Chapter 6 - The House by the Cypress Tree
I stood so fast that Daniel reached for me. I pulled away.
“Rosa's at the house. Someone's inside.”
Martin called the local police while Daniel called Rosa over and over. I could barely bear the sound of the unanswered ringing.
Forty minutes later, an officer found Rosa in the neighbor's garage, shaken but unhurt. Someone had entered through a side window and searched my office. Nothing obvious had been taken. That frightened me more than a stolen necklace would have.
I asked the officer to photograph everything before anyone cleaned up. Years of running a hotel had taught me that a tiny record kept at the right moment could matter more than an expensive lawyer hired too late.
We drove home along the coast. Daniel sat beside me, rigid and pale.
“Mom,” he said, “I never meant for any of this.”
“I believe you didn't plan the break-in,” I answered. “That doesn't erase what you did plan.”
He nodded, and for once he didn't defend himself.
Rosa met us in the kitchen. Her hands shook around a mug of tea.
“I heard the study drawer slam,” she said. “When I called out, a man ran toward the back stairs. I hid.”
“Did you see his face?”
“No. But he wore the hotel maintenance jacket.”
Martin had come with us. “Those jackets are issued individually,” he said. “We'll audit the inventory.”
In the study, photographs littered the floor. Thomas and me cutting a ribbon. Daniel as a boy, missing his front teeth. One picture had been turned facedown.
It showed Thomas standing beside Charles Whitmore twenty-two years ago.
I had forgotten that photograph existed.
Daniel picked it up. “Dad knew Vanessa's father?”
I took the frame from him. “He knew him. He also made me promise never to do business with him.”
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Behind the frame, someone had taped a yellow note. The paper was recent. Five words had been printed in block letters.
ASK WHAT HAPPENED AT PIER NINE.
