Chapter 5 - BEHIND THE CANVAS
Daario disappeared before sunrise.
That alone made him look guilty.
What frightened Elio was where he disappeared from.
Inside the Vieira estate.
No car left.
No gate opened.
No exterior camera recorded him crossing the property line.
"He had help," Bruno said.
Elio looked toward the ceiling.
"Or there's a way out we don't know about."
Janevra thought of the estate's age.
The original house had been built in 1911, then expanded repeatedly by three generations of Vieiras.
As a child, she had studied architectural history along with art.
For the first time, the education everyone called useless became useful.
"The wine cellar."
Elio looked at her.
"The original blueprint would have required a coal delivery passage."
They went downstairs.
Behind a shelving unit, Janevra found newer mortar around one section of brick.
Bruno broke through.
A narrow tunnel appeared.
At the far end they found Daario's abandoned phone.
And Janevra's painting.
The canvas had been removed from its frame.
She nearly cried when she saw it.
Her mother's painting had survived twelve years only to be cut apart.
Then Janevra noticed something.
"The canvas isn't the message."
She ran her fingertips along the wooden stretcher.
One section was older than the others.
Elio handed her a knife.
She carefully loosened the backing.
A strip of paper slid out.
Numbers.
A date.
And an address.
St. Augustine's Church.
Janevra knew the place.
Her mother had taken her there every Christmas.
Beneath the address Lucia had written one sentence:
WHEN JENNY IS READY, TELL HER THE MAN WHO BETRAYED ME SAT AT OUR TABLE.
Janevra stared at the handwriting.
Elio suddenly took the paper from her.
"What?"
He pointed toward the date.
Janevra's heart stopped.
It wasn't the date her mother died.
It was two weeks earlier.
The same night Lucia hosted dinner for exactly five people.
Victoriao.
Lucia.
Elio's father.
Bruno's father.
May you like
And one other guest.
A twenty-three-year-old Daario Vieira.
