I’d spent the entire evening trying to stop powerful men from making decisions they would regret, and by 1:47 a.m., all I wanted was silence.
Instead, the moment I stepped inside my Beacon Hill house, I heard a vacuum running upstairs.
At that hour.
On that floor.
I took the service stairs, following the uneven sound.
Start.
Stop.
Start again.
A narrow line of light spilled beneath the door of my study.
I stopped in the hallway.
Then I pushed the door open.
A little girl stood on her toes beside my desk, dragging a damp cloth across the leather blotter. Her small hands were reddened from cold water, and strapped securely across her back was a sleeping baby wrapped in a faded blue shawl.
I knew her.
Mia Harper.
Six years old.
Her mother, Grace, had worked in my house for eight years.
Eight years.
And standing there in the middle of the night, I realized with a bitterness that made me uncomfortable that I had barely ever stopped long enough to learn anything about the woman who had spent so much of her life keeping my household running.
Mia reached for the vacuum.
She gripped the handle with both hands.
The machine barely moved.
She planted her feet and pushed harder.
Still nothing.
Her little jaw tightened.
Then she stopped and reached carefully behind herself to make sure the baby was still sleeping.
Only after she was certain did she continue.
“Please sleep, Lily,” she whispered. “Don’t wake up.”
I remained in the doorway, watching.
She had no idea I was there.
“We have to finish before Mr. Duca gets home,” she murmured.
My expression hardened.
Then the cloth slipped from her fingers.
She immediately crouched down, picked it up, wrung it out, and returned to the desk.
“If Mama loses this job, we won’t have anywhere to go.”
Something in my chest went completely still.
I stepped into the light.
Mia spun around.
Fear crossed her face for one brief second.
Then she straightened.
It was almost absurd.
She was six years old.
Six.
And yet she lifted her shoulders as though she could somehow make herself large enough to protect the sleeping infant behind her.
“Where is your mother?” I asked.
Her fingers tightened around the cloth.
“She’s sick.”
“And you’re doing her work?”
Mia swallowed.
“Please don’t fire her.”
My anger rose instantly.
But it wasn’t aimed at the child.
Before I could say anything else, Mia’s attention suddenly shifted.
She wasn’t looking at me anymore.
She was staring toward the library.
Her face changed.
“Mr. Duca?”
“What?”
She hesitated.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Ask.”
She slowly pointed toward the enormous bookcase that covered most of the library’s eastern wall.
“Why does someone knock behind that wall every night?”
For a moment, I simply stared at her.
“What did you say?”
Mia lowered her voice.
“Sometimes it’s scratching. Sometimes three knocks. Mama says I’m imagining it.”
My pulse seemed to slow.
I’d owned this house for years.
I had walked past that wall thousands of times.
There was supposed to be nothing behind it.
Then Mia’s eyes widened.
“Wait.”
She raised one finger.
“Listen.”
I turned toward the library.
For several seconds, there was nothing.
Not a sound.
Only the low hum of the house settling around us.
Then, from somewhere behind my bookcase…
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I didn’t move.
Neither did Mia.
The baby slept peacefully against her back.
