Chapter 2 - The Locked Nursery
Across town, inside the gated Vance estate in Madison Park, the dining room smelled of cold roast beef and expensive lilies.
Ricardo didn't pick up his fork again. He looked at his seven-year-old daughter, whose knuckles were white where she gripped the edge of her linen napkin. Then he turned his gaze to his younger brother.
"Adrian," Ricardo said, his voice dangerously quiet. "What papers is she talking about?"
Adrian chuckled, leaning back in his chair and swirling the Cabernet in his glass. He looked relaxed, the picture of the supportive younger brother who had stepped in to manage the family foundation after Ricardo’s wife, Clara, died three years ago.
"Ric, come on," Adrian said smoothly. "You know how attached Vianey got to that woman. Elena has been filling her head with paranoid nonsense for months because she knew we were running a background check on her finances."
"I didn't ask about Elena," Ricardo said. "I asked about boarding school papers."
Celeste reached across the corner of the table, laying her manicured hand over Ricardo’s wrist. The diamond-and-sapphire necklace—Clara’s necklace, the one they claimed had been pulled from the lining of my suitcase—glinted against her collarbone.
"Darling, look at her," Celeste murmured with practiced sympathy. "She's traumatized. Elena probably told her that if she ever got fired, we would send Vianey away. It’s a classic manipulation tactic used by caretakers who want to make themselves indispensable."
"Elena never lied to me!" Vianey shouted. She stood up so fast her chair tipped backward onto the Persian rug. "Celeste came into my room yesterday when you were at the port! She measured my closet for her shoes and told Uncle Adrian that by November, my room would be her dressing suite!"
"Vianey, go to your room," Ricardo said, rubbing his temples. The grief that had hollowed him out since Clara’s death always made him retreat from conflict, a weakness Adrian and Celeste had spent two years studying like a roadmap.
"Daddy, please—"
"Upstairs. Now."
Vianey’s lower lip trembled, just like her mother’s used to. Without another word, she turned and ran out of the dining room, her small footsteps echoing up the marble stairs.
Once the upstairs door clicked shut, Ricardo pulled his wrist away from Celeste’s hand.
"Why did you tell me the necklace was missing this morning," Ricardo asked slowly, "if you never took it out of the wall safe after the charity gala on Friday?"
Celeste blinked. "I—I went to put it on for dinner tonight, Ric. The velvet box was empty."
"And Adrian just happened to know which zipper pocket of Elena’s suitcase to check?"
"The woman was acting guilty all afternoon," Adrian said, standing up and buttoning his suit jacket. "Look, brother, you’re exhausted. Let me handle the severance legalities. Go get some rest."
Ricardo didn't go to his bedroom. Thirty minutes later, after Adrian had driven off and Celeste was in the master bath running a tub, Ricardo walked down the quiet second-floor hallway to Vianey’s bedroom.
He reached for the brass doorknob to apologize to her.
It didn't turn.
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Ricardo frowned, jiggling the handle. The heavy deadbolt—an antique feature of the 1920s house that had never once been used since Vianey was born—was locked from the outside. And the vintage skeleton key that usually hung on the hook above the doorframe was gone.
From inside the dark room, he heard the unmistakable sound of someone opening the second-story balcony window.
