Chapter 4
Bianca moved first. She stepped toward the open trapdoor and put her hand on the edge of the panel like she was going to pull it shut.
Raffaele didn't raise his voice. He just put his foot down on the wood beside the seam and the panel stopped. I could see his silver watch against the dark suit sleeve. The light from the tall windows cut straight across the floor and made the dust in the chamber below visible.
"Don't," he said.
Bianca looked at him, then at me. Her mouth was tight. "Raffaele, close it. There's nothing to see in there. It's old storage."
He didn't move his foot. The housemaid had the boy against her side near the doorway, one arm around his shoulders. The vacuum cleaner still sat where he'd left it on the left side of the floor, the cord trailing.
Raffaele pulled his phone from his suit pocket. He turned on the flashlight and crouched at the edge. The white veil was still half caught in the seam, the pearl edge dragging. He brushed it aside without looking at it and leaned forward.
"I want to see," he said, more to himself than to any of us.
He lowered himself down. The chamber wasn't deep, maybe five feet. His shoes hit something soft. He held the phone up and the light hit four walls made of raw plywood and old foundation. He swept it slowly.
I stayed where I was, on my knees at the edge with the cardigan pulled around me. I could see what he saw from above. The mattress was in the corner, thin and stained, with a folded gray blanket. Next to it was a white plastic bucket, empty and clean like it had been rinsed. A large water jug with a blue cap stood against the far wall, half full. And along the lower part of the wood nearest the window side, there were scratches. Thin, pale lines grouped together where fingernails had caught.
Raffaele's breathing changed. He picked up something small from the floor and held it to the light. A single pearl, loose, the same color as the ones on my hairpiece.
He looked up at me. "How long?"
I didn't answer. My throat was dry. I could hear the boy shifting against the housemaid.
Raffaele turned the light back to the walls and started taking pictures. The click of the shutter was loud in the quiet room. He took one of the mattress, one of the bucket, one of the water jug, one of the scratches. He crouched to get the pearl where he'd found it before he picked it up.
Bianca's hand was still on the panel. Her knuckles had gone white.
"That's enough," she said. "You've made your point. You can get out now and we can close this properly. This isn't safe."
Raffaele didn't get out. He kept photographing, moving the phone low along the floor seam. "I'm not closing it."
"It's my house," Bianca said. Her voice was flat and controlled. "You don't get to document my house like a crime scene."
He looked up at her from inside the hole. "Then tell me what's in it."
The housemaid made a small sound. She was staring at the scratches. The boy was looking at the floor, not at me.
Raffaele pushed himself up and climbed out in one motion. He stood at the edge, phone still in his hand, and turned to the housemaid.
"You cleaned this suite," he said. It wasn't a question.
She nodded once, her hands tightening on the boy. "Yes, sir."
"Did you hear anything?"
She swallowed. Her eyes went to Bianca, then back to Raffaele. "Sometimes at night. A sound. Like tapping."
Bianca cut in. "The pipes. I told you it was the pipes, Sofia. This building is a hundred years old."
The housemaid flushed. "You said it was pipes," she said to Raffaele, her voice barely above a whisper. "You told me not to vacuum that corner. You said the floor was soft there and the vacuum would mark it. You told me to stay away from that panel."
Raffaele looked at Bianca. Bianca didn't look at the housemaid.
"I was protecting the floor," Bianca said. "That panel is original wood."
Raffaele slipped his phone into his pocket and put his hand flat on the open trapdoor to keep it open. "No one touches this," he said. "No one cleans it. No one closes it."
"Raffaele," Bianca said, and for the first time her voice had an edge of pleading, "don't do this in front of the child. Think about what you're implying about your mother."
He didn't answer her. He turned and looked at me on the floor. My knees hurt against the wood and I was shaking from the cold in the chamber still on my skin.
Evelyn ran away. You know that. That was what she'd told him five years ago on our wedding day. I'd heard her say it again from the edge of the trapdoor, calm, like she believed it.
The boy took a half step toward me and stopped. The housemaid didn't pull him back.
I looked at Raffaele. "Don't leave me alone with her," I said. My voice was hoarse and low. "Please."
May you like
He nodded once, short and quick. He didn't look at Bianca again when he said it.
"I won't," he said.
