Chapter 10 - EVELYN’S DISAPPEARANCE
Claudia broke.
Not loudly.
That was worse.
She sat on Evelyn’s bed holding the black rose until the stem cut her palm.
“This is because of me.”
Alessio stood near the window.
“No.”
“I destroyed Serena’s garden.”
“That’s why they moved.”
“I should have told you years ago.”
“Yes.”
The honesty made Claudia look up.
Alessio continued.
“But guilt does not find Evelyn.”
He examined the room.
No overturned furniture.
No blood.
No signs she had been dragged.
Her coat was missing.
Shoes missing.
Evelyn likely walked out.
Why?
Ruby stood in the hallway in her pajamas.
Alessio immediately lifted her.
“You should be asleep.”
“Evelyn told me bye.”
Every adult froze.
“When?”
Ruby pointed toward the clock.
A child’s answer.
“After moon.”
Claudia moved closer.
“What did she say?”
Ruby thought.
“She said she had to help Mommy.”
Claudia’s eyes filled.
“Help me?”
Ruby nodded.
“She said bad man called.”
Alessio’s face hardened.
“Evelyn had a phone?”
Claudia shook her head.
“No.”
Damian looked toward the bedside table.
“There.”
A small house phone.
The estate internal line.
Someone had called Evelyn inside Alessio’s own home.
Alessio looked at Damian.
“Find the route.”
Damian moved immediately.
Claudia stood.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“She is my daughter.”
Alessio looked at her.
This time he did not say stay behind.
He understood too well what it meant to be excluded from the danger consuming your child.
“Get shoes.”
Twenty minutes later, Damian found the call originated from an unused extension beneath the old carriage house.
The hidden tunnel.
The Door.
Thomas had controlled access.
Someone was using his routes.
Alessio, Claudia, Damian, and four bodyguards entered beneath the garden.
The passage ran farther than Alessio realized.
Beyond the estate wall.
Under the old orchard.
Toward the woods.
At one junction, they found Evelyn’s bracelet on the ground.
Claudia picked it up.
“She left this.”
“On purpose,” Damian said.
Evelyn was thinking.
Not helpless.
That mattered.
They followed.
The tunnel ended at an abandoned gardener’s cottage near the edge of the property.
The door stood open.
Inside, one lamp burned.
Evelyn sat on a chair.
Alive.
Unhurt.
Claudia ran to her.
Evelyn stood.
“Mom.”
Claudia pulled her close.
Alessio scanned the room.
No attacker.
No Gabriel.
No Gardener.
Only an old tape recorder on the table.
Evelyn whispered:
“He told me to wait.”
“Who?” Claudia asked.
“I didn’t see him.”
“How did you get here?”
“He called the bedroom.”
“What did he say?”
Evelyn looked ashamed.
“He said he had something Daddy left.”
Claudia froze.
Thomas.
“What?”
“A box.”
“Where is it?”
Evelyn pointed.
Under the chair sat a small wooden box.
Claudia opened it.
Inside was Thomas’s gold ring.
Black stone.
Tiny D beneath the setting.
And a folded child’s drawing.
Evelyn recognized it.
“I made this when I was four.”
Claudia covered her mouth.
Thomas had kept it.
On the back, written in his hand:
IF THEY COME FOR HER, THE DOOR IS BENEATH THE WOMAN WHO NEVER DIES.
Damian stared.
“Woman who never dies.”
Claudia looked at Alessio.
“The statue.”
In Serena’s garden stood an old marble statue of a woman holding an urn.
It had belonged to the estate long before any of them were born.
Weather had cracked her face.
Yet she remained.
The woman who never dies.
Alessio pressed play on the tape recorder.
Thomas’s voice emerged.
“If Claudia hears this, I failed.”
She began to cry.
“I worked for the Gardener because I thought I was protecting my family.”
Alessio looked toward Claudia.
The pattern again.
Protection becoming obedience.
Thomas continued.
“The Gardener is not Gabriel.”
Damian closed his eyes.
“I knew it.”
“He used Gabriel’s symbol because fear works better when it wears an old face.”
A pause.
“I learned his identity too late.”
Claudia gripped the table.
“Say it.”
Thomas’s voice:
“If I name him here, he will find this before you do.”
Alessio almost laughed bitterly.
Even dead men refused easy answers.
“But I hid what identifies him beneath the woman who never dies.”
The tape clicked.
Then Thomas added one final sentence.
“And Claudia… Serena knows.”
Claudia stared at the machine.
Alessio looked toward the tunnel.
Serena had known the Gardener.
Thomas knew.
May you like
Both died.
And whatever name they had protected was buried beneath a statue less than a hundred yards from where Ruby played every morning.
