The Empty Bedroom

Chapter 02 - The Empty Bedroom

Luca reached Sophie’s bedroom before anyone else. He took the stairs two

at a time, his polished shoes striking the marble with a sound that sent

servants flattening themselves against the walls. Hannah followed with

Teresa’s nurse, pushing the wheelchair as quickly as the old woman could

tolerate. Teresa’s hands shook against the armrests, but her eyes never

left the landing.

Sophie’s room looked almost untouched. Her stuffed rabbit sat on the

pillow. A half-finished drawing lay beside a glass of water. The

curtains were drawn, and the small night-light shaped like a moon still

glowed beside the bed. Yet the wardrobe stood open, and the space

beneath the window where Sophie kept her pink suitcase was empty.

Luca crossed the room without speaking. He checked the bathroom, the

walk-in closet, the little reading nook beneath the shelves. Then he

opened the wardrobe wider and found three dresses missing, along with

Sophie’s favorite cardigan and a pair of shoes. This was not a child

wandering downstairs. Someone had packed for her.

“Who had access to this room?” he asked.

“Housekeeping, the nanny before she left, and me,” Vanessa said from the

doorway.

“You told me Sophie was asleep.”

“She may have gone with someone willingly.”

“Who?”

Vanessa glanced toward Marco. “Perhaps your daughter’s old caregiver.

The one you dismissed last month.”

Luca’s brow tightened. “She hasn’t been here in six weeks.”

“Then someone else may have helped her.”

Hannah looked up. Vanessa was talking too quickly, reaching for

explanations before Luca had asked for them. The woman who had spent the

evening controlling every detail of the dinner had suddenly lost track

of her own story.

Marco examined the window locks and shook his head. “No forced entry.

The side door camera was offline for eleven minutes. The front gate log

shows a vehicle leaving at nine seventeen, but the plate is obscured.”

“Eleven minutes,” Luca repeated. “Who disabled the camera?”

“We’re checking.”

Luca called Sophie’s private phone. It rang once, then went to

voicemail. He listened to the little recorded greeting—his daughter’s

voice, bright and shy, saying, “Hi, it’s Sophie. Leave me a

message!”—and ended the call before the beep. Hannah saw the moment he

understood that fear could not be ordered to stand down.

Vanessa touched his shoulder. “Luca, listen to me. If she was frightened

by the noise tonight, she may have asked someone to take her somewhere

quiet. We can handle this without turning it into a spectacle.”

He moved away from her hand. “You keep saying ‘we’ as if I know what

you’re talking about.”

Luca checked the bedside table and found a children’s watch, a library receipt, and a folded note from Sophie’s teacher reminding him about a school concert the following week. He had promised to attend. The note had been pinned beneath a photograph of Sophie with two missing front teeth, laughing in the sunlight. He picked up the picture and held it for a second too long, remembering how he had once believed that money could protect a child from every uncertainty.

Hannah watched him put the photograph back exactly where it had been. It was the only thing in the room he had touched gently. The sight made her feel both tenderness and anger: tenderness for a father who was terrified, and anger that Sophie had apparently been frightened for days without anyone noticing. The house had dozens of cameras, armed guards, and locked gates. Somehow, it had not had enough ordinary attention.

Teresa made a small sound. Hannah leaned over her. “Mrs. Moretti?”

The old woman pointed toward the corridor, then toward the old east

wing. Her finger shook so hard that it took Hannah a moment to

understand. The east wing had been closed since Luca’s wife died. It

contained the family chapel, a storage room, and a narrow passage that

had once connected the servants’ quarters to the conservatory. Most of

the staff believed the passage had been sealed.

“Blue door,” Teresa whispered.

Luca knelt beside her again. “Is Sophie there?”

Teresa shook her head, then pressed her fingers to her lips and pointed

toward the east wing a second time.

Hannah remembered a blue-painted door at the end of the old passage,

behind a tall cabinet. When she had first started working at the

mansion, she had found Sophie hiding there with a book, saying it was

the only place where the house did not sound so large. She had never

told Luca. Sophie had asked her to keep it a secret.

“I know a place,” Hannah said.

Vanessa’s head snapped toward her. “You know a place?”

“A hiding place Sophie likes.”

“Then why didn’t you mention it before?”

“Because she’s a child, and children are allowed to have a corner of

their own.”

For a second, Vanessa looked as if she might slap her. Instead, she

smiled with a coldness that made Hannah’s skin prickle. “How touching.

You’ve become very close to the family.”

Luca stepped between them. “Hannah, take us there.”

The old passage smelled of dust and cold stone. Marco went first with a

flashlight. Hannah guided Teresa behind him while Luca checked every

doorway. At the end stood a narrow blue door, its paint chipped around

the handle. It opened into a little room once used by the family priest.

There was a faded rug, a wooden bench, and a small window that looked

onto the garden.

Sophie was not there.

But on the bench lay a paper star, folded from a page torn out of a

children’s notebook. Hannah recognized Sophie’s careful handwriting on

the inside.

I HEARD THEM. I KNOW ABOUT THE CAR. IF I DISAPPEAR, DON’T TRUST THE

PERSON IN RED.

Luca read it twice. His hand tightened around the paper until its edges

bent.

“Who is ‘the person in red’?” Marco asked, though his eyes had already

moved to Vanessa’s gown.

Vanessa gave a brittle laugh. “This is absurd. Any child could have

written that after hearing adults whisper.”

“Then tell us what she heard,” Luca said.

“I don’t know.”

Teresa lifted her trembling hand and pointed straight at Vanessa.

No one spoke. The old woman’s breathing had grown shallow, but she held

the gesture, her finger unwavering.

Luca turned to his fiancée. “You have one chance to tell me why my

mother is afraid of you.”

Vanessa looked at the paper star, then at Teresa. For the first time

that night, her face showed something more than irritation.

It showed hatred.

And Hannah realized the note had not been a child’s warning about a plan

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that might happen. Sophie had written it because the plan had already

begun.