Chapter 3 - Maria Sofia’s Room
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Dominic pushed the hidden door open.
The beam from Marco’s flashlight entered first.
Dust floated through the light like snow.
The room beyond had not been touched in decades.
A faded blue rug covered the floor.
Books lined one wall.
A writing desk stood beneath a boarded window.
A small cream-colored sofa faced an empty fireplace.
Everything had been preserved beneath a thin gray layer of time.
Dominic stepped inside.
I stayed near the doorway.
This was no longer a house-sitting problem.
It was a grave someone had forgotten to bury.
Dominic walked toward the desk.
His fingertips hovered over a silver hairbrush.
He did not touch it.
“I remember this.”
Marco looked around.
“You’ve been here before?”
Dominic nodded once.
“When I was a child.”
He turned slowly.
“She used to read here.”
His eyes found the sofa.
“I slept there during thunderstorms.”
Then his expression hardened.
“My father told me this room was demolished.”
Marco opened one of the desk drawers.
Empty.
Another.
Empty.
The third refused to move.
I noticed scratches around its brass handle.
“Someone tried to force that open.”
Dominic looked at me.
“When?”
“Not recently.”
I brushed dust from the scratches.
“They’re old.”
Marco examined the lock.
“Key?”
Dominic searched the desktop.
Nothing.
I walked toward a narrow bookshelf.
One volume sat slightly forward.
Old detective novels.
Poetry.
Italian cookbooks.
A children’s story collection.
Then a blue leather book with no title.
I pulled it free.
Something dropped behind the shelf.
A tiny brass key hit the floor.
Marco looked at me.
I looked at him.
“What?”
He smiled faintly.
“You find things.”
“It’s literally my job.”
Dominic took the key.
It fit the locked drawer.
The mechanism clicked.
Inside were three items.
A photograph.
A cassette tape.
And an envelope.
Dominic picked up the photograph first.
His mother stood beside the garden fountain.
She was younger than in the portrait.
Dark hair.
Blue dress.
One hand rested on Dominic’s shoulder.
He was perhaps nine.
Beside him stood another boy.
Older.
Maybe sixteen.
Dominic’s thumb touched the boy’s face.
“Gabriel.”
“Your brother?” I asked.
He nodded.
“He died the year before my mother.”
I immediately regretted asking.
Dominic turned the photograph over.
A sentence had been written on the back.
Marco read it aloud.
“If anything happens to me, Gabriel was right.”
Dominic looked at him sharply.
“What does that mean?”
Marco did not answer.
Dominic reached for the envelope.
It was addressed simply:
For Dominic.
His hand stopped.
The paper trembled slightly between his fingers.
I looked away.
He opened it.
Inside was one sheet of cream stationery.
His mother’s handwriting was neat at first.
Then increasingly hurried.
Dominic read silently.
The muscles in his jaw tightened.
Finally he handed the letter to Marco.
Marco read it.
His eyes darkened.
“What?” I asked.
Dominic stared toward the boarded window.
“My mother says Gabriel did not die because of the Moretti family.”
I knew enough about Chicago history to recognize the name.
Two powerful families.
Twenty years of rumors.
Three decades of hatred.
Marco lowered the letter.
“She says someone inside the Caruso family gave Gabriel’s location away.”
Dominic looked back at the open drawer.
“And she discovered who.”
I glanced at the cassette.
“Is the name on the tape?”
Dominic picked it up.
A small white label had been attached.
Three words were written across it.
PLAY ONLY ALONE.
Marco exhaled.
Dominic’s gaze shifted toward him.
Then toward me.
I raised both hands.
“I can leave.”
“No.”
The word came instantly.
I paused.
Dominic looked at the hidden room.
Then at the house beyond it.
“Whoever sealed this room knew these things existed.”
May you like
His eyes became cold.
“And if that person is still alive, the fact that we opened it may already be a problem.”
