This young girl needed to visit a therapist, but Cassie knew there was no hope of that happening.
Venetia showed no signs of being upset. Her calm mask was back in place, as if destroying the beautiful creation had been a way for her to vent her anger without any unwanted consequences.
Cassie took a few minutes to compose herself, until she was sure she could speak without starting to cry.
“Let’s go and get some lunch,” she said eventually. “And after that, I think you two need a rest. I’ll read you a story and then you can have a nap.”
Cassie resolved that she wasn’t going to spend their nap time sitting idly by. She’d already trespassed in Ms. Rossi’s office once, looking for paper, and now she was going to do so again.
She was going to search the house and try to find out about the girls’ father—who he was, where he was, and most importantly, what he knew.
*
As soon as the girls were asleep, Cassie made a start.
Before checking the study, she did a quick walk through the house, making sure that the cook and the housemaids were not on duty, because she didn’t want to be surprised by anybody while she searched. To her relief, it looked as if nobody else was home.
Walking into the office to look for information on the girls’ father felt different from going in to get paper. Technically, this was now snooping, and she hoped that Maurice had meant it when he’d told her that he and Ms. Rossi would be out all day.
Even though Ms. Rossi was not in the office, her presence felt tangible. That high-backed leather chair, the shiny white expanse of the desk, the colorful fashion prints on the walls. Walking around the desk, Cassie noticed a framed map of Italy with tiny gold shoes demarcating some of the major cities. She guessed these must be where Rossi Shoes had offices.
Cassie wondered how Ms. Rossi could sit in that chair and focus on her business, while knowing that her children were cold, hungry, locked up in darkness. Did she have the slightest twinge of conscience about these dreadful punishments?
She guessed Ms. Rossi didn’t have any qualms about doing what she did, and her power was so great that it steamrollered over everyone else who might notice something was wrong.
Perhaps the woman was mad, Cassie thought, as she began her search.
She looked methodically through the office, opening desk drawers and rifling through folders. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, so tried to keep her eyes open for any information, even though she didn’t even know his name. She hoped to unearth an old business card, a phone book, the legal papers for the divorce, or any proof that he might have been in trouble with the law. Something must lead to him.
The desk was neatly organized and Cassie wondered if it was part of Maurice’s job to keep it tidy. Everything was in place. There was a cash box in the top drawer, but the key was in the lock. Cassie felt nervous when she saw it, because she didn’t want anyone to know that she’d been searching in a place where money was kept. It made her feel guilty by association.
There were a few personal papers belonging to Ms. Rossi—a copy of her passport in the bottom desk drawer, together with a hardcover diary for the year just past, which had meeting dates and travel plans neatly written inside.
Cassie paged through the diary but found nothing helpful. She remembered Ms. Rossi saying that they had divorced a few months ago, but nothing in the diary pointed to it. There were so many meetings with so many legal people, that she couldn’t tell which were for business and which were personal.
After a frustrating hour in the office, she abandoned her search. If there was evidence here, it was beyond her ability to find.
The only other place that she could look was in Ms. Rossi’s bedroom.
A few months ago, that room would have been occupied by the married couple, and perhaps there were still some of his belongings there. Cassie found she was still pinning her hopes on a business card, with his work number and cell number.
Cassie knew that if she was discovered snooping in the bedroom, she would be in trouble, but she felt emboldened by anger on the girls’ behalf. Besides, Ms. Rossi was out all day, and if she came back, Cassie would hear the front door opening. As Maurice Smithers had explained to her, this noisy door could be heard all the way from upstairs.
She headed upstairs, and hesitated for only a moment before pushing open the master bedroom door.
Inside, Cassie was struck by the extreme tidiness of the room. There wasn’t so much as a wrinkle in the rose gold bedcovers, and the crystal chandelier that hung from the high ceiling looked spotless.
Her second impression was that the room, with its white-painted furniture, cerise cushions and floral artworks, looked very feminine. She wondered if Ms. Rossi might have redecorated completely after her husband left, which would account for everything looking so fresh and new. If so, it would mean that she’d cleared out all of his belongings.
Even so, she pushed ahead with her search. She opened the delicate bedside drawers and searched through the contents. One was empty and the other contained items clearly belonging to Ms. Rossi. The chest of drawers on the opposite side of the room was where blankets and towels were kept, and the dressing table held perfume and cosmetics.
The spacious dressing room was packed with clothes and Cassie had never in her life seen so many shoes. There was an entire cupboard devoted to them, and another, smaller set of drawers where jewelry, sunglasses, and accessories were organized.
It was almost as if her
