Chapter 5 - The Man Behind the Locked Door
I did not return alone.
Finn drove me to a police station.
We waited beneath fluorescent lights.
A detective named Elena Brooks listened carefully.
She made copies of the letter.
She sealed the recorder in an evidence bag.
Then she asked about the photograph.
"We need to verify when it was taken."
"He could be dying," I said.
"And you could be walking into a trap."
Both things could be true.
Detective Brooks called for backup.
I sat with my hands clenched.
Finn brought me water.
I couldn't swallow it.
Twenty minutes later, Brooks returned.
"The estate says Roman is fine."
"Did you speak to him?"
"No. His security director."
I stood.
"Then you don't know."
Brooks held my gaze.
"You're right."
She arranged a welfare check.
Finn and I waited in the station lobby.
I watched the second hand circle the clock.
At dawn, Brooks called me back.
Roman had been found in his study.
He was alive.
The blood came from a wound in his shoulder.
His security director had concealed the attack.
Vale was missing.
"I need to see Roman," I said.
Brooks shook her head.
"He asked for you, too."
The estate looked different in daylight.
Police vehicles lined the circular drive.
Nobody told me to lower my eyes.
Nobody ordered me into the servants' entrance.
Roman waited in a sitting room.
His arm was bandaged.
He looked older than yesterday.
"You found the locker," he said.
I placed Dad's letter before him.
"You knew about my father."
"I knew he had worked for us."
"And the debt?"
He closed his eyes.
"I believed Vale's records."
"You never checked."
"No."
The admission was small.
Its consequences were enormous.
"You let me scrub your floors for two years."
He said nothing.
"You watched me shake every time you entered."
His jaw tightened.
"I did."
I stepped back.
"Then don't tell me you care."
Roman lowered his head.
May you like
For once, he had no order to give.
And I realized I could leave.
