Chapter 2 - Behind the Wine Cellar
I reached the basement door before anyone could stop me.
It was locked.
I turned on Vanessa.
“Key.”
“I don’t have one.”
Sofia spoke from behind me.
“She keeps it in the silver bracelet.”
Every face in the room turned toward Vanessa’s wrist.
A tiny key hung from the inside of her bracelet, hidden beneath a diamond charm.
Vanessa covered it with her hand.
“Vincent, think for one second. Your daughter is upset. She invents things.”
Sofia flinched.
I saw it.
That tiny movement told me more than Vanessa’s words ever could.
I took the key.
The basement smelled like wine, cold stone, and something chemical.
I moved past the racks with Sofia behind me and found a narrow service hallway I had never noticed. At the end was a steel door disguised behind shelving.
The key fit.
Inside was a small room.
A cot.
A plastic cup.
A portable heater.
A woman’s cardigan folded across a chair.
Elena’s cardigan.
I knew because I had bought it for her during a trip to Boston seven years earlier.
I picked it up with both hands.
It still smelled faintly like her shampoo.
Sofia started crying.
“Mommy was here.”
I turned to Vanessa.
She had followed us downstairs with Marco and two guests.
“Where is she?”
Vanessa stared at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
Marco laughed once under his breath.
I looked at him.
“What’s funny?”
His face changed.
“Nothing.”
Then Sofia crawled beneath the cot and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.
It was written in Elena’s handwriting.
VINCENT - IF YOU FIND THIS, DO NOT TRUST THE POLICE REPORT. DO NOT TRUST VANESSA. AND DO NOT LET ANTHONY NEAR SOFIA.
Anthony.
May you like
My younger brother.
The man standing upstairs beside Sofia’s birthday cake.
