Chapter 4: What She Found Under the Pillow
I didn't find it until I was making the bed.
The room they'd given me was small — a guest room at the end of the east corridor, not the staff quarters.
I hadn't questioned it the night before.
Dr.
Harris had led me there, wrapped my hand, told me to sleep, and left.
I'd been too exhausted to wonder why I wasn't in my usual room.
But in the morning, when I pulled back the pillow to straighten the sheets, there was an envelope underneath it.
No name on the front.
I stood there for a moment with the pillow in my good hand, looking at it.
Then I sat on the edge of the bed and opened it.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Handwritten.
The ink was dark and the letters were small and precise — the handwriting of someone who chose their words carefully even when writing by hand.
*Claire —*
*You are not in trouble.
You are not being watched.
What is in your locker has already been recovered and is being handled.
You don't need to worry about it.*
*Stay in the house today.
Don't go to the staff quarters.
Don't speak to Vanessa.*
*If she approaches you, you became ill overnight and are resting.
That is all.*
*— L.M.*
I read it twice.
Then I folded it and held it in my lap and looked at the window.
He knew about the memory card.
Of course he did.
He'd told security to search my locker.
I'd understood that much from the hallway last night, listening to Dr.
Harris move around the room while I pretended to be calmer than I was.
What I hadn't understood — what I still didn't fully understand — was why he was protecting me instead of questioning me.
I'd taken those photographs.
Not for Vanessa.
Not willingly.
But I had taken them.
She'd found me in the linen room that afternoon and told me very clearly what would happen to my younger brother's situation — he was three months behind on rent, and Vanessa knew his landlord personally — if I didn't do one small thing.
Go into the study.
Take four photographs of the bottom desk drawer and whatever was inside it.
Leave the card in my locker before dinner.
She'd smiled when she said it.
Like it was nothing.
Like I was nothing.
I'd said no twice.
The third time she'd grabbed my wrist and pressed my hand against the door frame and told me she would make sure I never worked in this city again.
The door had caught my fingers when she let go.
She hadn't locked me in on purpose.
She'd just forgotten I was still in there.
That was the part that stayed with me.
Not the pain.
The forgetting.
I was folding the note back into the envelope when the door opened.
Not Vanessa.
Luca.
He was still in the same dark shirt from the morning.
He looked at me, then at the envelope in my hand.
"You found it," he said.
"Yes."
He came in and left the door open behind him — deliberately, I thought.
He didn't sit down.
He stood near the window, which put distance between us without making it feel like a wall.
"I need to ask you something," he said.
"And I need you to answer honestly, even if you think the honest answer makes you look bad."
My fingers tightened on the envelope.
"All right."
"The photographs on that card.
Did you take them voluntarily?"
"No."
"Did Vanessa ask you to take them?"
I looked at him.
"She didn't ask."
Something shifted in his expression.
Not anger.
Something quieter and more dangerous than anger.
"What did she say to you in that room?"
I told him.
All of it.
My brother's name, the landlord, the wrist, the door.
I kept my voice flat because if I let it move it would break, and I wasn't going to break in front of this man in this room.
When I finished, he was quiet for a moment.
"Your brother," he said.
"What's his name?"
"Danny.
Daniel Dawson.
He lives in Pilsen."
Luca nodded once.
He pulled out his phone and typed something.
"The landlord situation will be resolved today.
Danny won't hear why."
I stared at him.
"You don't have to—"
"I know." He put the phone away.
"Claire, I need you to stay in this room until I tell you otherwise.
Not because you're in trouble.
Because Vanessa cannot know that I know what she did.
Not yet."
"What happens when she does know?"
He looked at me for a long moment.
"She'll try to use you again," he said.
"And this time I need to be ready for it."
He moved toward the door.
"Mr.
Moretti."
He stopped.
"The document she took from your desk," I said.
"I don't know what it was.
I didn't look at the photographs after I took them.
I want you to know that."
He turned back.
His expression was unreadable, but his eyes weren't.
"I know," he said.
"That's why I'm talking to you instead of security."
He left.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time after that, the envelope in my lap, the morning light moving slowly across the floor.
May you like
Downstairs, I could hear Vanessa laughing at something.
The sound carried all the way up the stairs.
