Chapter 6 - The Name Hidden in the Letter
The letter contained no confession.
No dramatic list.
Only instructions.
Lorenzo read them twice.
“Your father wanted you to find something?”
Camila nodded.
“He told me that if anything happened to him, I should give this to Lorenzo only after I knew who Arthur was.”
Isabella looked at the paper.
“There is a second page missing.”
Camila's face changed.
“My father had two pages.”
“Where is the other one?”
“I don't know.”
Lorenzo folded the letter.
“Then Arthur has it.”
“No,” Isabella said.
Both looked at her.
She pointed to the wedding ring.
“The second page wasn't carried by Arthur.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the ring was the message.”
She turned it over.
Inside the metal was a tiny compartment.
Lorenzo used the edge of his knife to open it.
A narrow strip of paper emerged.
Only four words were written on it.
TRUST THE HOUSEKEEPER.
Isabella went still.
Lorenzo looked at her.
“You?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Then who?”
Before Isabella could answer, footsteps approached.
An elderly housekeeper named Mrs. Bell entered.
She had worked in Lorenzo's family home for nearly thirty years.
She looked terrified.
“Mr. Bianchi.”
Lorenzo stepped toward her.
“What do you know?”
Mrs. Bell looked at Isabella.
Then Camila.
Then Lorenzo.
“I know Arthur has been meeting someone beneath the old chapel.”
“Who?”
Mrs. Bell's hands trembled.
“I never saw his face.”
“But you heard his voice?”
She nodded.
Lorenzo waited.
Mrs. Bell whispered:
“Your uncle.”
Silence.
Lorenzo's uncle had died twelve years earlier.
His funeral had been attended by half the city.
Isabella immediately noticed the contradiction.
“You said you never saw his face.”
“No.”
Mrs. Bell lowered her eyes.
“But I heard the voice.”
Lorenzo's expression became unreadable.
His dead uncle could not be giving Arthur orders.
May you like
Which meant someone wanted them to believe he was.
And that meant the person behind Arthur was closer than anyone realized.
