Chapter 1
“You were expecting my daughter. I’m coming instead.”
The line went silent.
Not disconnected.
Silent.
Someone was still listening.
Adrienne lifted her head from beneath the fallen coats.
Her fear changed into something worse.
Recognition.
“Lucia, hang up.”
I looked at her.
That was the first useful thing she had said.
I pressed the phone closer to my ear.
A man finally spoke.
“Hazel isn’t with you?”
Low voice.
Older.
American.
Familiar enough to bother me, but not enough to place immediately.
“No.”
Another pause.
“Then Wesley failed.”
My eyes moved toward him.
Wesley was still folded against the tipped luggage trolley, breathing hard.
He closed his eyes.
Good.
The caller knew him.
“What were you expecting from my daughter?”
No answer.
I continued.
“Her suitcase is packed. Her coat was taken. She was being forced to record herself rejecting me.”
The man exhaled.
“That recording was not for you.”
Interesting.
“Who was it for?”
Adrienne shouted from the floor:
“Don’t answer her!”
The man did not.
Then I heard something through the receiver.
A bell.
Three slow strikes.
My stomach tightened.
I knew that sound.
Not from the estate.
From Blackthorne House.
The original Bellandi residence in northern Connecticut.
Closed for eleven years.
At least supposedly.
My father used to take me there as a child.
Family councils.
Old capos.
Rooms children were told never to enter.
I looked at Wesley.
He stared back.
The caller finally said:
“If you come, come alone.”
I smiled slightly.
“No.”
The line went dead.
Hazel cried softly from the archway.
I turned immediately.
Business stopped.
I went to her.
She held my bodyguard’s hand with one fist and reached toward me with the other.
“Mommy?”
“I’m here.”
“Am I going away?”
“No.”
“Adrienne said somebody picked me.”
Picked.
Not invited.
Not protected.
Picked.
I looked toward Hazel’s suitcase.
One small leather luggage tag hung from the handle.
There had been no tag when we packed for her last trip.
I turned it over.
No address.
No phone number.
Only a stamped black bell.
The old Bellandi founder’s mark.
May you like
Blackthorne House had not simply reopened.
Someone inside it had been waiting for my daughter.
