Chapter 2 - THE SCREAM BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR
At 12:14 A.M., someone screamed from the west wing.
Piper sat upright in bed.
For several seconds, she listened to the silence that followed.
Then came three sharp knocks.
Not from her bedroom door.
From somewhere deep inside the mansion.
She remembered Garrett's warning.
If you hear someone calling your name, don't answer.
Piper pulled on her slippers.
“Absolutely not,” she whispered.
Then she opened her bedroom door.
Because apparently, her survival instincts had taken the evening off.
The hallway was empty.
Moonlight spilled across the marble floor.
She followed the sound past a staircase, two enormous paintings, and a bronze statue of a horse that looked personally offended by her presence.
Another knock.
Then a woman's voice.
“Help me.”
Piper froze.
The voice came from behind a heavy wooden door at the end of the west corridor.
She approached cautiously.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Are you hurt?”
A pause.
Then the voice whispered, “Piper?”
Her stomach dropped.
Nobody in this house should have known where she was.
“Who are you?”
The doorknob rattled.
Piper stumbled backward.
Suddenly, a deep voice spoke behind her.
“I told Garrett to keep you away from this hallway.”
She spun around.
Dominic sat in his wheelchair near the staircase.
He wore a black T-shirt and dark sweatpants.
His hair was messy.
Without his expensive suit, he looked younger.
And far more exhausted.
“Someone's in there,” Piper whispered.
Dominic's expression hardened.
“Go back to bed.”
“She asked for help.”
“You didn't hear anything.”
Piper stared at him.
“That's a terrible lie.”
His jaw tightened.
“Piper.”
“There's a woman behind that door.”
Dominic rolled closer.
“No, there isn't.”
“Then why is someone knocking?”
For a moment, his eyes flickered toward the locked room.
Then he said, “It's a recording.”
Piper blinked.
“A recording?”
“Yes.”
“Of a woman screaming?”
Dominic's face closed.
“Go to bed.”
She folded her arms.
“You realize that explanation somehow makes this worse.”
He looked at her.
“Do you ever stop asking questions?”
“Usually when people give me reasonable answers.”
Dominic exhaled.
Then, unexpectedly, he said, “Come with me.”
Piper followed him into a smaller sitting room.
He stopped beside a fireplace.
“That room belonged to my younger sister.”
Piper's expression softened.
“You have a sister?”
“Had.”
The word settled between them.
“Her name was Isabella.”
“What happened?”
Dominic looked toward the flames.
“She died four years ago.”
Piper sat quietly.
“I'm sorry.”
He didn't answer.
After a moment, he continued.
“She was twenty-six. She loved terrible music, expensive shoes, and making my life difficult.”
Piper smiled faintly.
“Sounds like my kind of person.”
Dominic's expression softened for half a second.
“She left recordings. Voice messages. Videos.”
“And someone plays them at night?”
His silence answered her.
“Why?”
Dominic looked away.
“Because someone wants me to remember what happened.”
Piper felt a chill.
“What happened to her?”
He turned his wheelchair toward the doorway.
“That's enough for tonight.”
“Dominic—”
“Good night, Piper.”
She stood.
But before leaving, she noticed something on the mantel.
A framed photograph.
Dominic stood beside a beautiful dark-haired woman.
Isabella.
Piper moved closer.
Something about the photograph felt familiar.
Then she saw the silver bracelet on Isabella's wrist.
A delicate chain with a tiny blue butterfly.
Piper stopped breathing.
She had seen that bracelet before.
Three weeks earlier.
On the wrist of a woman who had approached her outside a Chicago grocery store.
A woman who had offered her a mysterious envelope.
And whispered, If you ever meet Dominic Rizzo, tell him his sister didn't die.
Piper had thrown away the envelope.
May you like
But now, staring at Isabella's photograph, she realized something terrifying.
The woman at the grocery store had looked exactly like Dominic's dead sister.
