Chapter 2 - The Ride Nobody Wanted
Anna Carter hated black cars.
Not all black cars.
Just long ones with tinted windows and men in dark suits standing beside them as if the sidewalk belonged to somebody else.
The last time her husband had left home, he had climbed into one.
Now Dominic Moretti was holding open the rear door of another while Lily stared at it like a limousine from a fairy tale.
“We can take the train,” Anna said.
“It’s eleven-thirty.” Dominic glanced at Lily, who was trying not to yawn. “No.”
“You don’t get to tell me no.”
“I just did.”
Anna gave him a look sharp enough to peel paint.
Lily tugged her sleeve.
“Mommy, the seats are warm.”
Anna closed her eyes.
Dominic’s mouth moved slightly, almost a smile.
“Do not encourage her,” Anna said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You have an encouraging face.”
Carlo coughed into his fist to hide a laugh.
Dominic looked offended.
“No one has ever accused me of that.”
Against every sensible instinct she had, Anna got into the car.
Lily climbed beside her.
Dominic took the seat across from them, leaving enough space to make it clear he understood exactly how unwelcome he was.
For the first several blocks, no one spoke.
Chicago slid past the windows in wet ribbons of streetlight.
Lily leaned against Anna, still holding one half of her red paper heart where Dominic had carefully torn away the section containing Noah’s writing.
“Are you really a bad guy?” Lily asked.
Anna stiffened.
“Lily.”
Dominic looked at the child.
“Sometimes.”
Anna stared at him.
Most men with reputations like his would have lied to a six-year-old.
Dominic didn’t.
Lily considered his answer with grave concentration.
“Do you know you’re doing it?”
“Usually.”
“Then why?”
He glanced out the window.
“That’s a long answer.”
“We have traffic.”
Anna covered her mouth before a laugh could escape.
Dominic saw it.
For the first time that night, something eased in his face.
Then Lily asked, “Did you know my daddy?”
The softness disappeared.
Dominic nodded.
“I did.”
“Was he brave?”
“Yes.”
Anna looked down.
Noah had been brave in all the ways that got ordinary men hurt around powerful ones.
He asked questions.
He remembered details.
He believed there had to be a line a person could refuse to cross.
The night before he disappeared, he had sat at their chipped kitchen table with both hands around a cold cup of coffee.
“If I tell you something,” he had said, “you have to promise not to be brave.”
Anna had laughed because it sounded ridiculous.
Three years later, she understood exactly what he meant.
The car stopped outside a narrow brick apartment building on the North Side.
Dominic looked up at it.
“You live here?”
“Yes.”
“No security door.”
“It locks.”
“The frame is split.”
Anna’s temper returned.
“Thank you, Home Inspector Moretti.”
He looked at her.
“Victor knows where you live?”
Her silence answered.
Anna opened the door before the driver could.
“We’re fine.”
They were not fine.
The apartment door on the third floor was open.
Anna stopped so suddenly Lily walked into her.
“Mommy?”
Dominic moved past them in one smooth step.
Carlo was already reaching inside his coat.
“No guns near my daughter,” Anna snapped.
Carlo looked at Dominic.
Dominic nodded once.
His hand dropped.
He entered first.
The apartment had been searched, not robbed.
That distinction was obvious.
The television remained on the stand.
Anna’s old laptop sat on the kitchen counter.
A jar containing forty-seven dollars in cash was untouched.
But drawers had been emptied.
Mattress seams cut.
Books thrown from shelves.
Lily’s toy chest dumped onto the floor.
Someone had ripped open a stuffed rabbit.
Lily made a small sound.
Anna dropped to her knees beside her.
“Don’t look, baby.”
“But Rosie—”
“I’ll fix Rosie.”
Dominic picked up the torn rabbit and examined the damage.
“Carlo.”
His man moved through the rooms.
Anna rushed to the kitchen.
The flour canister lay on its side.
Empty.
She stared at it.
Dominic noticed.
“What was there?”
“Flour.”
“No.”
She turned on him.
“You don’t know everything.”
“I know what people look like when something they hid is gone.”
Anna’s shoulders fell.
“What did they take?” he asked.
“A key.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know.”
He waited.
Finally she said, “Noah mailed it to me the morning he disappeared. No note. Just a brass key inside an envelope.”
“The numbers on the heart?”
“I thought they might be a locker number. Bank box. Storage unit. I checked everything I could think of.”
“And never found it.”
“No.”
Dominic looked toward the wrecked apartment.
“Victor thinks you did.”
“I don’t know what Victor thinks.”
“You’ve worked at Bellamy for how long?”
“Four months.”
“And when did he start threatening you?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“After what?”
Anna hesitated.
Then she walked to the kitchen drawer and lifted out a folded photograph that the intruder had apparently missed because it was taped beneath the silverware tray.
She handed it to Dominic.
It showed Noah Carter standing beside a black sedan in a warehouse parking lot.
The timestamp was three days before his disappearance.
Beside him stood Victor Shaw.
And Dominic’s younger brother, Michael.
Dominic’s face changed.
Michael had been dead for two years.
Overdose, according to the coroner.
Dominic had never believed it, but he had never found evidence strong enough to prove otherwise.
Anna tapped the edge of the photograph.
“I found this behind the lining of Noah’s old winter coat three weeks ago. Lily had a school project about family, so I finally opened the box where I kept his clothes.”
“And Victor found out.”
“The next night he was waiting outside my second job.”
“What did he ask for?”
“The key. The photograph. Anything Noah left.”
Dominic studied the image.
“Why didn’t you come to me then?”
Anna’s eyes flashed.
“Because your name was the last thing Noah said before he left our apartment.”
Dominic looked up.
“What exactly did he say?”
Anna’s voice grew quieter.
“He said, ‘If Moretti still lives, somebody close to him is lying.’”
The room seemed to shrink.
Carlo returned from the bedroom.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found something.”
He held out a small black device.
A microphone.
Anna stared at it.
“It was behind the smoke detector,” Carlo said.
Dominic’s expression became still.
“How long?”
“Hard to say.”
Anna looked at Lily.
Every bedtime story.
Every whispered worry.
Every phone call.
Someone might have been listening.
Her knees weakened.
Dominic caught her elbow before she fell.
She jerked away on instinct, then stopped.
His hand was steady.
Not possessive.
Not demanding.
Just there.
Lily looked up from the sofa.
“Is Mommy in trouble?”
Anna opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Dominic crouched in front of Lily.
“Your mom is tired,” he said. “And some people have made very bad choices.”
“Are you going to scare them?”
He looked over his shoulder at Anna.
“I’m going to make sure they can’t scare you.”
Carlo’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and his face hardened.
“Boss, security at Bellamy just pulled the hallway footage.”
Dominic stood.
“And?”
“Victor left the gala nine minutes before we did.”
Anna stared at the destroyed apartment.
“That’s impossible. He was still there when we left.”
Carlo shook his head.
“Not Victor.”
Dominic understood first.
“Someone used his badge.”
Carlo nodded.
“And the person on camera walked like Michael.”
The photograph slipped from Dominic’s fingers.
Anna whispered, “Your brother is dead.”
Dominic stared at the tiny screen Carlo held out to him.
A grainy figure in a dark coat crossed the Bellamy service corridor.
The face was hidden.
But the man favored his left leg exactly the way Michael had after a motorcycle crash at nineteen.
Dominic had watched that walk for half his life.
He looked at Anna.
“For tonight, you and Lily are coming with me.”
“No.”
“Anna.”
“No.”
Then Lily spoke from the sofa.
“Mommy?”
Anna turned.
The little girl held up the torn stuffed rabbit.
Someone had written two words across its white fabric in black marker.
MIDNIGHT. ALONE.
Anna’s refusal died in her throat.
Dominic looked at the message, then at the red paper heart still clutched in Lily’s other hand.
May you like
The five minutes she had borrowed were over.
The danger had only begun.
