Chapter 6 - The Ghost in the Pantry
Elena Bennett stood at the grand island of the Moretti estate’s commercial kitchen, holding a porcelain mug of chamomile tea that had long ceased to steam.
At thirty-one, Elena possessed a quiet, aristocratic beauty that had been tempered into steel by five years of surviving on the perimeter of the Moretti syndicate. She wore an ivory cashmere sweater over dark woolen trousers, her rich auburn hair caught in a loose clip at the back of her head, leaving the delicate, tired hollows of her neck exposed. Her hazel eyes—the exact shade of her daughter's—were fixed on the black-and-white marble floor, tracking a faint, invisible geometry of anxiety.
Something was wrong with the house tonight.
It wasn't a sound. The Moretti estate was always quiet; sixty thousand square feet of limestone and bulletproof glass ensured that the violence of the family’s business never penetrated the domestic sanctuary. But there was a pressure in the air, a drop in the barometric charge of the household that Elena had learned to recognize during her years as Marco Moretti’s wife.
Marco—the smooth, ruthless second son of the family, who had vanished twelve days ago following a private council sit-down in Montreal.
The family had told her Marco was traveling. They had told her he was restructuring the shipping manifests in the north. But the security details had doubled at the main gatehouse; the private guards no longer wore their tailored suits, shifting instead to tactical fleece and concealed sidearms; and Marco’s older brother, Julian, had spent the last seventy-two hours sequestered in the ground-floor study, receiving couriers from New York in the dead of night.
"Elena?"
Elena started, nearly sloshing the cold tea over the marble.
Julian Moretti stood in the archway of the kitchen pantry. At thirty-eight, Julian carried the heavy, brutal physicality of the Moretti lineage: broad-shouldered, thick-necked, his dark hair cropped short, wearing a dark gray wool sweater and black trousers. He held a brass ring of keys in his right hand, his thumb unconsciously rubbing the heavy iron tumbler key that belonged to the lower vaults.
"Julian," Elena said, her voice instantly flattening into that polished, neutral cadence she used as armor. "I thought you were in the study."
"Just checking the perimeter locks before the storm hits," Julian said, his voice a smooth, flat baritone that never quite reached his cold brown eyes. He stepped into the kitchen, his gaze sweeping the empty room. "Where is the little one? It’s past seven."
"She was in the playroom with her coloring books twenty minutes ago," Elena said, setting her mug down with a soft click. Her maternal radar flared instantly, a prickle of cold electricity traveling down the base of her neck. "I came down to warm her milk."
"Make sure she stays on the second floor tonight, Elena," Julian said, his tone casual, yet laced with that unspoken, absolute authority that characterized every male in the family. "We have clients arriving from Jersey at nine. The lower galleries are off-limits."
"Clients on a Saturday night?"
Julian offered a thin, mirthless smile that didn't disturb the skin around his eyes. "Business doesn't observe the Sabbath, sister-in-law."
He turned on his heel, walking back toward the east gallery, the heavy brass keys jingling faintly against his thigh.
Elena didn't wait for his footsteps to fade. She abandoned the tea, rounded the island, and hurried down the service corridor toward the playroom. "Lily?" she called out, keeping her voice low so as not to alert the guards in the hall. "Lily, sweetheart?"
The playroom was empty. The box of yellow crayons sat open on the low cedar table, a half-finished drawing of a house with a red chimney resting on the rug.
May you like
Elena’s heart began to hammer against her ribs with sharp, rhythmic blows. She turned toward the service pantry at the end of the hall.
The heavy oak door to the cellar was pulled shut, but the brass hasp was hanging loose. And there, sitting on the third stone step just inside the darkness, illuminated by the corridor light, was a tiny smear of red wool fibers from Lily’s favorite sweater.
