Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the West Wing
The guest quarters in the western wing of the estate smelled of lavender floor polish and damp plaster.
I sat on the edge of the narrow twin mattress with my back pressed against the cold wallpaper, staring down at my white fiberglass cast.
The local anesthetic was beginning to wear off, leaving a dull, rhythmic throb that pulsed in time with my racing heart.
I knew what happened to people who saw things they were not supposed to see in this house.
Two years ago, a kitchen porter had tried to sell an audio recording of a private family meeting to the Chicago Sun-Times.
His car had been found submerged in forty feet of murky water near Calumet Harbor three days later.
The police had ruled it an accidental drowning caused by alcohol impairment.
Everyone who worked in the Moretti household knew the porter had never taken a sip of liquor in his entire life.
I reached up with my good hand and checked the pocket of my uniform skirt.
The key to my basement locker was still there, but my gut told me that the silver micro-SD card was already gone.
A man like Luca Moretti didn't order a doctor to examine a domestic servant out of genuine compassion.
He did it to buy time while his bloodhounds tore through her personal belongings.
A soft, heavy footstep sounded in the carpeted corridor outside my room.
My spine turned to absolute ice.
The brass doorknob turned without a knock.
The heavy oak door swung open, and Luca Moretti stepped into the dim room.
He had removed his suit jacket, leaving him in his crisp white shirt with the top two buttons undone and his silk cuffs rolled back to his forearms.
He did not carry a weapon in his hands, but the raw, physical authority he radiated filled every corner of the small room like toxic gas.
In his right hand, he held a tall glass of ice water.
He pushed the door closed with his heel until the latch clicked into place.
I scrambled to my feet, my heart slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"Mr. Moretti," I stammered, my voice trembling uncontrollably.
"Sit down, Claire," he said softly.
He walked across the room, pulled the small wooden vanity chair away from the desk, and placed it directly across from my bed.
He set the glass of ice water on the nightstand beside my bottle of codeine.
Then he sat down, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his large hands together.
"Drink the water," he said.
"I'm fine, sir."
"Drink it."
My right hand shook so violently that the ice cubes rattled loudly against the crystal as I brought the glass to my dry lips.
The cold liquid burned my raw throat, but it forced my breathing to slow down by a fraction.
Luca watched me with eyes that seemed to look right through my flesh and into my deepest secrets.
He reached into his trouser pocket and produced the clear plastic evidence bag containing my micro-SD card.
He tossed it onto the white duvet between us.
The tiny piece of silver plastic seemed to hum with silent electricity.
"Your father was Thomas Dawson," Luca said, his voice quiet, measured, and terrifyingly calm.
A cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck.
"Yes, sir," I whispered.
"He didn't steal eight million dollars from my father's offshore accounts, did he?"
I looked up, stunned by the question.
I had spent four years expecting the Moretti family to spit on my father's memory whenever his name was uttered.
"No, Mr. Moretti," I said, my voice gaining a desperate, fragile edge of strength.
"He discovered that someone was skimming thirty percent off the trucking manifests through an automated shell company in Delaware."
"He took the printouts to your father on a Tuesday morning."
"By Friday, your father’s security team had stripped him of his security clearance and accused him of orchestrating the entire embezzlement scheme."
Luca looked down at the carpet between his shoes.
"My father was already losing his mind to vascular dementia eight years ago," Luca murmured.
"He was paranoid, suspicious of his own shadow, and entirely dependent on the advice of his inner circle."
He lifted his head, his dark eyes locking onto mine.
"And who advised my father to dismiss your father, Claire?"
"Marco Vane," I said without hesitation.
The name hung in the cold air of the bedroom like a freshly sharpened blade.
Luca didn't flinch, but I saw a muscle twitch beneath his left eye.
"You took this job four months ago to locate your father's original hard drives," Luca said.
"Yes."
"Did you find them?"
"No," I replied, shaking my head.
"They were incinerated in the estate basement the night my father was escorted off the property."
"Then why did you place a miniature pinhole lens inside the ventilation grate of my private study three weeks ago?"
My breath caught in my throat.
"I didn't place it there to spy on you, Mr. Moretti," I said, the words tumbling out in a rush of panic.
"I saw Miss Bellini walking down the third-floor hallway at two in the morning two weeks ago with a set of maintenance bypass keys."
"She didn't know I was waxing the gallery floorboards in the shadows."
"She was entering your study when you were in Montreal meeting with the Canadian syndicates."
"I knew that whatever she was doing in that room, it wasn't about wedding arrangements."
Luca leaned forward, closing the distance between us until I could smell the faint scent of cedarwood, tobacco, and expensive soap on his skin.
"Tell me what happened in that linen room at four-twenty today, Claire."
"Tell me every single word."
The memory made my broken fingers throb with a vicious, phantom ache.
"I had just retrieved the backup card from the vent five minutes earlier," I whispered, my voice breaking.
"I was standing in the linen closet, trying to tuck the card into the seam of my sock."
"The door opened, and Miss Bellini walked in."
"She had seen me coming down the private staircase from the third floor."
"She demanded to know what I was carrying."
"When I refused to show her my hands, she grabbed my wrist and slammed me against the iron shelving."
I pulled my gaze away from Luca, looking down at my lap.
"She is much stronger than she looks, Mr. Moretti."
"She twisted my wrist until the bone popped."
"She tore the front of my apron looking for the card."
"She found the dummy flash drive in my pocket, the one that only had the grocery lists on it."
"She thought that was all I had."
"She whispered in my ear that if I ever breathed a word about her presence on the third floor, she would make sure my sister Lily lost her bed at St. Jude's Children's Hospital."
"She said a single phone call from the Bellini family would have the state cancel Lily’s emergency Medicaid funding."
A deadly, suffocating silence fell over the small room.
Luca did not move.
He did not curse.
He did not slam his fist against the vanity table.
He simply sat there, radiating an aura of cold, lethal violence that made the hair on my arms stand on end.
"She threatened a sick child," Luca said, his voice dropped so low it sounded like gravel grinding beneath an iron wheel.
"Lily has stage-three aplastic anemia, Mr. Moretti," I said, hot tears finally spilling over my eyelashes.
"She needs a bone marrow transplant in six weeks."
"I couldn't lose this job."
"I couldn't let Miss Bellini destroy her chance at surviving."
Luca stood up slowly.
He reached down, picked up the clear plastic evidence bag containing the micro-SD card, and slipped it into his trouser pocket.
Then he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a heavy black fountain pen and a small leather notebook.
He jotted down a series of numbers on a clean sheet of paper, tore it out, and set it on the nightstand beside the glass of water.
"What is this, sir?" I asked, wiping my cheeks with my sleeve.
"That is the private direct line to Dr. Patrick Vance, the chief of pediatric hematology at Northwestern Memorial," Luca said.
"At eight o'clock tomorrow morning, a private medical transport will arrive at St. Jude's to transfer your sister to Northwestern."
"Her treatment, her private suite, and her upcoming transplant will be billed directly to the Moretti Family Foundation under an anonymous grant."
My mouth fell open, my brain unable to process the magnitude of what he was saying.
"Mr. Moretti... I can't accept that... that's hundreds of thousands of dollars..."
Luca looked down at me, his face carved from unyielding stone.
"You preserved the evidence that will save my life, Claire."
"In my world, loyalty of that caliber cannot be bought with an eighteen-dollar hourly wage."
He took two steps toward the door, then paused with his hand on the brass knob.
"For the next eleven days, you will remain in this house."
"You will not wear your maid uniform."
"You will be moved to the master guest quarters on the second floor under the pretext of receiving medical monitoring for your injury."
"Vanessa will believe I am keeping you close to silence you."
"Marco will believe you are simply an incompetent servant who had an unfortunate accident."
He turned his head, his dark eyes burning with a cold, terrifying flame.
May you like
"And when the seventeenth of October arrives, Claire..."
"You will watch me burn both of their worlds to ash."
