Chapter 3
Chapter 3: The Ghost in the Marble
At noon the next day, taking advantage of Victoria being at a charity luncheon and Mauricio still sleeping off his hangover, I slipped into the main quarters of the mansion.
The house was eerily silent. I walked down the polished marble corridors. Elena used to kneel here, her hands bleeding from the industrial bleach. Every step I took felt incredibly heavy.
I approached Victoria’s private study. Unlocked. I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room smelled of beeswax and expensive mahogany.
And there it was. Right next to the massive stone fireplace.
The statue.
It was a solid white marble replica of a Roman goddess, about half a meter tall. Heavy. Cold. Soulless.
“My love... she threw it... that statue... she threw it right at my stomach...”
Elena’s breathless, broken whisper from that rundown hospital room echoed in my mind like a drill. I stepped forward, extending trembling fingers to touch the freezing stone surface. I gripped the base and lifted it. It weighed at least thirty pounds. A murder weapon disguised as art.
I tilted the statue sideways, scrutinizing the rough underside of the base. The wealthy never clean things themselves, and the help never dares to clean where the masters don't explicitly allow. Deep inside a fissure at the bottom of the statue, there was a dark, dried, rusty stain.
Blood. My wife's blood. My daughter's blood.
I squeezed my eyes shut. A single, scalding tear rolled down my face.
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"I found it, Elena," I whispered into the empty room, my voice choked with venomous hatred. "I'm not giving this to the police. The cops in this city work for them. I am going to use this very stone to smash their empire to pieces."
I placed the statue back in its exact position, down to the millimeter, and quietly retreated into the shadows.
