Chapter 2 - THE PHOTOGRAPH ABOVE HIS BED
Raphael remembered everything the next morning.
Unfortunately.
At 6:12, I woke on the floor beside the coal-room door.
I had stayed outside because I did not trust a drunk man, even if that man had spent most of the night unconscious.
The door opened.
Raphael emerged.
His hair was disordered.
His expensive shirt looked like it had lost a fistfight.
But his eyes were clear.
“Good morning,” I said.
He looked at me.
“You slept outside?”
“I guarded the door.”
“From whom?”
“You.”
That stopped him.
“You were drunk.”
“I would never hurt you.”
“People who are intoxicated don’t get character references from their sober selves.”
He stared at me.
Then nodded.
“Fair.”
That one word changed something.
He did not become defensive.
Did not remind me who he was.
Did not demand trust he had not earned.
He accepted the boundary.
Then he asked:
“Did I tell you about the photographs?”
“Yes.”
His face hardened.
“Everything?”
“One hundred seven nights.”
He looked away.
I stood.
“My employment ends today, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“You came drunk to a maid’s room and confessed that someone is apparently haunting your bedroom.”
“I was not haunted.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Elena.”
That was the first time he used my first name.
I folded my arms.
“You know my name?”
“I know everyone who lives in my house.”
That answer bothered me more than it should have.
“What happens now?”
Raphael looked toward the staircase.
“Breakfast.”
“That’s anticlimactic.”
“After breakfast, I find out who has been inside my room.”
“And me?”
“You forget this happened.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I’m sorry?”
“You came to me.”
“I was drunk.”
“You still came.”
“I made a mistake.”
That stung.
I hid it.
“Fine.”
I stepped aside.
Raphael caught my wrist.
Not painfully.
Just enough to stop me.
Then released it immediately.
“That came out wrong.”
I waited.
“You were not the mistake.”
The coal room became very quiet.
He continued.
“Coming to you without considering what it could cost you was the mistake.”
That was different.
I looked away.
“Go fix your shirt.”
He almost smiled.
By 7:00, Raphael was transformed.
Navy suit.
White shirt.
Silver cuff links.
Hair immaculate.
Twelve men outside his study.
Nobody knew their boss had slept beneath the servants’ stairs.
Nobody except me.
At 10:20, Sabine Orsini found me polishing the library table.
She was thirty-four, sharp-eyed, elegant, and one of the only family members who treated staff like human beings.
“Elena.”
“Yes?”
“Did you see my brother last night?”
My hand stopped.
“No.”
The lie came too quickly.
Sabine noticed.
She always noticed.
“He disappeared from security between 1:48 and 6:31.”
“I was sleeping.”
“Were you?”
I met her eyes.
“Yes.”
She studied me.
Then walked away.
At noon, Raphael summoned me.
His study contained three security men.
A laptop displayed camera footage.
Raphael pointed.
“Watch.”
Timestamp:
3:13 a.m.
His bedroom.
Raphael asleep.
Nothing happened.
3:14.
Still nothing.
Then the footage jumped.
3:19.
Five minutes missing.
“Every night?” I asked.
“Not every night.”
Security chief Dominic Vale answered.
“Seventeen times.”
I looked at him.
Dominic was forty-seven, military posture, expressionless face.
He had protected Raphael since Raphael was twenty.
“Who controls the recordings?”
“My department.”
“Then whoever is deleting footage either works for you or has access above you.”
Nobody liked that.
Raphael did.
Not because it was good.
Because it was logical.
He placed another photograph on the desk.
Same angle.
Above the bed.
“Where is the camera?”
Dominic said they had searched everything.
Ceiling.
Smoke detectors.
Air vents.
Lights.
No camera.
I studied the picture.
Then noticed something.
The chandelier.
Its reflection appeared in a framed mirror beside the bed.
But the angle was wrong.
“This wasn’t taken from the ceiling.”
Raphael looked at me.
“What?”
I pointed.
“It looks overhead because the image was rotated.”
Dominic leaned closer.
I turned the photograph ninety degrees.
Now it made sense.
The camera had been beside the bed.
At approximately chest height.
“Someone stood three feet from you.”
Raphael’s jaw tightened.
I examined the background.
A narrow strip of darkness appeared beside the wardrobe.
“Your wardrobe.”
“What about it?”
“Move it.”
Dominic looked annoyed.
“We searched behind it.”
“Did you move the entire thing?”
“It’s built into the wall.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Raphael ordered it removed.
Three men worked for twenty minutes.
Behind the massive walnut wardrobe was plaster.
Solid.
Except for one line.
A seam.
Raphael pressed it.
Nothing.
I noticed a tiny metal depression near the floor.
Exactly the size of Raphael’s signet ring.
He looked at his hand.
Then at the wall.
Inserted the ring.
Click.
The wall opened.
Behind it was a passage.
And inside that passage—
Hundreds of photographs.
Raphael asleep.
Raphael dressing.
Raphael reading.
Raphael sitting alone with his head in his hands.
Every night.
Every private moment.
And at the end of the corridor was a calendar.
Two hundred fourteen squares.
The first 107 had been crossed out.
One hundred seven remained.
May you like
Written beneath them:
WHEN THE COUNT ENDS, THE HOUSE CHOOSES AGAIN.
