Chapter 3 - The Study Behind the Wall
Grayhaven House had the stillness of a church and the nerves of a battlefield.
While Dr. Leonard Price hurried upstairs and security shifted positions at Victor’s command, Emily used the distraction to move. She changed out of her housekeeping jacket, pulled on a dark cardigan, and tied her hair tighter against her head. Lila sat on the narrow bed hugging her rabbit and watching her mother with solemn attention.
Emily knelt in front of her. “I need you to stay with Marta in the kitchen for a little while.”
Lila’s face fell instantly.
“I know.” Emily kissed her forehead. “But you cannot come where I’m going.”
Lila signed: bad man downstairs?
“Yes.”
You come back?
Emily forced a smile. “Always.”
Marta agreed to keep Lila in the kitchen on the pretense of helping shape dinner rolls. The old cook didn’t ask questions, but the worry in her eyes suggested she knew enough about the Volkov brothers to keep quiet for survival.
Emily crossed the back hall, passed the pantry, and entered the main corridor leading toward Damian’s private study. The room sat on the first floor beside the library and had once smelled faintly of cigars and cedar. Now it carried the sterile note of wiped surfaces and disuse. Victor disliked anyone entering it. That made it promising.
The study door was unlocked.
Emily slipped inside and closed it behind her.
The room was lined floor-to-ceiling with dark built-in shelves. Leather-bound books marched in even rows, broken by framed photographs, bronze sailing trophies, and a carved wooden box. Damian’s desk faced long windows overlooking the gray-blue stretch of water beyond the seawall. On the far side stood the bookcase Sofia had mentioned.
Emily went to it and pressed along the wood trim, searching for a latch. Nothing. Her pulse jumped at every creak of the old house. She tried the brass key in obvious locks—desk drawers, the wooden box, a cabinet door. None fit.
She remembered the note: Seawall cabinet.
Her eyes went to the model ship resting on the second shelf—a black-hulled vessel mounted atop a base carved with one word: Seawall.
Emily touched it.
The shelf clicked.
A narrow panel in the bookcase shifted outward an inch.
“Thank God,” she breathed.
She pulled the hidden door wider. Inside was a shallow cabinet containing a slim black ledger, a silver flash drive, a sealed manila envelope, and a second note in Damian’s cramped handwriting.
Emily took everything.
The second note read:
If Victor moves before I can, give Reyes the ledger and drive. Envelope only if necessary. Do not trust Price. Check framed photo.
Framed photo?
Emily looked around and spotted a photograph on Damian’s desk rather than the mantel—Damian and Victor at what looked like a ribbon-cutting on the waterfront, both wearing overcoats, their late father’s old signet ring visible on Victor’s hand. Behind them, half-obscured, stood a city councilman Emily recognized from local news.
She frowned. Why had Damian mentioned it?
Before she could think further, the study door opened.
Emily spun around, every muscle locking.
Damian’s old driver, Anton Petrov, stood in the doorway. Sixty if he was a day, broad-shouldered and silver-haired, Anton had driven the Volkov family for twenty years and spoke with the clipped reserve of a man who saw too much and repeated little.
His eyes dropped to the ledger in her hand.
“Mr. Petrov,” Emily said carefully.
He closed the door behind him. “If Victor sent me, you would already be dead.”
Emily’s grip tightened on the items. “Then why are you here?”
“Because Damian told me two weeks ago that if a woman named Emily Carter ever entered this study without permission, I was to hear her out before judging whether she was brave or foolish.”
Despite the terror riding her nerves, Emily nearly laughed. “And your conclusion?”
Anton glanced toward the hall. “Undecided.”
He took one step forward. “What did you find?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“That answer would have pleased Damian.” Anton looked at the cabinet, then back to Emily. “Victor has cameras in the main corridor, but not inside this room. He assumes locks are enough. They aren’t.”
“You knew something was wrong?”
“I knew Damian did not become half-dead from bad luck.” Anton’s mouth flattened. “I also knew he kept changing guards, schedules, and lawyers because he trusted no one. That usually means a man is right to worry.”
Emily hesitated, then asked the question that had been pressing against her ribs since Sofia’s warning. “Can I trust you?”
Anton met her gaze without blinking. “No one in this house should ask for trust. Ask for interests. Victor wants power. Damian wants time. The doctor wants money. I want the boy I used to drive to stop this family from rotting completely.”
“Then help me.”
Anton nodded once. “Reyes is coming.”
Emily stiffened. “Here?”
“She is outside the service gate. Victor told security not to admit her. I told the junior guard to have a cigarette.”
Emily tucked the flash drive and note inside her pocket, the ledger under her cardigan, the sealed envelope into her bag.
“What’s in the envelope?” Anton asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Good. Keep it that way until you must.”
A sudden shout echoed from upstairs—Victor’s voice, sharp with anger.
Emily and Anton looked at each other.
“He knows something is missing,” Anton said.
He moved to the desk, straightened the books on the shelf, and eased the hidden panel closed. “Take the servants’ corridor to the side entrance. Reyes will be waiting by the hydrangeas. I’ll delay anyone looking for you.”
Emily turned for the door, then paused. “Damian told you about me?”
Anton’s expression shifted, almost imperceptibly. “He noticed things. He noticed that you never stole food though you could have. He noticed that Lila thanked the kitchen staff in sign language and made them learn good morning. He noticed you read contracts while dusting and asked better questions than some of his executives.”
Emily blinked. “Why would that matter to him?”
“Because men who live among liars become interested in honest people.”
The shout upstairs came again, louder.
Anton opened the door. “Go.”
Emily slipped into the corridor and moved fast, keeping her footsteps soundless on the runner. At the side entrance, the evening air slapped her face cool and damp. The waterfront smelled of salt, stone, and rain. By the hydrangea hedge stood a dark sedan with its headlights off.
A woman in a navy coat stepped out. Mid-thirties, hair pinned back, eyes hard with fatigue and precision.
“Sofia Reyes?” Emily asked.
“Yes.” Sofia looked once at the house, then at Emily’s face. “Tell me before we get in the car. Is Damian alive?”
“For now.”
Sofia let out a breath that sounded almost like grief. “Then we have one chance.”
Emily opened her bag, ready to hand over the contents, when Sofia caught her wrist.
“No,” the lawyer said quietly. “Not here. If Damian was right, Victor’s real secret is not the poisoning.”
May you like
She looked toward the glowing windows of Grayhaven House.
“It’s what he was trying to stop before his own brother put him in that bed.”
