Chapter 2 - The Lucky Coin in Hannah’s Pocket
At 12:07 a.m., Victor Castellano tore open the wall of his dead wife's bedroom.
He did it with his own hands.
Harrow Point contained thirty-two rooms, but Elena's bedroom had remained almost untouched since her death. Victor had ordered the staff to dust it once a week and change nothing.
The pale curtains remained tied exactly as Elena had left them.
Her books remained beside the bed.
A framed photograph of Elena and Leo stood on the dresser.
Victor had not entered the room in almost two years.
Poppy changed that.
She sat downstairs with Teddy and the cook while Marcus searched Hannah's staff quarters.
Victor stood beside the old fireplace.
"Where?"
Marcus held Hannah's handwritten maintenance notebook.
"According to this, she reported loose paneling here three weeks ago."
Victor ran his fingers along the carved wood.
One panel shifted.
Behind it was a narrow cavity.
Empty.
Except for a strip of faded red fabric.
Victor recognized it immediately.
Elena had owned a red silk scarf.
She wore it in almost every photograph from the last year of her life.
Marcus watched him.
"That hers?"
"Yes."
Victor pulled the panel farther open.
Something had been hidden there.
Something Hannah had discovered.
The coin.
But why?
Marcus's phone rang.
He answered, listened, then looked at Victor.
"We found Gregory's Mercedes."
"Where?"
"Abandoned near Blackwater Road."
"Hannah?"
"No sign of her."
"Gregory?"
"No."
Victor was already walking.
Twenty minutes later, two black SUVs stopped beside the abandoned Mercedes.
The rain had weakened.
Victor stepped onto the road.
The driver's door was open.
No obvious damage.
No Hannah.
No Gregory.
Marcus searched the interior.
"Victor."
He pointed toward the passenger floor.
A small brass button lay beneath the seat.
Victor recognized the crest engraved into it.
Harrow Point staff uniform.
Hannah's.
She had been inside the car.
Marcus opened the trunk.
Empty.
Victor's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No one spoke.
Then a man's voice said:
"You should have believed the story you were given."
Victor's eyes hardened.
"Gregory."
A pause.
"You always were quick."
"Where is Hannah?"
"Safe."
"If you hurt her—"
"Listen carefully. I don't want to hurt anyone."
"You dragged a mother away from her three-year-old."
"I prevented her from making a catastrophic mistake."
Victor walked away from the others.
"What mistake?"
"She found something that belongs to me."
"The coin?"
Silence.
That silence answered him.
Victor continued.
"Elena had it first."
Gregory exhaled slowly.
"Some graves should stay closed."
Victor's hand tightened around the phone.
"You have thirty seconds to tell me where Hannah is."
"You still think you're giving orders."
"I am."
"No, Victor. Tonight you're finally going to listen."
The call ended.
Marcus came toward him.
"Trace?"
"Burner."
Victor looked at the Mercedes.
"Gregory wants the coin."
"Which Hannah has."
Victor nodded.
"But he doesn't know where she put it."
Marcus frowned.
"How do you know?"
"Because Hannah still has value to him."
Victor looked toward the road.
"And because if Gregory already had what he wanted, he wouldn't have called me."
They returned to Harrow Point.
Poppy was asleep on a sofa, her stuffed rabbit tucked beneath her chin.
Victor stood over her.
He had spent years convincing himself children did not belong in his world.
Too fragile.
Too trusting.
Too easy to lose.
Yet watching Poppy sleep, he understood something uncomfortable.
The child trusted him.
Not because she knew who he was.
Not because she feared his name.
Because he had promised.
Marcus entered quietly.
"We found something in Hannah's room."
He handed Victor an envelope.
Inside were photocopies.
Old bank transfers.
Twelve years old.
Victor scanned them.
Payments from a company called Delacroix Maritime to an account in the Cayman Islands.
The recipient was hidden behind a numbered corporation.
But Hannah had circled a handwritten notation.
G.V.
Victor looked up.
"Gregory Vance."
"Maybe."
"Not maybe."
There was another sheet.
A photocopy of Elena's handwriting.
Victor recognized every curve.
If something happens to me, the coin is not money. It's a key.
Victor read the sentence twice.
Marcus said nothing.
Below it Elena had written:
Victor cannot know until I know who betrayed us.
That sentence hurt more.
"She didn't trust me."
Marcus shook his head.
"That's not what she wrote."
Victor stared at him.
"She was protecting you."
Victor looked back at the paper.
A memory returned.
Elena standing beside the bedroom window.
Elena asking whether Gregory had access to the harbor accounts.
Victor laughing.
Of course he did.
Gregory was family.
Then Elena's illness worsened.
Everything else became unimportant.
Or so Victor had believed.
Poppy stirred on the sofa.
Her eyes opened.
"Mr. Victor?"
Victor crossed the room.
"Right here."
"Did you find Mama?"
"Not yet."
Her face crumpled.
Victor crouched.
"But I'm going to."
Poppy looked toward the papers.
"Mama said the shiny thing opens a box."
Victor froze.
"What box?"
"The blue one."
"Where?"
Poppy thought hard.
"At the church."
Marcus and Victor exchanged a look.
"What church, sweetheart?"
"The one with the angel."
There were hundreds of churches in Baltimore.
Victor tried another question.
"Did Mama take you there?"
Poppy nodded.
"Yesterday."
"What did she do?"
"She talked to the old lady."
"What old lady?"
Poppy shrugged.
"She gave Mama a blue box."
Victor stood.
Marcus was already searching Hannah's phone records from the backup system.
"Yesterday afternoon," he said. "One outgoing call to St. Agnes Parish."
Victor knew the church.
Elena had gone there as a child.
So had Leo.
At 1:03 a.m., Victor entered St. Agnes through a side door opened by an elderly nun.
Sister Margaret recognized him immediately.
Her expression contained no fear.
Only sadness.
"I wondered when you'd come."
Victor stopped.
"You knew Elena."
"For many years."
"And Hannah?"
"She came yesterday."
"With a coin?"
Sister Margaret studied him.
"Elena said you would ask that question someday."
Victor's heart began pounding.
"Where is the box?"
The nun led him beneath the church into a small archive room.
From a locked cabinet she removed a blue metal box.
There was a circular slot in the lid.
Exactly the size of an old silver coin.
"Hannah didn't leave the coin," Sister Margaret said.
"Why not?"
"Because she became frightened."
"Of whom?"
"She said a man had followed her from Harrow Point."
Victor stared at the box.
"Did she name him?"
"No."
Marcus's phone vibrated.
He stepped away and answered.
Victor looked at Sister Margaret.
"What is inside?"
"I don't know."
"You've had this for twelve years."
"Elena made me promise."
"Elena is dead."
"And promises don't die simply because people do, Mr. Castellano."
Victor almost smiled.
Elena would have liked her.
Marcus returned.
His expression had changed.
"We've got Gregory."
"Where?"
"Traffic camera caught him forty minutes ago."
"Alone?"
Marcus shook his head.
"Hannah was in the passenger seat."
Victor stepped closer.
"Where were they going?"
Marcus turned his phone around.
The image showed Gregory's face through the windshield.
Behind the car stood a road sign.
BLACKWATER ROAD — 8 MILES.
Victor knew exactly what was at the end of Blackwater Road.
A house his wife had secretly purchased thirteen years earlier.
A house Victor had discovered only after she died.
He had never understood why.
Now he did.
Victor looked at the blue box.
Gregory wasn't running away.
He was going back to where Elena had hidden the beginning of the truth.
And Victor suddenly realized Hannah's kidnapping had never been about getting her off Harrow Point.
Gregory needed her to lead him somewhere.
May you like
The only question was whether Hannah had already done it.
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