Chapter 3 - The Empty Floorboard
The compartment beneath Adeline's bed was empty.
She had hidden one item there.
A brass key.
Nothing else.
Enzo stood in the doorway while Marco examined the lock.
No forced entry.
No broken frame.
House key.
Someone inside the mansion had opened the room.
"What did the key open?" Enzo asked.
Adeline looked at Teresa.
The older woman went very still.
Enzo noticed.
"Aunt Teresa."
Teresa sat on the edge of the bed.
"I wondered when this would come back."
Adeline stared.
"You knew?"
Teresa nodded slowly.
"Your mother gave that key to me fifteen years ago."
Adeline stopped breathing.
Her mother, Miriam Croft, had worked in the Marchetti house as a seamstress during charity seasons. After Gabriel's death, she moved Adeline to Wisconsin and never returned.
Before Miriam died two years earlier, she told Adeline only one thing about the key.
If you ever need the truth, the blue saint keeps what men forget.
Adeline assumed it referred to a church.
Then she found an old photograph of the Marchetti mansion chapel.
A blue-painted statue of St. Michael stood in one alcove.
That was why she applied for the job.
Teresa whispered, "Miriam hid something in the chapel. I never knew what."
Enzo turned to Marco.
"Lock down the house."
"Already done."
"Nobody leaves."
Adeline shook her head.
"Camilla already left."
Marco said, "And so did forty temporary staff."
Enzo looked at him.
"Pull every hallway camera."
Ten minutes later they stood in the security room.
At 10:42 p.m., a catering supervisor entered the staff corridor carrying folded linens.
At 10:44, he used a keycard to enter Adeline's room.
At 10:46, he came out with his hand closed around something small.
Marco zoomed in.
Brass.
"Name?" Enzo asked.
"Leon Pryce. Hired through Ashford Events."
Adeline closed her eyes.
Camilla's family had supplied half the event staff.
Marco checked the exit logs.
Leon Pryce left through the kitchen at 10:49.
Three minutes before Enzo ended the engagement publicly.
This had started before Camilla lost control in the corridor.
She had not beaten Adeline because she was angry about a glass.
The humiliation was cover.
A crowd.
Noise.
Every security officer watching the ballroom.
Someone else searching the room.
Enzo said, "Why would the key matter tonight?"
Adeline looked at the date on the red cassette.
Then at the ballroom schedule pinned near the monitors.
The gala was not only an engagement celebration.
It marked the twentieth anniversary of the Marchetti Family Medical Foundation.
A board vote had been planned after midnight.
Camilla Ashford was scheduled to become vice chair after the wedding.
Adeline said, "Because once she married you, the Ashfords would control the foundation records with your family."
Enzo frowned.
"They would have one seat."
"Read the succession rules."
Teresa looked at her sharply.
"How do you know the rules?"
"My father drafted the first accounting procedures."
Marco pulled the bylaws.
Clause 18.
Upon marriage to the current family principal, the spouse became automatic co-trustee of the medical foundation until the next annual election.
Enzo stared.
"Automatic?"
"Old language," Marco said.
"Very old."
Adeline felt cold.
For at least one night after the wedding, Camilla would have had co-trustee access.
Enough to authorize document destruction as routine records retention.
Enough to move archives.
Enough to claim lawful custody over old files.
Enzo looked at the chapel feed.
Camera offline.
Marco swore.
They ran.
The chapel door was open.
The blue statue of St. Michael stood untouched.
At its base, a small brass panel hung crooked.
The lock had been opened.
Inside the compartment was nothing.
Adeline reached in anyway.
Her fingers touched paper dust.
Then something sharp.
A fragment of red plastic.
The corner of another microcassette.
Someone had been there first.
Enzo's voice hardened.
"Who knew about this compartment?"
Teresa whispered, "Miriam. Gabriel. Me."
"Anyone else?"
Teresa looked toward the altar.
Her face drained.
"Your father."
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