Chapter 2 - The Lock on the Cellar|
The Valenti compound in East Oak sat behind twelve feet of brick and wrought iron that hadn't seen a police cruiser since 1994.
The SUV cleared the iron gates at 8:15 p.m. Dante drove straight past the main garage and pulled up to the service entrance behind the carriage house.
"Dante," Nico said from the front seat. "Take the kids up to Mrs. Gable. Tell her to get them out of those clothes, feed them, and keep them away from the windows."
"And her?" Dante asked, glancing at the rear-view mirror.
Josie was sitting frozen between the two child seats, her hands covered in dried black soot, her eyes staring at the back of Nico's head.
"She goes down below," Nico said smoothly.
Josie didn't scream when Dante opened her door. She didn't fight when he reached in to pull her out. She moved like a ghost, her bare feet dragging against the cold gravel.
"You think I killed her," she said softly, her voice barely audible over the idling V8 engine.
Nico stepped out of the vehicle and walked over to her. He pulled Eleanor Brandt’s cracked phone from his pocket and held it up so the screen light hit her face.
"Forty-one seconds," Nico said. "Eleanor called my private line six minutes before the house went up. A line that three people in Chicago are supposed to have. She didn't have it yesterday. Who gave it to her, Josie?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she whispered.
"You had fifty grand in a diaper bag and gas on your hands."
"She gave me the bag! She told me to take the babies and run if anyone came up the driveway!" Josie’s voice snapped, sharp and desperate. "She locked herself in the study! I tried to open the door—the handle was hot!"
Nico stared at her. Her pupils were dilated, her skin pale under the soot. She was terrified, but her eyes didn't drop.
"Downstairs," Nico said.
The cellar beneath the carriage house had once been used for wine storage during Prohibition. Now it had a reinforced steel door, a single drain in the center of the concrete floor, and no windows.
Dante opened the heavy door and flipped the overhead light switch. A single bulb flickered to life.
"There's a cot," Nico said, standing in the doorway. "Food will come down when I get answers about that phone call."
Josie stepped inside the cold concrete room. She turned around just as Nico reached for the heavy iron handle.
"Their names are Leo and Maya," she said, her chin trembling. "Leo likes the blanket with the blue satin edge. Maya won't go to sleep unless someone leaves a hallway light on. Please. They don't know where they are."
Nico stared at her for two seconds.
May you like
"Dante," he said quietly. "Find the blanket."
He pulled the heavy steel door shut, and the deadbolt clicked into place with a sound that echoed like a gunshot in the quiet corridor.
