Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Photograph
That night, I couldn't sleep.
The mansion had gone quiet after midnight, but quiet in Julian Vescari's world did not mean peaceful.
There were footsteps in the hall.
Guards near the elevators.
Cars entering through the rear gate.
Voices behind closed doors.
I lay in the guest room staring at the ceiling.
Someone had paid my brother's medical bills.
Someone had guided me toward Julian.
Someone wanted Julian dead.
And somehow those three facts were connected.
At 2:13 a.m., I heard three knocks on my door.
I froze.
Another knock.
“It's me.”
Julian.
I opened the door.
He waited in the corridor.
“You need to come with me.”
“Where?”
“The library.”
“Why?”
“Because I found something.”
The library was enormous.
Bookshelves covered three walls.
A fireplace occupied the center.
Julian rolled toward an antique desk.
He unlocked a drawer.
Inside was the photograph I had seen on my first week.
A woman.
Late twenties.
Dark hair.
Bright eyes.
A small silver necklace.
“Who is she?”
“My wife.”
I stared.
“You were married?”
“For fourteen months.”
“What happened?”
“She died.”
The words were flat.
Like he had said them too many times.
“How?”
“Car explosion.”
I stepped closer.
“You said the attack paralyzed you.”
“It did.”
“Was she in the car?”
“No.”
Julian showed me another photograph.
His wife stood beside a little girl.
“Her name was Clara.”
I looked at the child.
“Who is she?”
“My daughter.”
I looked at him.
“You have a daughter?”
He nodded.
“She's seven.”
“Where is she?”
Julian's jaw tightened.
“She disappeared eleven months ago.”
I felt the air leave my lungs.
“What?”
“No body.”
“No ransom.”
“No evidence.”
“How could you keep that secret?”
“I couldn't.”
He looked at the photograph.
“So I pretended she was dead.”
My eyes widened.
“Why?”
“Because someone inside my organization was searching for her.”
He opened another drawer.
Inside were newspaper clippings.
Missing children.
Financial records.
Maps.
Photographs.
My mind raced.
“You think your daughter is alive?”
“I know she is.”
“How?”
He handed me a photograph.
A little girl at a school playground.
Taken three months earlier.
She wore a yellow coat.
The face was unmistakable.
Clara.
I looked at Julian.
“Where was this?”
“Milwaukee.”
“Then why hasn't she been recovered?”
“Because the woman standing beside her was my wife's sister.”
Victoria.
The blood in my veins seemed to freeze.
“Your sister kidnapped your daughter?”
“I don't know.”
“Julian.”
“I said I don't know.”
He sounded angry at himself.
That frightened me more than anger at anyone else.
“Then why show me?”
“Because the photograph arrived yesterday.”
I took it.
On the back was a handwritten note.
I read it.
You saved the wrong man.
I looked at Julian.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know.”
Then I noticed something.
The girl's necklace.
A small silver bird.
I had seen that necklace before.
Not on Clara.
On the woman from the photograph.
Julian's dead wife.
“It belonged to Clara's mother,” I said.
Julian nodded.
“She gave it to her.”
“So she's definitely alive.”
“Yes.”
“Then why doesn't she come to you?”
His eyes became distant.
“Because she's been taught to fear me.”
I felt something twist painfully in my chest.
The feared mafia boss.
The man Chicago described as a monster.
His daughter had been taught to fear him.
“Who would do that?”
Julian looked at the photograph.
“Someone who knows me well enough to make my own child my enemy.”
Before I could answer, the library lights went out.
The darkness was complete.
Julian's hand reached for the side of his chair.
“Stay behind me.”
“From what?”
A gunshot cracked through the room.
Glass shattered.
Julian moved his chair sharply.
I dropped behind the desk.
Another shot.
Then silence.
I heard a door slam.
Julian reached into a hidden compartment beneath the desk and pulled out a pistol.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Don't move.”
He rolled toward the door.
I grabbed his arm.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“There's someone in the room.”
He looked at me.
“How do you know?”
“Your chair.”
“What about it?”
“The motor.”
I heard it.
A faint mechanical vibration.
Someone was moving.
Not outside.
Inside.
Julian suddenly turned.
A shadow rose from behind the curtains.
I screamed.
Julian fired.
The figure collapsed.
I expected blood.
Instead, it was a security uniform stuffed with pillows.
A decoy.
Julian's expression changed.
“Diversion.”
“What?”
He turned toward the opposite wall.
“Someone wanted me looking at the window.”
Then he saw the open safe.
The photograph was gone.
So was the note.
I stared at him.
“They weren't trying to kill you.”
“No.”
“They were stealing the picture.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Julian looked toward the open door.
“Because whoever sent it knows I am getting close.”
The next morning, one of Julian's men was found unconscious near the east gate.
A second was missing.
The estate's internal security system had been hacked.
And Victoria had disappeared.
By noon, the evidence pointed in one direction.
To a private medical facility on the outskirts of Chicago.
Julian insisted on going.
I went with him.
The facility looked abandoned.
No signs.
No patients.
No staff.
But inside, we found children's drawings taped to the walls.
Stars.
Houses.
Flowers.
And one drawing of a man in a wheelchair standing beside a little girl.
Julian touched it.
His hand shook.
I had never seen that before.
“Clara made this.”
“How do you know?”
“She draws the same crooked sun every time.”
I looked at the picture.
In the corner, someone had written a date.
Two days from now.
Julian stared at it.
“She's here.”
We searched every room.
Nothing.
Then I found a locked cabinet.
Inside was a medical file.
Clara Vescari.
Patient number unknown.
Guardian listed as...
Victoria Vescari.
My heart stopped.
Julian read the file.
His face went completely still.
At the bottom was a handwritten note.
Do not let Julian know his daughter remembers the lake.
Julian looked at me.
“The lake?”
I couldn't breathe.
“Your daughter was at the estate?”
“Three years ago.”
“Did she fall in?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
Julian took the file.
“We're leaving.”
“Why?”
“Because someone is about to use my daughter to destroy me.”
And as we walked out, I realized the worst part.
The handwriting on the medical file looked familiar.
It matched the writing on the note sent to me.
May you like
The person behind everything wasn't merely watching Julian.
They were watching me too.
