The Housekeeper With a Different Name
Chapter 03 - The Housekeeper With a Different Name
By eight-thirty, the mansion had begun pretending nothing was wrong.
Servants polished silver. Men in black suits moved through hallways with earpieces and blank faces. Dominic’s laugh drifted from the breakfast room like music from a party no one wanted to attend.
Adrian showered, shaved, and dressed in black.
For the first time in months, his reflection did not look like a ghost wearing his clothes.
His hands still trembled faintly when he buttoned his cuff. He hated that Maria saw it.
She stood near the wardrobe with Lily on her hip, refusing the chair he had offered twice. Lily had finally changed into a clean dress someone fetched from the servants’ wing, though she insisted on keeping Adrian’s undershirt folded in her lap because “the lion borrowed it.”
“Your daughter cannot return downstairs,” Adrian said.
Maria’s chin lifted. “I know.”
“You cannot either.”
“I have work.”
“You have a child Dominic wants found.”
“And if I disappear from my duties, everyone will know where to look.”
He turned from the mirror.
Maria Carter was, on paper, an employee. Housekeeping. Early thirties. Widowed. One dependent child. No criminal record. No debts serious enough to explain why she worked in a house most sensible women avoided.
On paper, she made sense.
In person, she did not.
She was careful, but not timid. Poor, but not careless. Afraid, but not weak. And her daughter had identified medication by smell before most adults noticed the cup existed.
“Who are you?” Adrian asked.
Her face did not change.
“You know who I am.”
“I know what the file says.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because files are written by people who lie.”
Lily sighed with the impatience of a child bored by adult caution.
“Mama’s old name was Moreno.”
Maria closed her eyes.
Adrian’s gaze sharpened.
“Moreno.”
“It was my maiden name,” Maria said.
“Your father?”
“Emilio Moreno.”
Silence filled the room with teeth.
Adrian knew the name. Not well enough to place immediately, but enough that memory stirred uneasily through the fog of old business.
“Emilio Moreno worked for my father.”
Maria nodded once.
“He handled medications for your mother after her surgery. He also refused to alter records when someone asked him to.”
“Someone?”
She looked toward the door.
“Your brother.”
Adrian walked slowly closer.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
Three years.
The number had become a blade.
“Explain.”
Maria’s fingers tightened in Lily’s dress.
“My father called me the night before he died. He said a Moretti son had come to him asking about compounds that could weaken a man slowly without killing him. Enough to cause confusion. Tremors. Sleep disruption. Memory lapses.”
Adrian did not move.
“He refused,” she continued. “Two days later, his pharmacy burned.”
Silas entered without knocking, saw Adrian’s face, and stopped.
“What did I miss?”
“Emilio Moreno,” Adrian said.
Silas went pale.
So it was not only Adrian’s memory that knew the name.
“You knew him?” Maria asked.
Silas looked at Adrian before answering.
“Your father used him. Trusted him.”
Maria’s laugh held no humor. “Trust did not help him.”
Adrian’s voice was soft. “Why did you come here?”
“To find out if your brother killed him.”
The honesty struck harder than a lie.
“You took a job in my house to investigate Dominic?”
“I took a job in your house because I needed money and because Mrs. Ricci remembered my mother.” She swallowed. “But yes. I watched him when I could.”
“And said nothing.”
“Would you have believed a housekeeper?”
Adrian had no answer that did not shame him.
Before he could speak, footsteps approached outside the bedroom. Two sets. One light, one confident.
Dominic’s voice came through the door.
“Adrian? You awake?”
Lily buried her face in Maria’s shoulder.
Silas moved to the side of the door where he could not be seen if it opened.
Adrian raised one finger, ordering silence.
Dominic knocked once, then opened the door without waiting.
He entered smiling, handsome and bright in a blue suit, carrying a fresh porcelain cup on a tray.
“There you are,” Dominic said. “I brought your morning tonic. Levine is downstairs, and we need you steady for the papers.”
His smile held until he saw Maria.
Then Lily.
Then Silas in the corner.
For one small second, the mask slipped.
Adrian saw the fear beneath.
Dominic recovered quickly.
“What is this?” he asked lightly. “A family breakfast?”
Adrian looked at the cup in his brother’s hand.
“No,” he said.
Dominic’s smile thinned.
“Then what?”
May you like
Adrian stepped closer and took the tray.
“A taste test.”
