Chapter 5
The service door opened without a sound. Elena had oiled it. Or someone had.
Behind it was a passage barely wide enough for my shoulders, brick on one side, old wood on the other, smelling like dust and lemon cleaner. She switched on the flashlight, cupping the beam with her palm so it threw only a dim glow on the floor.
"Stay behind me," she whispered. "Step where I step. Floor creaks near the bend."
I followed her. My coat brushed the brick. Every few feet a thin line of light showed where the passage met the main house — an outlet cover, a vent, once the edge of the velvet curtain itself. We were behind the alcove now. I could hear the office on the other side of the wall, the low murmur of the men still in there.
One of them was on a phone. "...no ledger in the desk. Check behind the portrait? Already looked, it's flush. Marino hasn't shown. Victor's car still in the garage, so he's here."
My chest tightened. Elena stopped and put her hand back, pressing lightly against my stomach, not the wound but near it — a warning to stay still.
The man in the office raised his voice a fraction. "If Marino survived, he'll come here. Boss wants that book before he does."
Elena glanced back at me, her eyes wide in the dim light. She mouthed, Marino.
We crept forward to where the passage widened into a shallow niche. On the house side, a wooden panel with a small iron handle faced us. Elena touched it.
"This opens behind the curtain," she breathed. "On the count of three I slide it. You pull the curtain enough to see the portrait. No more."
I nodded. My mouth was dry. She counted with her fingers, one, two, three, and pulled.
The panel slid an inch, then two, and cool air from the hallway slipped in. The velvet curtain hung inches away, its dark fabric blocking most of the office doorway. Through the narrow gap between curtain and doorframe, I could see the wood-paneled office exactly as the video had shown it — large desk, patterned rug, portrait of my father above the fireplace mantel.
The three men had their backs to us. One was kneeling by the desk, pulling drawers fully out and setting them on the rug. Another held a phone to his ear, pacing beneath the portrait. The third stood at the window, watching the driveway.
Elena held the panel steady. I eased the curtain aside half an inch with two fingers and looked.
The portrait was heavy, framed in dark wood, my father's face in oil paint, hands folded. I'd walked past it a thousand times as a kid. I'd never touched it.
The man on the phone stepped closer to it, put his hand on the frame, and shoved. It moved a quarter inch and stopped. He frowned, tried again, pulling now. It didn't budge.
"It's fixed," he said to the others. "Screwed in."
"Safe's behind it," the kneeling man said without looking up. "Has to be. Reyes logged it."
Reyes. Elena's hand spasmed on the panel handle. I felt her go rigid beside me.
The third man turned from the window. "Break it open then. Boss doesn't care about art."
The man by the portrait pulled a small pry bar from his jacket. Elena inhaled sharply. I put my hand over hers on the handle to keep it from shaking.
"Wait," the man on the phone said, listening. "He says don't force it yet. If Victor hears, he runs. We sweep the house first."
They stared at the portrait for a long beat. Then the man put the pry bar back, straightened the frame with a deliberate push, and stepped away.
"Leave someone at the door," the kneeling man said, stacking the drawers. "He'll come back for it. They always do."
They started gathering papers off the desk, tapping them even, not in a hurry. They thought they had time. They thought I was trapped in the east wing.
Elena eased the panel shut inch by inch until the latch clicked. The office murmur dulled to nothing.
In the dark passage, she was breathing hard through her nose. "They know his name," she whispered. "They know Daniel saw it."
"And they think I know where it is," I said. My side throbbed. "We need to get there before they decide to break it."
She looked at the panel, then at me, her face pale in the flashlight's glow. "We go back through the utility room and come at it from the hall when they rotate. Two minutes. One of them will go check the garage."
"How do you know?"
May you like
"Because they've done it three times already," she said.
We turned back down the passage, the beam bouncing ahead of us, the portrait waiting on the other side of the wall.
