Bianca wasn’t home. Her phone was either off or occupied. And her purse was nowhere to be found. She was probably out somewhere, doing God knew what, with no protection.
Where had she gone? At best, she’d taken a walk to clear her head after a difficult conversation with her mother.
At worst? Sam didn’t even want to think about it.
Either way, Bianca wasn’t safe on her own. So Sam reached out to the first person she thought to call.
Vivianne was quick to answer. “If this is about talking to Bianca, I was about to head down. I swear it. I just need to gather my courage first.”
Huh?“You haven’t spoken to her yet?”
“Not yet. But I’m going to, I promise. I haven’t forgotten our deal. I’m going to invite her to dinner and—”
“Have you seen Bianca today?” Sam interrupted. “At all?”
Vivianne was silent for a moment. “No. What happened? Where is she?”
Sam sat on Bianca’s couch. As her mind raced through all the possible answers to that question, her eyes fell to Ellen’s letter on the coffee table.
Her heart sank. Had Bianca called Ellen instead of talking to her mother? Was that where she’d gone?
To see the very woman who had been threatening her family for months now?
Sam cursed. Perhaps it had been a mistake, not telling Bianca what was going on between Ellen and her mother.
But she didn’t have time to question her choices right now. “I’m coming up. I think I have an idea where Bianca is. And you’re not going to like it.”
Sam snatched the letter from the table. As she rose to leave, she spotted her leather jacket on the floor and picked it up. After dusting a few stray cat hairs from it, she slipped it on and headed out the door.
* * *
“How much did she pay you?”
Sam shook her phone in Fleur’s face. The young housekeeper cringed back, hands over her face, her tearful protests landing on deaf ears. Behind them, Vivianne was on the brink of hyperventilating into a paper bag. She had already fired Fleur for her role in leaving letters around the residences. Now it was only a matter of whether Mrs. Black would call the police.
“Madame Reddy,” Fleur stammered. “I didn’t—”
“Stop. Lying. I have you on camera delivering this letter to Bianca’s door.” It had been slick, too. Fleur, who vacuumed the hallways of the three residential floors twice a week, casually dropped the letter at Bianca’s door as she was passing with the vacuum cleaner. “Somebody paid you to leave Bianca this letter, and the one on Mrs. Black’s pillow. Not to mention those photos you slipped into her mail. It was you.”
Tears streamed down Fleur’s face. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble!” Her ‘French’ accent had all but disappeared. “The woman who gave me the letters promised me ten thousand dollars for each one.”
“The woman?” Vivianne barked. “Do you mean Ellen? Ellen Perry?”
“Yes, she said her name was Ellen. I inspected the letters to make sure they were not harmful, Madame Black. They just seemed like normal letters!”
“Yet after all the trouble the first letter caused, you still delivered the second?” Sam asked.
“I needed the money! My mama, she has cancer.”
“I thought your mother was dead?” Vivianne said.
“That was my grandmama. You never listen to me!”
“Get her out of here and hold her until the police arrive.” Sam directed the order at Trevor, who was on guard in the penthouse that night. “I need to talk to Mrs. Black about where her daughter is.”
After Trevor escorted the sobbing housekeeper out of the penthouse, Sam turned her attention to Vivianne, who paced the living room with renewed panic.
“Do you think she’s with Ellen?” she asked. “Bianca? Do you think she went to see her?”