Page 51 of Victorious Vice

Agudelo is gone a lot, overnight trips nearly every other day. But he’s always back here for lunch, where we continue our negotiations.

He left again this afternoon for another overnight trip, and I’ve decided that surveillance be damned. I’m going to figure out what is going on above me.

And Daniela is going to help me.

I knock on the door to her room.

“Yes?” she says through the door.

“It’s Vinnie. May I come in?”

“Of course.”

I open the door. Daniela is in her sitting area, working on her laptop. Over the last few days, I’ve found out she’s quite intelligent. Of course, I already knew that her love of cooking knows no bounds, and she really wants to study at the Cordon Bleu in Paris. But her knowledge expands outside of her culinary interests. She’s never left Colombia, but she knows so much about the culture and politics of Europe and the Americas. She and I have had many a late-night conversation about myoverseas days, and her broad understanding of the way the world works is impressive, especially for someone of her young age.

A lot of that knowledge was gained from her shitty upbringing, which makes me sad. But I’m going to do my damnedest to help her make a better life.

I walk into her room and close the door. I look straight at her, deliberately avoiding the gaze of anywhere on the ceiling where a camera might be mounted.

“May I speak freely?” I whisper.

She takes my hand and mouths, “Let’s go outside.”

A few moments later, we’re out on the back veranda, taking a walk down a stone path.

When she feels comfortable, she turns to me. “What is it?”

I lean in, keeping my voice low just in case. “Since I got here, I’ve heard some strange noises coming from above my room,” I say. “Do you know what’s above the second floor?”

She wrinkles her forehead. “Just the old attic. It’s probably just the house settling.”

“That’s what I thought at first as well.” I stroke my chin. “but the noise almost has a rhythm to it. It comes and goes.”

She frowns. “What are you asking me, Señor Gallo?”

“Call me Vinnie.” I can’t help a small smile. “We’re married. I think we’re on a first-name basis at this point.”

“Sure.” She returns my smile. “Vinnie.”

“How would I get to the attic?”

“There are stairs at the end of the hallway. But the door is always locked. No one’s been up there in… I’m not sure how long.” She purses her lips. “When I was a little girl, I always wanted to go up there and explore, but my father forbade it. He told me stories of ghosts that haunted the old attic.”

“And you believed him?”

“I was only a little girl, Vinnie. Of course I believed him. If you ask me if I believe him now, obviously I don’t.” Her gaze darkens. “But now that I know more about what my father and his colleagues do for a living, I figure there are things up there that I’m not meant to see. Things I don’twantto see.”

I grab her hands. “I want to know what’s up there, Daniela. Can you help me?”

She takes a deep breath, looking into my eyes. “If you’re asking me if I can unlock the door, the answer is no. I can’t. Only my father has those keys.”

“What about Morehouse?”

“Morehouse has keys to everything. But he would never betray my father.”

“Do you know where Morehouse keeps the keys?”

She bites her lip. “How would I know that?”

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