Chapter 7 - THE KEY DELIA HID
Celeste was locked in the west sitting room.
Julian was taken somewhere else.
I wanted them separated.
Fear grows better in silence.
My mother was returned to bed.
A doctor examined her and found no new injury.
Vincent sat in my study holding ice against his face.
“You hit hard,” he said.
“You lied harder.”
He lowered the ice.
“I kept Ewan alive.”
“You also kept me blind.”
“Those were connected.”
“Not anymore.”
The front doors opened downstairs.
Delia had discharged herself against medical advice.
Jonas tried to stop her.
He failed.
She entered my study wearing hospital clothes beneath a borrowed coat.
“You found him.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
Her knees nearly gave out.
She grabbed the back of a chair.
“Where?”
“Safe.”
“Did he—”
“He asked about you first.”
Delia covered her mouth.
I gave her several seconds.
Then I asked the question Celeste had been willing to risk my mother’s life for.
“What key did Ewan give you?”
Delia looked at Vincent.
He shook his head.
She ignored him.
“After the fire, Ewan came to my apartment.”
“You told me he was taken away.”
“He was.”
“But not immediately.”
“No.”
She sat slowly.
“He arrived around four in the morning.”
“Burned?”
“Yes.”
“He had a canvas pouch tucked inside his jacket.”
“What was in it?”
“He wouldn’t show me.”
“But he gave you a key.”
“He told me never to keep it near him.”
Delia reached behind her neck.
A thin chain disappeared beneath her shirt.
She pulled it free.
A tiny silver key hung from it.
I stared.
“You wore that in my house for two years?”
“Yes.”
“And Celeste knew?”
“She saw it three nights ago.”
Now the conservatory made sense.
Celeste hadn’t simply been humiliating a nurse.
She had been searching her.
“Where does it fit?”
Delia looked toward the floor.
“I think I know.”
Vincent stood.
“Delia.”
She looked at him.
“No more secrets.”
Vincent’s face tightened.
“You don’t understand what is inside.”
“Neither does Matteo.”
“That was intentional.”
I turned toward him.
“You are very close to testing how much history can protect a man.”
He met my eyes.
Then he sighed.
“The safe in the cellar has two locks.”
“I know.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“You know about the outer safe.”
My father had loved tricks.
False walls.
Duplicate ledgers.
Rooms inside rooms.
Vincent continued.
“Behind the steel compartment is another one.”
“Opened by Delia’s key?”
“Yes.”
“What’s inside?”
He looked at my mother’s closed bedroom door across the hall.
“The reason Antonio ordered Ewan killed.”
We returned to the cellar.
I moved the wine rack.
Behind it was the old safe.
The brass key opened the outer compartment.
Inside were papers, watches, foreign currency, and a pistol that had probably not been touched in fifteen years.
Vincent removed the bottom shelf.
A narrow keyhole appeared.
Delia stepped forward.
Her hand shook as she inserted the silver key.
It turned.
A hidden panel released.
Inside sat a black canvas pouch.
Exactly as she had described.
I pulled it out.
There were three ledgers.
A cassette recorder.
Several photographs.
And a sealed envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Not Matteo.
The name only my father used when he was angry.
Matty.
I opened it.
The first line made me stop breathing.
If Ewan is dead, it is because I was too much of a coward to save my own son.
My father had written the letter.
And beneath that sentence was a date.
May you like
Two days before Pier 44 burned.
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