Chapter 2 - THE GHOST CAME THROUGH THE WALL AT 3:17 A.M.
Giulia stepped closer to my bed.
The oversized red scarf around her neck nearly touched the floor.
Her eyes moved toward the paneled wall behind my headboard.
Then she whispered:
“The ghost comes out there.”
I stared at her.
“What ghost?”
She pointed.
“Tall one.”
My right hand trembled against the blanket.
It had been doing that constantly for three weeks.
“Giulia.”
“Yes?”
“Ghosts are not real.”
She frowned with the offended seriousness only children can produce.
“This one is.”
I almost reached for the alarm.
Not because I feared a ghost.
Because a five-year-old child had entered the most protected bedroom in my house and was pointing toward a wall that concealed nothing I knew about.
“Why do you think there is someone there?”
“He walks when everybody sleeps.”
“When?”
She shrugged.
“Night.”
“What night?”
“Lots.”
My pulse changed.
“How many times have you seen him?”
Giulia started counting on her fingers.
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
Then she ran out of fingers, seemed frustrated, and began again.
“Many.”
That was not useful.
I forced myself upright.
Pain moved down my back.
My legs felt heavy and unreliable.
Forty nights without real sleep had turned my body into something I no longer recognized.
“How did you see him?”
Giulia pointed toward the floor.
“The laundry room has little door.”
I stopped.
“What little door?”
“In wall.”
My house had been built in 1912.
Old estates contained service passages.
I knew some existed.
Not all.
The west wing had been renovated twice before I bought it.
Aldo had supervised the last renovation twenty years earlier.
My breathing slowed.
“When did you go into the little door?”
“Today.”
“Why?”
“I dropped button.”
Of course.
Civilizations fall because five-year-olds drop buttons.
“What did you see?”
“Dust.”
“Pipes.”
“Dark.”
“And?”
She looked toward my wall again.
“Your room.”
My skin went cold.
“You could see my room from inside the wall?”
She nodded.
“Little lines.”
Ventilation grille.
Old service opening.
Something.
“What did the ghost do?”
Giulia’s voice lowered.
“He comes when clock says three-one-seven.”
Every muscle in my body stopped.
Three seventeen.
For fourteen nights I had awakened with the same violent pressure in my chest somewhere between three and three thirty.
My doctors blamed anxiety.
Medication.
The progression of whatever neurological disease they believed was consuming me.
“Then what?”
I asked.
Giulia stepped closer.
“He opens your little machine.”
I turned toward the nightstand.
Humidifier.
My private physician, Dr. Marcello Vitale, insisted dry winter air worsened my breathing.
It ran every night.
“What does he do to it?”
“He pours ghost water.”
My mouth went dry.
“What color?”
“Nothing.”
“Like water.”
“From what?”
“Little bottle.”
I stared at the humidifier.
For the first time in weeks, I did not feel sick.
I felt hunted.
“Giulia.”
She looked at me.
“Did you tell your mother?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Mommy says don’t touch rich people things.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.
It sounded rusted.
I had not laughed in weeks.
Giulia smiled.
Then the bedroom door opened.
Elena stood there.
Her face went white.
“Giulia.”
The child turned.
“Hi, Mommy.”
Elena looked like she wanted the floor to open.
“Mr. Castellano, I am so sorry.”
She hurried inside.
“I told her to stay downstairs.”
“She should not have—”
“Close the door.”
Elena stopped.
My voice still had enough command in it.
She closed the door.
Then came toward Giulia.
“We are leaving.”
“No.”
Elena stared at me.
I hated the fear that appeared instantly in her face.
Not fear for herself.
For her job.
For the sixty-three dollars she apparently had left, though I did not know that yet.
“You are not in trouble.”
I said.
Her shoulders did not relax.
“Giulia told me something.”
Elena looked at her daughter.
“What?”
Giulia pointed toward the wall.
“Ghost.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Of course.”
I said:
“She says someone enters the service passage at night.”
Elena’s expression changed.
Not disbelief.
Recognition.
“What?”
I asked.
She hesitated.
“That passage exists.”
My heart hit once.
Hard.
“How do you know?”
“The laundry-room panel doesn’t close properly.”
“I noticed it last winter.”
“I reported it.”
“To whom?”
Her eyes shifted.
That tiny movement told me before she answered.
“Aldo.”
Everything inside me became still.
“What did he say?”
“He told me the passage was sealed at the north end and not to worry.”
I looked at Giulia.
The child had just told me it was not sealed.
“Who has access?”
“I don’t know.”
I reached for the phone.
My fingers shook badly.
Elena noticed.
She moved instinctively, then stopped herself before helping.
Good.
I hated being helped without asking.
“Call Enzo Bellini.”
I said.
She blinked.
“Your security chief?”
“No.”
“A retired one.”
Enzo had run personal security for my father.
He retired twelve years ago after telling me I had become too arrogant to protect properly.
I fired him.
Technically.
He claimed he had already quit.
We had not spoken in eight years.
Elena dialed the number from the old contact card I gave her.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Who is this?”
I took the phone.
“Dario.”
Silence.
Then:
“Well.”
A dry voice.
“Either I’m dead or you’re desperate.”
“Possibly both.”
He laughed.
Good.
Same man.
“I need you at my house.”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“Enzo.”
“You fired me.”
“You quit.”
“We agreed never to settle that.”
“Come.”
“What happened?”
I looked at Giulia.
“A five-year-old found a security breach.”
Long silence.
Then Enzo said:
“I’ll be there in forty minutes.”
He hung up.
Elena stared.
“You called someone outside your current security.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Aldo controls the current security.”
The words sounded worse aloud.
Elena looked toward the wall.
Then at the humidifier.
Understanding entered her face.
“You think someone is doing something to you.”
“I think your daughter saw someone where nobody should be.”
“That is all I know.”
Facts.
I needed facts.
But anger had already begun moving beneath my skin.
“Aldo brings your doctors.”
Elena said quietly.
I looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“I clean his office.”
“Appointment cards.”
“Emails left open.”
“Dr. Vitale calls him before he calls you.”
That was new.
“What else?”
She hesitated.
“Elena.”
“Aldo has been meeting with captains after midnight.”
“How many?”
“Three I’ve noticed.”
“Names?”
“Caruso.”
“Bianchi.”
“Rossi.”
Three men whose envelopes had become lighter.
My world tilted.
Succession plans.
Doctors.
Hidden passage.
Nightly symptoms.
I looked at Giulia.
She had found a silver letter opener and was studying the handle.
“Put that down.”
Elena said.
Giulia obeyed.
Then asked:
“Is ghost bad?”
I answered before Elena could.
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Then catch him.”
Simple.
I almost smiled.
Forty minutes later, Enzo Bellini entered my bedroom wearing a brown wool coat, carrying a toolbox instead of a gun.
He was sixty-eight.
Shorter than I remembered.
Meaner looking.
He stared at me for exactly two seconds.
“No pity.”
I said.
“I was going to say you look like hell.”
“Acceptable.”
His eyes moved toward Elena.
Then Giulia.
Then the wall.
“This is the famous security consultant?”
Elena asked.
“Former.”
Enzo replied.
“He became difficult.”
“I became successful.”
I said.
“Same disease.”
He pulled a small inspection camera from his case.
We did not call Aldo.
We did not call my guards.
Enzo examined the paneling.
Within five minutes, he found a narrow seam behind a decorative molding.
A hidden release.
The panel moved inward.
Cold air entered the bedroom.
Elena covered her mouth.
Giulia whispered:
“Ghost door.”
Behind the wall was a passage barely wide enough for one adult.
Dust.
Old electrical lines.
Heating pipes.
And footprints.
Fresh.
Enzo crouched.
“Someone uses this regularly.”
My jaw tightened.
He moved deeper.
Three minutes later, he returned carrying a pair of disposable gloves and a small empty glass vial.
Elena’s face drained.
“Ghost water.”
Giulia whispered.
Enzo looked at me.
“What runs beside the passage?”
I pointed toward the humidifier.
He examined it.
Then the tubing connected to a built-in water reservoir hidden inside the wall.
My skin went cold.
The humidifier had been modified.
Not obviously.
A narrow access point had been added from the passage.
Someone could introduce something into the reservoir without entering my room.
Enzo looked at me.
“Do not use this again.”
“I had guessed.”
“We test everything.”
“No house doctor.”
“No Aldo.”
He nodded.
“Outside lab.”
Then he stared at the wall.
“When do you usually get sick?”
“Night.”
“Specific?”
I looked at Giulia.
“Three seventeen.”
Enzo checked his watch.
It was ten forty in the morning.
He smiled without humor.
“Then tonight we invite the ghost back.”
Elena immediately shook her head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
She stepped in front of Giulia.
“My daughter will not stay here.”
“No.”
I agreed.
Elena stared.
“She leaves with you before dark.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere Aldo doesn’t know.”
Her face tightened.
“You do not know me.”
“I know you have a child Aldo may now consider a witness.”
Silence.
Elena looked down at Giulia.
Fear appeared.
I hated that I caused it.
Even indirectly.
“You are not ordering me.”
she said.
I paused.
Old Dario would have.
Boss.
King.
Lion.
Do what I say.
But I had spent weeks unable to lift my own legs.
Power felt different when your body stopped obeying.
“No.”
I said.
“I am telling you what I believe the danger is.”
“You decide.”
Elena looked surprised.
So did Enzo.
I ignored him.
She thought for several seconds.
Then nodded.
“We leave.”
“Enzo chooses the location.”
“No one from my current staff.”
“Agreed.”
Giulia looked between us.
“Can I take cookies?”
Elena almost cried.
“Yes.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Fine.”
Giulia smiled.
Then looked at me.
“You come?”
The question struck strangely.
“No.”
“Ghost come.”
“I know.”
She frowned.
“Then you should leave too.”
Enzo chuckled.
“Smartest person in the room.”
I looked at the passage.
At the bed that had become a prison.
At the succession papers Aldo brought every morning.
No.
I was done leaving ground because other people had decided I was weak.
“Tonight.”
I said.
“I stay.”
Giulia considered that.
Then walked to the bed.
She held out one hand.
A small red plastic bead from her scarf.
“For brave.”
I stared.
“I don’t need luck.”
She shrugged.
“Then give back.”
I took it.
Enzo laughed.
Elena looked embarrassed.
I closed my fist around the bead.
At 2:58 that night, my bedroom lights were off.
The humidifier contained only clean water.
A hidden camera faced the wall.
Enzo waited inside the passage twenty yards away.
Two retired security men guarded Elena and Giulia at a hotel no one in my organization knew about.
My current guards believed I was asleep.
At 3:16, nothing moved.
At 3:17, I heard it.
A soft mechanical click behind the wall.
Then a scrape.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Careful.
The panel behind my bed opened less than one inch.
A hand appeared.
Black glove.
Glass vial.
I did not move.
The hand reached toward the hidden reservoir.
Then Enzo’s voice exploded from the passage.
“Don’t.”
The hand vanished.
Running footsteps.
I hit the alarm.
My bedroom doors opened.
Two guards rushed in.
“Boss?”
I pointed toward the wall.
“Go.”
They stared.
“NOW.”
They entered the passage.
Shouting.
A struggle.
Then one guard called:
“We have someone!”
My heart hammered.
I forced my legs over the edge of the bed.
They shook violently.
I stood anyway.
One step.
Then another.
The hidden panel opened.
My guards dragged a man into the room.
Not Aldo.
Not Dr. Vitale.
A young household maintenance worker named Pietro.
Twenty-six.
Quiet.
Employed eight months.
He looked at me and began crying.
“Boss.”
I stared.
“Who sent you?”
He shook his head.
“Please.”
“Who?”
“Aldo will kill my brother.”
Every sound in the room disappeared.
There it was.
Aldo.
My right hand trembled.
Not from illness this time.
Rage.
Pietro fell to his knees.
“He said you were already dying.”
“He said it only made the process faster.”
I looked at the vial in Enzo’s hand.
“What is it?”
Pietro sobbed.
“I don’t know.”
“Dr. Vitale gives it to me.”
The lion was not falling.
May you like
Someone had been pushing him.
And the man I trusted most had already started dividing the carcass.
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