I heard a metallic click.
The door behind us locked automatically.
Someone had activated the house security system.
I grabbed Emilio’s arm.
“What do we do?”
He whispered.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Listen.”
We stood in darkness.
Footsteps moved through the hallway.
Slow.
Careful.
Someone stopped outside the conservatory.
Then came three knocks.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Rafe whispered, “Don’t open it.”
Emilio smiled.
“Now you understand.”
The footsteps disappeared.
After several minutes, Emilio switched on a small emergency lamp.
He looked exhausted.
But alive.
“I need to show you something.”
He led me through a hidden corridor behind the conservatory wall.
At the end was a tiny room.
Inside were dozens of boxes.
Documents.
Photographs.
Letters.
Medical reports.
And newspaper clippings.
I saw the same photograph from earlier.
The little girl.
But underneath it was a name.
Eleanor Grace Corsaro.
I looked at Emilio.
“Your daughter.”
He nodded.
“She wasn’t dead.”
My heart pounded.
“What?”
“She survived.”
“Then where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
He handed me an envelope.
It was dated nineteen years earlier.
The letter inside contained only six words.
If I disappear, trust the girl.
I looked up.
“What girl?”
Emilio’s eyes filled with something I had never seen in him before.
