Chapter 2 - The Locked Pantry
Alessandro crossed the breakfast room before the second crash.
“Stay with Emma,” he told his security chief, Marco Bellini, who had appeared in the doorway.
Isabella reached for his sleeve. “Don’t go in there.”
He looked at her hand until she let go.
The kitchen smelled like coffee, toasted bread, and broken glass. Maria Vega, Emma’s mother, stood beside the pantry door with one hand over her mouth. A tray lay shattered at her feet.
“What happened?” Alessandro asked.
Maria pointed.
The pantry door was locked from the outside.
Someone knocked once from within.
Then again.
Marco pulled a key from the wall box, but Alessandro stopped him. “Who is in there?”
A man’s voice came through the wood. “Mr. Romano?”
It was Paolo, the overnight kitchen steward.
When the door opened, Paolo stumbled out, furious and sweating. “Someone shoved me in there around five. Took my phone.”
Isabella appeared behind Alessandro. “That’s ridiculous.”
Paolo looked at her and went quiet.
Alessandro noticed.
“Say what you were about to say.”
Paolo rubbed his wrist. “I saw Miss DeLuca in the kitchen after midnight.”
Isabella’s face hardened. “You also drink during your shift.”
“I had one beer after service.”
“You had three.”
Paolo blinked. “How would you know?”
No one spoke.
Alessandro turned to Marco. “Seal the kitchen. Nobody touches anything.”
Isabella gave a sharp laugh. “Seal the kitchen? Are we living in a police show now?”
“We’re living in my house.”
“Your house?” Her voice dropped. “Interesting choice of words for a man who asked me to make it ours.”
The blow landed because it was personal, and she knew it.
Alessandro almost answered. Then Emma screamed from the breakfast room.
He ran back.
She was standing on a chair, pointing toward the open terrace doors.
“Rosie!”
Her cloth doll was gone.
On the white stone outside lay one small pink button from the doll’s dress.
Marco moved toward the terrace.
“Sir,” he said, studying the wet grass, “someone was standing here while you were in the kitchen.”
Alessandro looked at Isabella.
May you like
She looked genuinely startled now.
That was the first moment he wondered whether the woman in front of him was the only danger in the house.
