Chapter 2 - Three Taps at the Dinner Table
Gabriel returned the music box to the upstairs table exactly where he had found it.
Then he stood there for several seconds, annoyed with himself.
It was a music box.
Nothing more.
Sophia had owned dozens of sentimental objects: photographs, letters, pressed flowers, books with notes written in the margins.
After her death, Gabriel had avoided them all.
Perhaps the faint movement inside the box was merely part of the mechanism.
Perhaps Evelyn had moved it while cleaning Leo’s room.
Perhaps Gabriel was looking for mysteries because mysteries were easier than grief.
He walked toward his study.
Behind him came three soft taps.
Gabriel turned.
Leo stood at the top of the stairs.
He had changed into blue pajamas.
Evelyn was several feet behind him.
The boy’s fingers rested against the railing.
Tap.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
Gabriel looked at Evelyn.
“He’s saying good night,” she explained.
“How do you know?”
“Context.”
Gabriel returned his gaze to Leo.
For a moment he considered walking upstairs.
Instead he lifted his hand.
“Good night, Leo.”
The boy stared at him.
Then disappeared down the hallway.
Evelyn remained.
“You could tap back.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“What?”
“The same rhythm.”
“I know what you meant.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Her tone was not confrontational.
That somehow made the question worse.
Gabriel had spent years around people who chose every word carefully around him.
Evelyn did not seem frightened of him.
She simply seemed careful with Leo.
“That’s your thing with him.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Gabriel folded his arms.
“How did it start?”
Evelyn looked toward Leo’s room.
“He had a nightmare. He wouldn’t let me touch him. Every time I came closer, he moved away.”
Gabriel’s face tightened.
“What kind of nightmare?”
“I don’t know. He couldn’t tell me.”
“Then how did tapping help?”
“I sat on the floor outside his door.”
“For how long?”
“Almost two hours.”
Gabriel stared at her.
“You sat outside his bedroom for two hours?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he needed somebody to stay.”
The answer hit harder than Evelyn could have known.
Gabriel glanced toward the dark corridor.
“And the tapping?”
“I tapped twice. He tapped once. Eventually we made a pattern.”
“‘I’m here. You’re safe.’”
“Yes.”
Gabriel remembered Leo’s fingers pulling away at dinner.
“Does he think he isn’t safe with me?”
Evelyn took a careful breath.
“He knows you’re his father.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No.”
Gabriel waited.
Evelyn met his eyes.
“He doesn’t know you anymore.”
The house seemed quieter.
Most employees would have softened the sentence.
Victor would have found a more diplomatic phrase.
Evelyn did not.
Gabriel almost respected her for it.
Almost.
“You think that’s my fault.”
“I think grief made both of you disappear in different directions.”
The words landed differently than blame.
Gabriel studied her.
“You speak like a therapist.”
“I’m not one.”
“What were you before this?”
“A nanny.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
For the first time, Evelyn looked away.
Only briefly.
“I worked with children.”
“Where?”
“Different families.”
“Chicago?”
“Some.”
A strange answer.
Gabriel catalogued it without showing interest.
“You had references.”
“Yes.”
“I checked them.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you answering simple questions like they’re complicated?”
Evelyn gave him a tired look.
“Because it’s almost ten at night, Mr. Marino, Leo finally had a good day, and I don’t want to discuss my résumé in a hallway.”
That nearly made him smile.
Nearly.
Instead he said, “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow what?”
“We discuss your résumé.”
She sighed.
“Yes, Mr. Marino.”
Gabriel entered his study.
For half an hour he attempted to review freight transactions.
He made it through six pages.
Every few minutes his attention returned to the upstairs hallway.
At eleven, he opened the security application on his desktop.
The estate had more than sixty cameras.
Gabriel rarely watched interior feeds personally.
Security handled them.
But after Sophia’s death, he had ordered additional hidden cameras installed near Leo’s room.
Nobody told Leo.
Nobody told the household staff.
Only Gabriel and Victor knew about all of them.
At least, that was what Gabriel believed.
He selected the bedroom hallway.
Empty.
Then Leo’s room.
Evelyn sat in a chair beside the bed reading quietly.
Leo’s eyes were closed.
She reached the end of the page, shut the book, and placed it on the nightstand.
Then she remained there.
Watching him breathe.
Gabriel leaned back.
Nothing suspicious.
Nothing dramatic.
At midnight, she adjusted Leo’s blanket and left.
Gabriel closed the feed.
The next morning, he found Evelyn in the breakfast room.
She had already prepared Leo’s schedule.
“Your résumé,” Gabriel said.
Evelyn poured coffee.
“My résumé?”
“You thought I’d forget.”
“I hoped.”
She sat.
Gabriel remained standing.
“Before you became Leo’s nanny.”
“I worked for several families.”
“Names.”
“You already have them.”
“Humor me.”
She listed them.
They matched the background report.
“You studied childhood development.”
“For two years.”
“You didn’t graduate.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My mother got sick.”
Gabriel paused.
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
“She recovered?”
“No.”
A silence passed.
“I’m sorry.”
Evelyn looked mildly surprised.
“Thank you.”
“What happened after?”
“I worked.”
“With children.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel noticed that she had answered every factual question without really telling him anything about herself.
“Did you know Sophia?”
The coffee cup stopped halfway to Evelyn’s mouth.
There.
That reaction was real.
Tiny.
But real.
“Why would you ask that?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I knew who she was.”
“Everyone who applied for this job knew who she was.”
“Then why ask?”
Gabriel leaned closer.
“Because you looked at her photograph last night.”
Evelyn remained still.
“So did you.”
“I was watching you.”
Something changed in her expression.
Not fear.
Calculation.
Then footsteps came from the hallway.
Leo entered carrying his drawing pad.
Evelyn’s entire posture softened.
The conversation was over.
Gabriel knew it.
She knew it too.
Leo sat beside her.
Gabriel took the chair across from them.
Breakfast arrived.
For ten quiet minutes, nobody spoke.
Then Gabriel did something that felt more difficult than freezing four million dollars.
He tapped the table.
Twice quickly.
Paused.
Tapped once.
Leo stopped chewing.
Evelyn looked up.
Gabriel kept his eyes on his son.
Leo stared at him.
Five seconds passed.
Then ten.
Gabriel almost regretted it.
Finally, Leo slowly lifted one finger.
Tap.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
Something tightened in Gabriel’s throat.
Evelyn looked down at her coffee.
Maybe to give them privacy.
Maybe because her eyes had become wet.
Gabriel could not tell.
He returned to the office that morning with the strange sensation that something had shifted.
Not repaired.
Not even close.
But shifted.
At noon, Victor entered Gabriel’s office carrying another folder.
“We found a fourth company.”
Gabriel opened it.
“Same pattern?”
“Almost.”
“Almost?”
Victor pointed at the documents.
“This one started before the others.”
“How long before?”
“Sixteen months.”
Gabriel looked up.
Sophia had died fourteen months ago.
Victor noticed the calculation.
“I know.”
“Who signed the earliest payment?”
Victor did not answer immediately.
Gabriel looked down.
At the bottom of the authorization page was a digital approval code.
Not Gabriel’s.
Not Victor’s.
Daniel Kesler’s.
The dead contractor.
“That’s impossible,” Gabriel said.
Victor nodded.
“Exactly.”
Daniel had supposedly sold their security routes.
Now records claimed he had also helped move money.
Gabriel turned the page.
There was another signature.
Sophia Marino.
His dead wife.
Victor exhaled slowly.
“Either Sophia was involved—”
Gabriel stood so quickly his chair struck the wall.
“Finish that sentence carefully.”
Victor raised both hands.
“I’m saying somebody may have used her credentials.”
Gabriel stared at the documents.
Sophia’s signature looked perfect.
Too perfect.
He remembered something she had told him once while signing holiday cards.
Everybody thought her handwriting was elegant.
Gabriel knew differently.
When Sophia was impatient, the last letter of her surname always climbed slightly upward.
This signature did not.
Someone had copied the appearance.
Not the habit.
Gabriel closed the folder.
“Find every payment carrying Sophia’s authorization.”
Victor nodded.
“And Gabriel?”
“What?”
“You should prepare yourself.”
“For what?”
“For the possibility that people close to you knew more than you thought.”
Gabriel watched Victor walk out.
Then he looked at Sophia’s false signature again.
For the first time, a dangerous question entered his mind.
What if Daniel Kesler had been telling the truth?
And if Daniel had not betrayed them—
May you like
who had?
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