Chapter 2 - THE HOLLOW IN THE BRICK
The air smelled like old damp lime.
Cold draft washed over my bare ankles.
Sophie buried her face into my hip.
Her small fingers knotted into my wet sweater.
"Mama," she whimpered.
"Hush, baby," I whispered.
My own heart was hammering against my ribs.
Dante did not step into the passage immediately.
He raised his left hand, signaling silence.
His bare feet made no sound on the floorboards.
Bruno stepped past him.
The dog’s claws clicked sharply against the dark brick.
His low growl vibrated through the narrow corridor.
Dante reached into his pocket and clicked on a penlight.
The narrow white beam sliced into the black void.
It was not a storage closet.
It was an old servant run.
It stretched deep beneath the eastern wing.
The brick walls were weeping moisture.
Cobwebs hung like shredded lace from the low ceiling.
And on the dusty floorboards lay fresh prints.
Heavy boot prints.
Size eleven.
Pointed straight toward my daughter's cottage.
Dante’s jaw tightened until the bone showed white.
"He was inside the wall," Dante said.
His voice was dead level.
Colder than the draft blowing from the foundation.
"Inside the wall while she was sleeping."
I knelt down beside Sophie.
My hands were shaking uncontrollably.
I pulled her chin up to look at me.
"Sophie, look at Mama."
Her brown eyes were wide and glossy with tears.
"Did the man ever open the window?"
Sophie shook her head slowly.
"No, Mama."
"Did he speak to you?"
She swallowed hard.
Her bottom lip trembled.
"He whispered through the glass."
My stomach turned to pure ice.
"What did he whisper, baby?"
Sophie looked toward the dark opening in the wall.
Bruno was sniffing a rusted iron hook near the threshold.
"He said he was bringing Daddy home."
The breath left my lungs in a violent rush.
Miguel.
Miguel had been dead for three years.
I had identified his body at the county morgue.
I had watched the casket lower into the frozen earth.
I turned toward Dante.
The penlight in his hand was shaking.
Just a millimeter.
A tiny tremor in fingers that had pulled triggers without flinching.
"Dante," I breathed.
He didn't look at me.
His eyes were locked on the floor of the tunnel.
He bent down.
Beside the fresh boot print lay a small silver object.
It caught the beam of the flashlight.
Dante picked it up with two fingers.
It was a silver lighter.
Engraved with an eagle clutching an anchor.
The crest of the Moretti family's private docks in Red Hook.
And scratched into the silver casing was a single date:
October 14, 2021.
The exact night Miguel had been murdered outside the bakery.
Dante stared at the lighter.
His skin had gone the color of dirty ash.
"Elena," he said softly.
He had never called me by my first name in three years.
I was always Mrs. Alvarez.
Or the girl at the cottage.
"Pack Sophie's clothes," he commanded.
"Why?"
"You're not sleeping in the cottage tonight."
"Dante, tell me what that lighter means."
He turned the silver casing over in his hand.
His thumb brushed the engraved date.
"It means the man who killed your husband has keys to my house."
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From deep inside the tunnel, a heavy iron door slammed shut.
The sound echoed through the walls like a gunshot.
