Chapter 3 - The Corridor Behind the Nursery
The hidden door was behind a bookcase in a guest room nobody had used in years.
Marco found the release under a strip of crown molding. When he pressed it, the entire shelf shifted forward half an inch.
Cold air came through the crack.
I smelled dust, old wood, and something else.
Citrus cleaner.
"Nobody touches anything," Marco said.
His team entered first.
I followed anyway.
The corridor was barely wide enough for one man. Electrical cable had been stapled along the brick at knee height. Fresh footprints cut through decades of dust.
Someone had been walking inside my walls.
Not once.
Often.
Marco shined his flashlight toward the nursery. "Cable goes straight to the device."
I crouched near the floor.
A tiny strip of blue fabric had snagged on a nail.
"Uniform?" I asked.
"Could be."
We reached the small room marked on the old blueprint.
The door was open.
Inside sat a folding chair, two empty water bottles, a power bank, and a cheap laptop stand.
No laptop.
On the floor was a paper coffee cup from a shop six blocks away.
Whoever had been there knew enough not to leave fingerprints.
But they had left something worse.
A schedule.
It was handwritten on a sheet of printer paper.
7:30 - bottles.
8:00 - Nora bath.
8:20 - hall guard rotates.
8:35 - Adrien usually office.
9:00 - Leah checks monitors.
My children's routine.
My routine.
The handwriting was neat, almost feminine.
Marco looked at me. "This is inside work."
I already knew.
No outsider could know which baby hated warm milk, which nanny took too long folding blankets, or when I stood at the nursery door after everyone else went to bed.
Then I saw the last line.
TUESDAY - FULL TEST.
Tonight.
Below it, written harder, was another note.
WEDNESDAY - FIRE RESPONSE.
Tomorrow.
Marco swore under his breath.
"Cancel everything tomorrow," he said into his radio. "No deliveries. No contractors. Double kitchen watch. Check every smoke detector and extinguisher."
I picked up the schedule using the corner of an evidence sleeve.
"This person thinks there will still be a tomorrow."
A soft sound came from the corridor behind us.
Click.
Everyone turned.
Marco raised his gun.
Click.
Not a weapon.
A door latch.
Someone was moving at the far end of the passage.
"Stop!" Marco shouted.
Footsteps ran.
We chased them through the narrow corridor.
The figure ahead wore dark clothing and moved fast, knocking an old wooden panel backward into Marco's path.
I pushed around it.
For one second I saw a shoulder and a pale hand disappearing through another hidden door.
Then the person was gone.
Marco hit the exit two seconds later.
We came out inside the laundry room.
The back door stood open.
Rain blew across the tile.
A woman lay unconscious beside the washing machines.
Leah.
One of the nannies.
Blood darkened her hair at the temple.
Her right hand was closed around a key card.
Marco gently opened her fingers.
The card had one name printed across it.
May you like
LUCA MORETTI.
My cousin.
