Chapter 2 - The Wall That Should Have Been Solid
Marco checked the architectural plans before anyone touched the wall.
According to the blueprints, Dominic was right.
There was nothing behind it.
The gallery wall backed onto a narrow section of the mansion between the east staircase and the old library.
The plans showed masonry.
Support columns.
A plumbing chase.
No door.
No closet.
No room.
I stood beside Dominic while Marco spread copies of the estate drawings across the dining-room table.
Dominic had changed clothes.
Black trousers.
White shirt.
Sleeves rolled to his forearms.
The expensive suit jacket was gone.
So was the small amount of humor he had shown in the foyer.
“How old are these plans?” I asked.
“Renovated set from 1998,” Marco said.
“And the original?”
Dominic looked at him.
Marco immediately understood.
“I’ll get them.”
He left.
Dominic remained staring at the drawings.
I should have gone upstairs.
I should have put on normal clothes.
I should probably have stopped involving myself in the private architectural mysteries of a man whose last name made contractors lower their voices.
Instead I said,
“Your mother’s portrait covered the hollow section perfectly.”
Dominic’s eyes lifted.
“That sounds intentional.”
“It does.”
He studied me.
“You don’t scare easily.”
“I threatened you with fireplace equipment ten minutes ago.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“I scare appropriately.”
His mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Then his attention returned to the blueprints.
“My mother died when I was ten.”
I said nothing.
“It was a car accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I remember very little about the week afterward.”
He traced one line on the plan.
“My father removed most of her things.”
“Why?”
“He said grief was making the house unbearable.”
Something about the way he said it told me he no longer believed that explanation.
Marco returned twenty minutes later with a leather map case.
He placed it on the table.
“These were in the basement archive.”
Inside were hand-drawn plans dated 1967.
The original Caruso estate had been smaller.
A major expansion had been completed in 1989.
Three years before Dominic’s mother died.
I leaned over the plans.
“There.”
Dominic followed my finger.
A narrow rectangle appeared behind the gallery wall.
Twelve feet wide.
Almost twenty feet long.
A room.
Marco looked at Dominic.
Dominic stared at the drawing.
“What was it?”
The room was labeled in faded handwriting.
M.S.
Marco frowned.
“Mechanical storage?”
“No,” Dominic said.
His face had gone pale.
“My mother’s name was Maria Sofia Caruso.”
Silence filled the dining room.
M.S.
Maria Sofia.
Her initials.
Dominic pushed away from the table.
We returned to the gallery.
This time he knocked on the wall himself.
Hollow.
He moved lower.
Solid.
Then right.
Hollow again.
I examined the molding.
Old mansions taught you things.
Mostly that rich people concealed problems behind decorative woodwork.
I crouched beside the baseboard.
“There’s a seam.”
Marco knelt.
He ran a pocket light along the edge.
A nearly invisible vertical line extended from the floor to shoulder height.
“A door,” he said.
Dominic remained completely still.
I looked at him.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“Your aunt?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your father?”
“He designed the 1989 renovation.”
That answer settled heavily between us.
Marco found the mechanism beneath the molding.
A brass catch had been plastered over.
He used a thin tool to clear it.
Dominic stopped him.
“Wait.”
Marco looked up.
Dominic stared at the hidden seam.
For the first time since entering the house, he looked uncertain.
Not frightened.
Something deeper.
Like a man standing at the edge of a memory he had spent thirty years avoiding.
Then he pressed the catch himself.
Something clicked inside the wall.
Dust drifted from the molding.
The panel moved inward one inch.
Cold air slipped through the gap.
It carried a faint smell.
Old wood.
Paper.
And something floral.
Dominic’s face changed instantly.
He stepped backward.
“What is it?” I asked.
May you like
His eyes remained fixed on the darkness beyond the opening.
“My mother’s perfume.”
