Chapter 2 - The Man Who Already Knew Her Name
I followed Adrian into the library.
Mr. Bell tried to stop me.
Victoria did not.
That told me more than anything she had said.
Adrian poured himself water.
No alcohol.
No shaking hands.
He looked like a man attending a board meeting, not a family explosion.
I shut the door.
“How did you know Elena?”
He took a sip.
“I knew of her.”
“From Rafael?”
“Yes.”
“Bell says Rafael ordered him not to discuss her with you.”
“Rafael was dramatic in old age.”
I stared at him.
“Why investigate me before the DNA test?”
“Because you wore Isabel’s pendant.”
My hand went to my neck.
The blue stone felt suddenly heavy.
“You recognized it.”
“So did my mother.”
Victoria’s silence had not been isolated.
Adrian continued.
“Family jewelry is easy to recognize.”
“It was not family jewelry to me.”
“No. To you it was sentimental.”
He looked at the pendant.
“To Rafael, it was evidence.”
My mouth went dry.
“Evidence of what?”
“That Isabel’s line survived.”
“Then why did he not tell me?”
Adrian smiled.
“Maybe he did not trust you.”
I almost laughed.
“He put me in his will.”
“He put a biological contingency in his will. Not the same thing.”
The door opened.
Mr. Bell stepped in.
“Meeting over.”
Adrian did not move.
Bell held out his phone.
“Staffing records.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“The company that placed you here.”
My pulse rose.
“Harbor Domestic Staffing.”
“Yes.”
Bell opened a payment record.
Four months before Rafael died, one of his personal investment entities paid a consultant at Harbor.
The consultant manually flagged my application.
I stared.
“Rafael knew I applied?”
Bell shook his head.
“He made sure your application would be seen.”
Adrian looked bored.
“That proves nothing.”
Bell read the note attached to the payment.
LET HER BE JUDGED WITHOUT A NAME.
My throat tightened.
Rafael.
A man I had barely spoken to.
A man who had watched me carry plates and refill water glasses while knowing I might be Isabel’s granddaughter.
“Why?” I asked.
Bell said, “I don’t know yet.”
Adrian stood.
“I do.”
We both looked at him.
He buttoned his jacket.
“Rafael liked tests.”
“What kind?”
“The kind people fail.”
He walked to the door.
I said, “Did you?”
He stopped.
Slowly turned.
That smile again.
“Careful, Lucia.”
“Why?”
“Because money makes people reckless.”
I looked around the house.
“Being poor never made me stupid.”
Something changed in his eyes.
Not anger.
Calculation.
He left.
Bell closed the door.
Then handed me a second file.
Rafael’s private investigator.
Photographs.
My apartment.
My campus.
The bus stop outside my evening class.
My mother’s grave.
I stared.
“He followed me.”
“For six months.”
A photograph showed me entering the estate on my first day.
My hair tied back.
Cheap black shoes.
Uniform bag over one shoulder.
Rafael had written beneath it:
ISABEL’S GRANDDAUGHTER CONFIRMED.
My stomach turned.
Bell pointed lower.
DO NOT TELL HER YET.
SOMEONE INSIDE THE HOUSE IS WATCHING.
I looked up.
“Watching me?”
Bell nodded.
“Apparently.”
“For what?”
He flipped the page.
The next photograph showed Adrian standing at an upstairs window.
Looking down at me.
Date:
My second day of work.
May you like
CUT.
