Chapter 3: What Was Inside the Bag
Claire's room was on the second floor, east wing — the suite Dominic had given her when they got engaged eight months ago.
He had chosen it because it had the best morning light.
He took the stairs two at a time.
Marcus was already at the door when Dominic reached it.
He stepped aside without being asked.
The room was immaculate.
Cream walls, a made bed, a vanity with everything arranged by size.
Claire had always been precise about her spaces.
Dominic had once found it reassuring.
The travel bag was on the closet shelf.
Soft leather, dark burgundy, initialed in gold.
A gift from him.
Last Christmas.
He lifted it down and set it on the bed.
"Dom." Nathan had followed him up.
He stood in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame.
"Whatever you think you're going to find in there — think about what you're doing.
Claire is your fiancée.
You're about to tear her room apart based on an anonymous text."
"Then you have nothing to worry about."
Dominic unzipped the bag.
Inside: a folded change of clothes.
A passport.
An envelope.
He picked up the envelope first.
It was sealed, but the flap had been opened and resealed — the adhesive was uneven along the left edge.
Someone had already been inside it.
He tore it open.
Three photographs.
Printed on plain paper, not photo stock.
The kind of prints you make when you don't want a record at a shop.
The first showed Mia at a desk Dominic recognized — the small office off the kitchen where she handled household accounts.
She was on the phone.
The shot had been taken through the window from outside, at an angle that required standing in the garden.
The second showed the same desk.
The household account ledger was open.
A hand — not Mia's, the sleeve was wrong — was holding a page flat.
The third photograph made Dominic go very still.
It showed Mia and a man he didn't recognize, standing outside a building he did recognize.
His attorney's office on Clarendon Street.
The timestamp in the corner read fourteen months ago.
"Who is he?" Dominic asked.
Nathan said nothing.
Dominic turned around.
"Nathan.
Who is the man in this photograph?"
Nathan's expression shifted — not much, but enough.
The concern he'd been wearing since the cellar slipped just slightly at the corners.
"I don't know who that is."
"You're looking at a photograph you've never seen before and you don't even need a second to think about it."
"Dom—"
"Her name is on the account ledger in that second photograph.
Mia's name.
But that isn't Mia's hand." Dominic set the photographs on the bed in a row.
"Someone was building a case against her.
Someone who had access to this house, to the garden, to that office.
Someone who knew which attorney I use."
Nathan straightened.
His hand dropped from the doorframe.
"You're reading into things.
You've been awake for twenty hours, you just found your housekeeper locked in a cellar, and you're looking for a pattern that isn't—"
"The lock was new." Dominic's voice didn't rise.
It never did when he was most serious.
"The padlock on that door was new.
I know every piece of hardware in this house.
That lock was installed while I was away.
You were here the entire week.
You were the only senior person on the property."
The silence that followed had a different quality than the ones before it.
Heavier.
More deliberate.
Nathan looked at the photographs on the bed.
Then he looked at Dominic.
"You should call Claire," he said.
"Before you do anything else.
Call her and ask her directly."
Dominic picked up his phone.
He didn't call Claire.
He called his attorney.
And as he waited for the line to connect, he turned back to the travel bag — and saw what he had missed the first time.
A small zippered interior pocket.
He pressed it flat with his thumb.
Something hard and rectangular inside.
He unzipped it.
A USB drive.
No label.
The plastic casing was scratched along one edge, like it had been handled many times.
May you like
He held it up to the light.
Nathan took one step backward toward the door.
