Chapter 2 - Mama’s Box
Domenico carried Ruby upstairs himself.
Valentina followed them halfway.
“Domenico, you are making this worse.”
He did not turn.
“Stay downstairs.”
“You cannot seriously believe a five-year-old’s—”
He stopped on the landing.
Ruby rested against his shoulder, her face buried against his neck.
Domenico looked over the railing.
“Not another word in front of her.”
Valentina stared at him.
He continued upstairs.
Ruby’s bedroom looked as though someone had begun erasing her.
Half the closet was empty.
Drawers stood open.
Her books had been removed from the shelves and stacked in cardboard boxes.
The framed photograph of Sofia holding newborn Ruby was missing from the bedside table.
Domenico felt something cold move through him.
“When did they do this?”
Ruby rubbed one eye.
“After lunch.”
“Who?”
“Valentina and Mr. Marcus.”
“You call him Uncle Marcus.”
Ruby shook her head.
“Not anymore.”
Domenico set her gently on the bed.
That answer hurt more than he expected.
“Where’s the picture of Mama?”
Ruby pointed toward one suitcase.
Domenico found it wrapped inside a sweater.
He placed it back on the bedside table.
Then Ruby grabbed his wrist.
“Daddy.”
“Yes?”
“Are you going away again?”
His throat tightened.
“I’m not going anywhere tonight.”
“But tomorrow?”
Domenico had a flight to Chicago scheduled for seven the following morning.
He looked around the half-emptied room.
“No.”
He took out his phone and canceled it.
Ruby watched.
“You stay?”
“I stay.”
She wrapped herself around him again.
For the first time, Domenico wondered how many promises he had unknowingly broken simply by being absent.
He had believed providing safety and creating safety were the same thing.
They were not.
Once Ruby was asleep, he called Clara Alvarez, the mansion’s longtime housekeeper.
Clara had worked for Domenico since before Ruby was born.
She arrived at the bedroom door in slippers and a gray cardigan.
Her face was pale.
“You saw the luggage?” Domenico asked.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Clara looked toward Ruby.
“I tried.”
“What does that mean?”
“Mrs. Valentina told me you approved the arrangement.”
Domenico stared.
“What arrangement?”
“That Ruby would move temporarily to the downstairs storage suite when she misbehaved.”
“There is no storage suite.”
Clara hesitated.
“She meant the room behind the old wine inventory room.”
Domenico knew it.
It had a narrow window.
A single bed used decades ago by live-in staff.
Now it held linen crates and unused furniture.
“You believed I approved putting my daughter there?”
Clara’s eyes filled with shame.
“No.”
“Then why—”
“I called your office twice.”
Domenico stopped.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“My assistant didn’t tell me.”
“I did not reach your assistant.”
Clara frowned.
“Mr. Marcus answered.”
Domenico went completely still.
“He said all household matters were being routed through him while you were negotiating the hotel acquisition.”
Domenico had authorized Marcus to coordinate security and contractors.
Not family calls.
Not staff.
Not Ruby.
“What else has he been handling?”
Clara lowered her voice.
“More than before.”
Domenico looked toward his sleeping daughter.
“Tell me.”
Clara described changes that had occurred gradually.
Marcus approving vendor access.
Marcus receiving packages addressed to Domenico.
Marcus using the private study for “property records.”
Valentina changing staff schedules.
Ruby being prevented from entering parts of the mansion she once used freely.
“And Sofia’s room?” Domenico asked.
Clara looked down.
“What about it?”
“The old morning room.”
Valentina called it Sofia’s room because Sofia had written there every afternoon.
“Nobody is supposed to use it.”
“Mr. Marcus has.”
Domenico’s face hardened.
“How do you know?”
“I saw light beneath the door.”
“When?”
“Three nights ago.”
The night before Ruby first mentioned “blue papers.”
Domenico returned downstairs.
Marcus was gone.
Valentina stood near the damaged dining table while a staff member collected broken china.
“Where is he?”
“He left before you accused him of stealing from a dead woman.”
“I didn’t accuse him.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Domenico held up the brass key.
Valentina looked at it.
“You recognize this?”
“No.”
“Ruby says Marcus dropped it.”
“She says many things.”
“She said blue papers had Sofia’s name.”
Valentina’s posture stiffened.
“What exactly are you suggesting?”
“I’m asking.”
“No. You’ve already decided.”
Domenico walked past her.
“Where are you going?”
“To my study.”
Valentina followed.
He unlocked the door.
Nothing looked disturbed.
The leather chair.
Sofia’s photographs.
Shelves of architecture books.
The locked walnut cabinet stood against the wall.
Domenico opened it.
The cedar memory box was inside.
Its lid was crooked.
He stared.
He never left it that way.
Valentina appeared behind him.
“Perhaps Ruby opened it.”
“She doesn’t know where I keep the cabinet key.”
He lifted the box.
Photographs.
Letters.
Sofia’s blue silk scarf.
Ruby’s hospital bracelet.
But the file envelope that usually lay at the bottom was missing.
Domenico had almost forgotten what it contained.
Copies of the founding documents for the Sofia Marino Foundation, the small charitable trust Sofia created before her death to fund arts programs and housing restoration projects.
The originals were with lawyers.
The copies had mattered to Sofia because she annotated everything by hand.
Domenico looked at Valentina.
“Where is the blue folder?”
“I don’t know.”
“What blue folder?”
“The folder Sofia kept here.”
Valentina’s expression barely changed.
“I have never touched that box.”
Domenico studied her.
Then remembered Ruby’s key.
Sofia’s writing desk.
The locked drawer.
He crossed the hall into the morning room.
Dust had been disturbed near the desk.
The brass key fit.
The drawer opened.
Inside were old notebooks.
A fountain pen.
Three photographs.
And one empty space where something rectangular had rested for years.
Domenico touched the clean outline in the dust.
Valentina stood behind him.
“What was there?”
Domenico looked at her.
“A ledger.”
Her face changed.
Only once.
Only for a second.
May you like
But this time, he was looking for it.
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