Chapter 4 - The Boiler Room Alibi
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The concrete steps leading down to the sub-basement were freezing, smelling of damp earth, copper pipes, and old rust.
Vincenzo shoved Nora into a steel folding chair beneath a bare overhead bulb in the center of the boiler room while the second guard locked the heavy iron door behind them. Standing beside the massive cast-iron furnace, rolling up the sleeves of a pristine white dress shirt, was Dario.
Nora’s breathing came fast and shallow, her wrists aching where Vincenzo snapped a pair of heavy plastic zip-ties around them, binding her arms to the metal armrests.
"You’re the last one I would have bet on," Dario said conversationally, picking up a pair of heavy steel pliers from a workbench and examining the rusted teeth. "Quiet girl. Always looking at the floor. Two years without a parking ticket. How much did Sergei Kirov pay you to plant that memory card on the Bentley, Nora? Fifty grand? Enough to pay off that kid brother’s hospital bills?"
Nora lifted her chin, blood hammering in her temples. "I didn't touch the Bentley, Mr. Dario. Someone stole my badge out of my locker while I was asleep."
"Elena heard you walking down the back pantry corridor at two-thirty in the morning," Dario countered smoothly, stepping into the circle of light. "Why were you in the back pantry at two-thirty in the morning, Nora?"
The trap closed around her throat.
If she told Dario the truth—that Julian Vane, the ruthless head of the Chicago Outfit, had shown up at her bedroom door drunk, weeping without tears, and begging not to be left alone—Dario would never believe her. Worse, even if Dario checked with Julian, admitting she had already blabbed his deepest humiliation to his underboss within six hours would guarantee Julian let Dario pull her fingernails out just to bury the secret forever.
She remembered the three sentences she had watched Julian burn in his crystal ashtray.
I was setting mousetraps before midnight.
No—Elena had heard her at two-thirty.
"I couldn't sleep because of the thunder," Nora lied, keeping her hazel eyes locked on Dario’s scarred cheek. "I went to the secondary pantry to get a glass of tap water. That was at two-thirty. The garage swipe was at three-fifteen. Check the corridor motion sensors between the east wing and the garage—I never left the east wing."
"The storm surge knocked out the internal motion grid between two-forty and three-thirty," Vincenzo sneered from behind her chair. "Convenient for someone who knows the house breaker box."
"I'm a maid!" Nora snapped. "What would I even have on an encrypted memory card that would scare Mr. Vane? I clean baseboards and empty wastebaskets!"
"You clean his private study four mornings a week," Dario said softly, leaning down until his cold black eyes were inches from hers. He laid the cold flat of the steel pliers against her bound right hand. "Last week, the boss left the harbor commission ledger open on his credenza for ten minutes while taking a call on the terrace. You were the only staff member on the second floor that morning."
"I was polishing the brass threshold in the hallway! I never stepped inside while the ledger was open!"
"Hold her fingers flat on the armrest, Vince," Dario sighed, opening the jaws of the pliers. "Let’s see if her memory improves after the first knuckle."
Vincenzo’s heavy hand clamped down over Nora’s forearm, forcing her trembling fingers open against the cold iron. Nora bit her lip so hard she tasted copper, refusing to scream, praying that if she died down here, her life insurance policy at least didn't have an exclusion clause for homicide.
Before the steel teeth could close on her pinky finger, the heavy iron door at the top of the boiler room stairs didn't just open—it slammed back against the concrete wall with the sound of a gunshot.
Heavy, rapid footsteps descended the concrete stairs.
Julian Vane stepped into the pool of harsh light. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, and the look in his storm-gray eyes made both Vincenzo and Dario freeze as if they had been turned to salt.
"Get your hands off her," Julian said.
His voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. Vincenzo snatched his hands back from Nora’s arm as if her skin had turned to molten iron.
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"Boss," Dario said, straightening up quickly and lowering the pliers. "Her keycard swiped the garage door during the blackout at three-fifteen. And the laundry girl heard her in the back pantry hallway at two-thirty—"
"She wasn't in the garage at three-fifteen," Julian interrupted, taking a single step forward and drawing a titanium folding knife from his pocket. He crouched beside Nora’s chair and sliced cleanly through the heavy zip-ties binding her wrists. "Because from two o’clock until five this morning, she was with me."
