Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Engine
I didn’t take the rabbit apart.
I didn’t dare.
If someone had been searching our room while we were downstairs, that meant eyes were on this wing of the house. I tucked Barnaby firmly into Lily’s little backpack, zipped it shut, and carried her downstairs to the east garden as Vincent had instructed.
The estate grounds were stunning in mid-October. The air was crisp, smelling of damp earth and woodsmoke, with leaves falling across the stone paths like copper coins. But I couldn't appreciate the beauty. Every security camera nestled in the black wrought-iron lampposts seemed to turn as we passed.
Near the rose pavilion, an older woman was cutting dead blossoms with brass shears.
Mrs. Doyle.
She was wearing a thick tweed coat and leather gardening gloves, her silver hair coiled into an immaculate bun at the base of her neck. She had worked for the Marquette family for thirty-four years. She knew where the bodies were buried—perhaps literally.
“You’re pale, girl,” Mrs. Doyle said without looking up from the thorny stem she was trimming. “You look like you saw a tax collector.”
“Someone was in my room, Mrs. Doyle,” I said quietly, keeping Lily close to my shins. Lily had already spotted a red ladybug on a stone bench and was busy interrogating it.
The shears snapped. *Snip.*
Mrs. Doyle slowly lowered her hands. She turned her steely blue eyes toward me, her weathered face unreadable. “Did they take anything?”
“No. But they searched the drawers.”
“Then it wasn't the maids,” Mrs. Doyle said flatly. “The maids know I check their pockets before they leave on Fridays. Who was in the hallway this morning?”
“Julian Vance came to the kitchen,” I whispered. “He saw Lily’s rabbit.”
Mrs. Doyle’s gaze hardened. She looked across the expansive lawn toward the detached three-story garage where several black SUVs were parked.
“Julian Vance is a snake who thinks he’s a dragon,” the old woman muttered, clipping another dead rose. “He was hired five years ago to run the legitimate transport routes. But snakes always look for holes in the fence.”
“What does he want with us?” My voice cracked. “Mrs. Doyle, my husband was just a truck driver. We have nothing. I had thirty-eight dollars when I arrived here. If this is about Daniel—”
“Daniel Reyes wasn’t just a truck driver, Elena,” Mrs. Doyle interrupted softly.
The garden suddenly seemed to spin. The scent of damp earth turned sour in my throat.
I stared at her. “What did you say?”
Mrs. Doyle removed her heavy gardening gloves, revealing hands spotted with age but steady as stone. “You thought it was a coincidence? A job listing for a private housekeeper in Hunterdon County, paying four times the market rate, that specifically allowed—demanded, even—a mother with a four-year-old child?”
“I... I applied through an agency,” I stammered.
“An agency owned by Marquette Holdings,” she said simply. “Vincent spent eight months looking for you after your apartment building was bought out. You move around too much, Elena. You run like a deer.”
My knees went weak. I reached out, steadying myself against the stone pillar of the pavilion. “Vincent? Why would Vincent Marquette care about me? About Lily?”
“Ask him yourself,” Mrs. Doyle said, her eyes shifting toward the gravel drive.
A long black sedan had just pulled up to the turnaround. Vincent stepped out from the rear seat. He hadn't gone to the docks after all. He was still wearing his suit trousers, but he had shed his tie and jacket, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his forearms, revealing dark ink tracing the cords of his wrists.
He caught sight of us in the garden and changed course, his long strides chewing up the distance between the driveway and the rose beds.
Lily saw him first.
“Mister!” she yelled, abandoning the ladybug. She took off at a full sprint across the grass, her pink sneakers flashing rhythmically.
My breath caught in my throat. “Lily, stop!”
Vincent didn't flinch. As the little girl barreled toward him, he didn't bark an order or hold up a hand.
He dropped to one knee.
Lily slammed into his chest like a miniature cannonball. Vincent’s arms wrapped around her small back with an instinct so immediate, so protective, that it made my chest ache with an agony I hadn't felt since Daniel was alive.
“You didn’t finish your strawberries,” Vincent said quietly, his voice carrying across the quiet lawn.
“They were sour,” Lily explained matter-of-factly, her hands resting brazenly on the collar of his thousand-dollar shirt. “Where is your coat? It’s cold.”
“In the car,” he answered, standing up while holding her securely on his hip. He carried her over to where I was standing frozen beside Mrs. Doyle.
He looked at the older woman first. “Leave us, Clara.”
Mrs. Doyle nodded once, gathered her shears, and walked toward the kitchen entrance without looking back.
Vincent set Lily down on the stone bench. “Go count how many red leaves you can find on that path, Lily. Don’t go past the oak tree.”
“Ten?” she asked.
“Twenty,” Vincent countered.
“Deal.” She scrambled off the bench and scampered away.
When she was twenty yards away, Vincent turned his gaze to me. Up close, in the harsh sunlight, I could see the lines etched around his eyes. He didn't look like a mob boss or an untouchable titan of industry.
He looked like a man who hadn't slept a full night in three years.
“You have questions,” he said.
“Did you pay for her heart surgery?” I demanded, the words bursting out of me before I could filter them through fear. “Two years ago. Saint Michael's Children's Hospital. Two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. The anonymous foundation. Was that you?”
Vincent didn't blink. “Yes.”
“Why?” Tears rushed into my eyes, hot and blinding. “Why us? Who was Daniel to you?”
Vincent looked past me, toward the tree line where Lily was diligently gathering copper-colored maple leaves.
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“Daniel Reyes was the only honest man who ever worked for me,” Vincent said, his voice dropping into a register so dark it chilled the autumn air. “And because he was honest, I got him killed.”
***
