Chapter 8 - What the Housekeeper Saw
Her name was Rosa Delgado.
She had worked at Solmere for thirty-four years.
She remembered me as a child stealing chocolates from banquet carts.
When Daniel found her, she was living with her daughter in Queens.
She had resigned two days after my mother died.
“Why?” I asked.
Rosa’s hands trembled.
“Because I saw something.”
She had been cleaning my mother’s office the afternoon before the crash.
Adrian entered.
Marcus followed.
The argument lasted twenty minutes.
My mother shouted:
“You touch Charlotte’s shares and I will bury both of you.”
Then Marcus said:
“You should be thinking about whether Charlotte gets anything at all.”
Rosa hid in the adjoining service pantry.
Hours later, she saw Adrian in the garage beside my mother’s car.
He was speaking to a man wearing a Solmere maintenance jacket.
Rosa took a photograph.
She had kept it for eighteen months.
Samuel enlarged the image.
The mechanic’s face was visible.
James Bell.
Another name from the ledger.
We finally had a direct link.
Then Rosa gave me one more thing.
A small brass key my mother had pressed into her hand one week before she died.
“She told me that if anything happened, I should give this to you.”
Attached to the key was a tiny silver tag.
May you like
One word.
ORCHID.
