She inhales sharply at that, but I’m studying her face and her placid, pleasant expression never changes. It annoys me a little, just how perfect she is, and I have the overwhelming urge to poke at her just to see how long it takes for her to snap. Her anger would be so much better than this total lack of animation. Anything would.
Once again I think of how she was when she’d first gotten to the café yesterday and once again I regret whatever it was I did that had turned off that warmth. I’m determined to get it back, to see it at least once more before the day is over.
“The main living areas are on the second floor,” she says as she leads the way to another gleaming, circular staircase. “The east wing is mine. The west wing was always my parents’.”
“So you didn’t move into the master bedroom when you took over the house?”
“There was never any need to. Both wings are laid out in an almost identical fashion.”
Because that isn’t weird at all. To have your child’s bedroom done in the same manner as the master suite…Then again, what did I know of the mental workings of the uber rich? Her parents could have had it redone when she was a teenager to make it more comfortable for her. Or maybe her father had just been very forward thinking. God knew the Academy and most film critics had claimed that and much more about Salvatore Romero through the years.
“Which side would you like to see first?” she asks.
I start to say her rooms, of course, but something stops me and I say, “The west wing, if you don’t mind.”
“Why should I mind?”
As she leads the way, she talks a little about the history of the house. About where the marble in the columns came from. About the awe-inspiring art on the walls. About the various antiques we pass. I take it all in, but what I’m really paying attention to is the fact that this whole wing seems to exist in a place out of time.
Her father died over four years ago, yet there’s a stack of books on the coffee table in the sitting room that I’m pretty sure belonged to him.
A box of cigars sits half-open on an end table.
A beautiful Hermès scarf is draped over the back of one of the chairs, as if her mother had dropped it there this morning instead of several years ago. Then again, for all I know, she did. Maybe she stays over regularly and this is just detritus of that existence.
But something about the careful way Veronica skirts or skims over any object that is even remotely personal makes me think that that isn’t the case.
Again there’s the little tingling at the base of my spine that tells me to push, that tells me there’s a story here, one that just might help me unravel the mystery that is Veronica Romero. Before I can so much as formulate a question, though, she leads me into the opulent master suite. And every thought I have is pushed aside as I stare at the huge photograph hanging on the wall opposite the door.
It’s Veronica on what I assume is Christmas morning, if the glowing tree in the background is any indication. She’s maybe seven or eight and she’s sparkling as brightly as the tree, with shining eyes and a huge smile that stretches across her whole face. She’s wearing a red velvet dress with white lace trim and her hair is tied back with a long, red satin ribbon. In her arms she’s holding a large white teddy bear with a matching ribbon around its neck.
For several long seconds I can do nothing but stare at the picture as a million different thoughts race through my head. Puzzle pieces that I’ve struggled with for months start falling into place at an alarming rate, but I try to take a step back. Try to maintain some small semblance of objectivity as I warn myself to be careful. To take it slow.
But when she turns to look at me quizzically—like she’s noticed something isn’t quite right—I find myself asking, “When was that picture taken?”
“The Christmas I turned eight.” She’s cool as a cucumber as she answers, her face blank and her voice pleasant. She doesn’t have a clue. But I do.
There it is, I think over and over again. There it is. The puzzle piece—the smoking gun—I’ve been looking for for the last two and a half years. The one that tells me my instincts, and my research, have been right all along.
Because the Christmas Veronica turned eight—the Christmas she wore that red ribbon in her hair—is the same Christmas that William Vargas, the man who later became the Red Ribbon Strangler and one of the most depraved serial killers this country has ever seen, was employed by her parents as her bodyguard.
Chapter 4