Chapter 12
I woke up on the couch in Raffaele's apartment above the garage and heard the drill before I saw anything. It was just after eight. The mansion looked the same from the back driveway, tall windows bright, but a white locksmith van was parked by the side door and Bianca stood on the stone step in her beige cardigan holding a clipboard like she was managing a renovation.
Raffaele was already outside. He'd slept on the floor beside the couch with his suit jacket folded for a pillow. He didn't touch me, just stood when I sat up and said, "She's changing the locks."
We walked over together. The locksmith had his case open on the welcome mat. Bianca looked at us and didn't flinch.
"Good, you're up," she said to Raffaele. Her voice was even, practiced. "I had the suite closed for work. That vacuum was old, it's been catching on that floor seam for years. I'm having the panel repaired and the whole wing painted. It's an accident waiting to happen."
I didn't answer. My throat still hurt from the dust down there.
Raffaele said, "You can't lock us out. The suite is taped as evidence."
Bianca smiled without showing teeth. "The sheriff said I could secure my own home. I live here. I'm not destroying anything, I'm fixing a hazard. You can check with his office if you want to make a point of it."
The locksmith kept working, the new deadbolt clicking into place. From the kitchen doorway I saw the housemaid standing by the island holding her apron in both hands. Her eyes met mine for half a second and dropped.
Bianca turned then, like she'd remembered something.
"And Maria, I won't be needing you this week," she said. "We're closing the house for the contractors. I'll mail your last check."
Maria's hands tightened on the apron. "Ma'am, the boy—"
"The boy is with his father," Bianca said. "We're fine."
Raffaele stepped forward. "You fired her this morning?"
"Laid off for the renovation," Bianca said. "Don't make it dramatic."
Maria didn't argue. She folded the apron once, set it on the counter, and walked past us out the side door. I followed her. On the driveway she stopped and pressed her palms to her eyes.
"She moved it at six," she said quietly, so only I could hear. "Before the locksmith came. The mattress from under the floor. She had me help carry it to the bin out by the carriage house. Said it was moldy from a leak and had to go."
My stomach turned. I could feel that thin mattress on my back again, the springs through the sheet.
"Which bin?" Raffaele asked from behind us. He'd followed.
"The green dumpster," Maria said. "Behind the garage. She told me not to say anything, that it would confuse things."
Raffaele drove us to the sheriff's office himself. He didn't let me sit in the waiting room. He brought me straight to the low brick building on County Road 9 and asked for Sheriff Dalton. The deputy tried to say Dalton was out, but Dalton came out of his office holding coffee and stopped when he saw me.
We told him in his office with the door closed. Maria did most of the talking. She kept her hands folded in her lap and said exactly what she'd told us, the time, the mattress, Bianca's words, the dumpster location. Dalton listened and didn't write at first, then started writing fast.
"She told you it was a renovation?" he asked Maria.
"Yes, sir. She said the vacuum catching was an accident and the room needed to be redone before anyone got hurt."
Dalton looked at Raffaele. "You saw a locksmith?"
"He was installing a new deadbolt on the side entrance as we stood there," Raffaele said. "She's trying to keep everyone out of the suite."
Dalton exhaled and picked up his phone. I sat on the edge of the plastic chair and watched his hand shake a little. He'd known Bianca for twenty years, through the foundation golf tournament, but Maria's voice was steady and that mattered more.
He called the county judge from his desk and asked for a warrant to search and recover evidence at risk of destruction. He said "mattress from a concealed chamber" and "possible unlawful confinement" and gave the address. He had to repeat it. When he hung up he said we had thirty minutes before she could have a truck come.
We drove back in two cars, Dalton behind us with a deputy. The dumpster was where Maria said, green and dented, behind the carriage house where the landscapers left clippings. The lid was half open.
Dalton had the deputy pull it open all the way. The smell hit first, damp and sour. At the bottom, folded against bags of leaves, was a narrow twin mattress with no frame. The fabric was yellowed and stained, the edges dark with dirt. One corner had a hand-sewn patch where I'd mended it with a needle Bianca used to leave me with.
Maria made a small sound. I didn't touch it.
Dalton put on gloves and lifted the edge with the deputy. Under the fitted sheet, still tucked tight like I'd kept it, were strands of light brown hair caught in the fibers. Along the seam, half hidden in the stitching, were three small white pearls. I knew them. They matched the beading on my veil.
"That's not renovation trash," Dalton said quietly. He looked at Raffaele, then at me. "This is evidence."
He had the deputy photograph it before they moved it, every angle, the pearls catching the daylight. Bianca came to her back porch while they worked and watched with her arms crossed. She didn't come closer.
"This hasn't been slept on in years," she called out. "That was from the old staff quarters."
Dalton didn't answer her. He sealed the mattress in plastic and tagged it, and told Maria she was now listed as a protected reporting witness and could not be retaliated against for her statement.
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On the drive back to the garage apartment, Raffaele kept one hand on the wheel and finally said, "She kept it. She tried to throw it away this morning and thought no one would look."
I stared at the plastic-wrapped shape in the deputy's truck ahead of us, that mattress I'd folded every morning so I wouldn't lose track of days. The pearls were still stuck where they'd fallen when I pulled the veil through the crack.
