Chapter 3 - THE PHOTOGRAPH OF THE MAID
I stared at the photograph until my pain medication seemed to stop working.
“That makes no sense.”
Gabriel disagreed.
“It makes one thing clear.”
“What?”
“You weren't collateral.”
The photograph had a date.
Six months earlier.
I had only worked at the Rossi estate for two years, and for most of that time I had been exactly what I wanted to be.
Invisible.
Why would anyone photograph me?
Mara asked about my past.
I gave her the simple version.
My name was Elena Hart.
Twenty-four.
Grew up outside Syracuse.
Mother died when I was seventeen.
Father unknown.
Community college for one year.
Various hotel and housekeeping jobs.
Then the Rossi estate.
“Who hired you?”
I frowned.
“The household agency.”
Gabriel said:
“No.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“The agency screened you. I approved you.”
“Why would you personally approve a housemaid?”
He didn't answer fast enough.
That scared me.
“Gabriel.”
“Your application was flagged.”
“For what?”
“Your mother's name.”
My body went cold.
“Why would my mother's name matter to you?”
Her name had been Catherine Hart.
At least, that's what I'd always known.
Gabriel opened his phone and showed me an old photograph.
Two women stood outside a lakeside house.
One was Gabriel's late wife, Sofia.
The other was my mother.
Younger.
Laughing.
Alive.
I stopped breathing.
“They knew each other?”
Gabriel nodded.
“How?”
“Your mother worked for Sofia's family.”
My mother had told me she cleaned houses when she was young.
Nothing more.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I wasn't sure you knew.”
That sounded reasonable.
It still felt like another room in my life had been locked.
Then Mara examined employment records.
My application had included an emergency contact that I never remembered listing.
Aunt:
Margaret Vale.
I had no Aunt Margaret.
The phone number was disconnected.
Address fake.
Someone had altered my employment application before Gabriel received it.
“Why?” I asked.
No one knew.
Then Gabriel's assistant brought a box from estate archives.
Items recovered after Sofia's car fire three years earlier.
Gabriel rarely looked at them.
Inside:
A burned watch.
A wedding ring.
Half a leather purse.
And a sealed letter that fire investigators had never opened because heat fused the outer envelope.
Modern restoration had recently separated it.
Recipient:
CATHERINE HART.
My mother.
Except my mother had supposedly died four years before Sofia.
The letter was dated two weeks before Sofia's car burned.
I opened it.
Only half the page survived.
Catherine,
You were right about Marco.
I should have believed you the first time.
Gabriel must never know what we found until Leo is safe.
My hands trembled.
At the bottom, another line remained.
If anything happens to me, find Elena.
Gabriel read my name.
May you like
Then looked at me.
His dead wife had known who I was before I ever entered his house.
