with the door unlocked because I wanted to hear every footstep in the corridor.

Marco occupied the east wing, two floors above the garage and one hallway away from the guest rooms. For fourteen months I had considered that proximity reassuring. He had been the person I called when the girls would not eat. He had driven Olivia to therapy when I was trapped in Manhattan. He had arranged extra guards after Isabelle’s funeral.

Every memory changed shape once suspicion entered it.

At midnight, I called one man.

Nico DeSantis had worked for me for fifteen years without ever living on my property, borrowing money from me, sleeping with anyone connected to my family, or pretending we were brothers.

Those qualifications suddenly mattered.

He answered on the second ring.

“You sound awake,” he said.

“I need you to check something without using our people.”

That erased the humor from his voice.

“What?”

“Marco’s movements the day Isabelle died.”

Silence.

Not shocked silence.

Careful silence.

“Dominic.”

“I’m not asking what you think.”

“Good, because I don’t know what I think.”

“Find out where his car was. Who drove it. Which calls he made. Which men were with him. Start from six that morning and end at midnight.”

“You want old police records?”

“I want everything that exists outside this house.”

Nico exhaled.

“Does Marco know?”

“No.”

“Then don’t suddenly become strange around him.”

“I’m always strange around him.”

“You know what I mean.”

I did.

When the call ended, I remained at my desk until the grandfather clock downstairs struck one.

Then someone knocked.

Not Marco.

Grace stood outside wearing a gray sweater and loose black pants, her hair down for the first time I could remember. She looked younger without the severe knot at the back of her head and more exhausted than I had noticed.

“Olivia’s awake,” she said.

I was already standing.

Grace held up a hand.

“She’s not asking for you.”

The words landed badly.

I let them.

“What does she need?”

“She asked if the doors lock.”

My throat tightened.

“They do.”

“She meant her bedroom door.”

I stared at her.

That door had never been locked from the inside. Isabelle had hated locked bedroom doors with small children in the house.

“Why?”

Grace’s expression hardened slightly.

“She doesn’t have to give us a reason tonight.”

Us.

Not me.

Us.

I followed her upstairs.

The girls had abandoned their individual bedrooms and gathered in Olivia’s room. Sophie and Nora were under the blankets. Olivia sat against the headboard holding the small stuffed rabbit she had owned since she was two.

She looked at Grace, not me.

Grace sat on the edge of the mattress.

“Your dad says the door can lock if you want.”

Olivia’s gaze flicked toward me.

I crouched near the doorway.

“Or I can put someone outside.”

Her fingers tightened around the rabbit.

“No Marco.”

Two words.

Clearer than anything she had said in fourteen months.

I had thought hearing my daughter speak again would feel like being given something back.

Instead it felt like being handed a weapon I was terrified to use.

“No Marco,” I said.

Olivia watched me for several seconds.

Then she nodded.

I moved one of my guards, Peter Vale, to the hallway.

Peter had been with me eleven years. He had never worked directly for Marco. That was suddenly the standard by which loyalty had to be measured.

Grace stepped into the corridor with me.

“You have to be careful,” she said quietly.

“I’m aware.”

“No. You’re angry.”

“I’m also aware of that.”

“You’re thinking like a man whose brother may have killed his wife.”

I looked at her.

“And how should I think?”

“Like the father of three children who are deciding whether speaking is safe.”

I almost told her she had no idea what danger looked like.

Then I remembered Nora hiding behind her skirt.

Grace knew enough.

“What made them start talking to you?”

Her expression softened.

“I didn’t make them.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I sang while I cleaned.”

“That’s it?”

“At first.”

She leaned against the wall.

“Your youngest started humming. I pretended I didn’t notice. Then Sophie joined her. Olivia got angry.”

“Angry?”

“She left the room.”

That sounded like Olivia.

“The next day I sang again. Not because I was trying to get a response. Because I always sing when I cook.”

“And?”

“Nora sang one word. Sophie laughed. Olivia came back.”

Grace looked toward the bedroom.

“They needed something that wasn’t treatment.”

The accusation was gentle.

That made it worse.

“I hired the best people I could find.”

“I know.”

“I did everything they told me.”

“I know that too.”

“Then what exactly are you saying?”

“That this house became a clinic.”

I said nothing.

“Every adult watched them for progress,” Grace continued. “Every sound became evidence. Every silence became a problem. They stopped getting to just be children.”

I thought of schedules taped inside staff cabinets. Therapy hours. Meal tracking. Sleep tracking. Behavioral notes.

I had turned grief into a project plan because projects could be controlled.

Isabelle would have hated it.

The realization hurt enough that I turned away.

Grace’s voice softened.

“You were trying to save them.”

“I failed.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Before I could answer, Marco appeared at the far end of the corridor.

He wore a dark robe over pajamas, his gray-streaked hair disordered.

“What’s going on?”

Peter straightened.

Grace looked at me.

I did not look at her.

“Olivia had a bad dream,” I said.

Marco’s attention shifted to the closed bedroom door.

“I’ll talk to her.”

“No.”

He stopped.

One word should not have changed a room.

It did.

Marco looked back at me.

“She usually lets me sit with them after nightmares.”

Usually.

That word opened another door in my mind.

“How often?”

He frowned.

“What?”

“How often have they had nightmares when I wasn’t home?”

Marco shrugged.

“Sometimes.”

“About what?”

“They don’t talk, Dom.”

My jaw tightened.

“I know that.”

He gave me the patient look older brothers reserve for younger ones making emotional mistakes.

“Get some sleep.”

Then he moved toward Olivia’s door.

Peter stepped into his path.

Marco stared at him.

Peter looked at me.

“Mr. Romano?”

Marco’s face changed.

Barely.

“Really?”

“The girls asked for privacy.”

“The girls asked?”

He repeated it too quickly.

I filed that away.

“Yes.”

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then Marco smiled.

“Of course.”

He turned back toward the east wing.

At the end of the hall he paused.

“Dom.”

I waited.

“You know I’d do anything for those kids.”

Fourteen months ago, those words had comforted me.

Now I heard the question hiding inside them.

Do you still believe that?

“I know,” I said.

He walked away.

The next morning, I canceled every appointment.

At breakfast, Marco behaved perfectly.

He read the financial section, drank espresso, complained about a zoning issue in Queens, and asked Sophie whether she wanted pancakes.

Sophie stared at her plate.

When he reached for the syrup, her entire body tightened.

Grace noticed.

So did I.

Marco did not appear to.

Or he pretended not to.

At ten, he left for Manhattan.

I waited until his car passed through the gates.

Then I called Mrs. Donnelly into my study.

She had managed my houses for nineteen years, which meant she had known me before wealth taught people to say yes faster.

“Close the door,” I said.

She did.

“Who hired Grace?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because Maria quit and you refused to reduce the upstairs workload.”

“Who recommended her?”

Mrs. Donnelly hesitated.

That was the first answer.

“Who?”

“Mr. Marco gave me the agency name.”

I felt something cold settle behind my ribs.

“Did he choose Grace?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I interviewed four people. Grace was the best.”

“Did Marco ever ask about her?”

“Only whether the girls liked her.”

“When?”

“About a week after she started.”

I stood.

Mrs. Donnelly’s eyes narrowed.

“What has happened?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Does this concern the children?”

“Yes.”

Her mouth tightened.

“Then stop speaking like a businessman and tell me what you need.”

That was why she had lasted nineteen years.

“Every staffing record from the last eighteen months. Every security rotation. Every visitor log. Nobody in the house knows you’re giving them to me.”

“I understand.”

She turned to leave.

“Donnelly.”

She looked back.

“Has Marco ever told you not to put a particular employee near the girls?”

Her face changed.

Not much.

Enough.

“Once.”

“When?”

“The week after Mrs. Romano died.”

“Who?”

“Thomas Keene. One of the drivers.”

“Why?”

“He said Mr. Keene was too emotional and had been drinking.”

“Was he?”

“No.”

“Where is Keene now?”

Mrs. Donnelly’s answer came slowly.

“He was dismissed two days later.”

“By who?”

She did not need to say it.

We both knew.

My phone vibrated on the desk.

Nico.

I answered.

“You found something.”

“I found something that shouldn’t exist,” he said.

“What?”

“Marco told police he spent that morning at the Brooklyn office.”

“I remember.”

“So do the detectives.”

Nico paused.

“But his car crossed the Throgs Neck Bridge at eight forty-three.”

Garden City was the opposite direction from Brooklyn.

My grip tightened around the phone.

“Where did it go after that?”

“I’m still tracing it.”

“Nico.”

“Yeah?”

“Find Thomas Keene.”

Another pause.

“You think he knows something?”

“I think somebody made sure he stopped working for my family forty-eight hours after Isabelle died.”

I looked through the study window toward the long drive where Marco’s car had disappeared less than an hour earlier.

For the first time since Sophie whispered his name, suspicion became something heavier.

Not proof.

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Direction.

And direction was enough to make me dangerous.