Chapter 2 - The Man on the Stairs
Victor Hale had been Dominic Moretti’s lieutenant for eleven years.
He had stood beside Dominic at funerals, weddings, court hearings, and one hospital bedside nobody in the family ever discussed. He knew the gate codes to the estate. He knew Lily’s birthday. He had once carried her asleep from a car after a Fourth of July party.
So when Dominic heard Victor’s voice outside the flooded bedroom, disbelief came before anger.
“Victor?”
The door opened three inches.
Then stopped.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Victor said.
Marco had one hand beneath his jacket.
Dominic shook his head once.
The girl under the bed began to cry without making a sound.
That decided the next move.
“Victor,” Dominic said, “there’s a six-year-old child in this room.”
“I know.”
“You knew she was here?”
A long silence.
“Yes.”
Marco’s face hardened.
Dominic stayed between the bed and the door.
“Open it.”
“I can’t.”
“Then tell me why.”
Water thudded against the lower floor. Somewhere below, something heavy broke loose and struck a wall.
Victor spoke through the gap.
“She wasn’t supposed to be here today.”
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Nora Bell.”
The little girl squeezed her rabbit harder.
Dominic crouched slightly without taking his eyes off the door.
“Nora?”
She looked at him.
“That your name?”
A tiny nod.
Dominic turned back.
“Where are her parents?”
Victor exhaled.
“Complicated.”
“Try me.”
“Her mother is alive.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic’s patience thinned.
“Victor, if this house comes apart while you’re explaining one word at a time, I will be irritated.”
Marco almost smiled despite himself.
Victor did not.
“She was supposed to be moved yesterday. The flood cut off the road. The man watching her panicked and left.”
Dominic’s voice changed.
“Watching her?”
Nora whimpered.
Dominic immediately lowered his tone.
“Who was holding a child here?”
Victor said nothing.
Dominic understood.
“You.”
“No.”
“Your people.”
Another silence.
That was answer enough.
Sheriff Nolan shouted from outside the broken window.
“We have movement in the foundation! Everybody out now!”
Dominic looked at Nora.
Whatever Victor had done could wait.
The house could not.
He slid onto the floor.
“Nora, listen to me. We need to leave.”
She shook her head.
“No boat.”
“You don’t like boats?”
“He said water takes bad people.”
Dominic felt something cold settle in him.
“Who said that?”
“Mr. Gray.”
Victor cursed quietly behind the door.
Dominic glanced at Marco.
That name meant nothing to him.
“Who is Mr. Gray?” he asked.
Victor replied, “Later.”
Dominic ignored him.
“Nora, Lily is waiting across the water.”
Nora’s eyes lifted.
“She is?”
“Yes.”
“She has Snowball.”
Dominic glanced at the rabbit in Nora’s arms.
It was nearly identical to Lily’s.
“Looks like you do too.”
Nora shook her head.
“Mine is Moon.”
“All right. Lily and Snowball are waiting. We need to get Moon over there too.”
Nora considered this with the seriousness of a child deciding whether an adult deserved one last chance.
Then she crawled out.
Dominic removed his coat and wrapped it around her.
Victor finally opened the door.
He looked terrible.
Rainwater had darkened his shirt. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
Marco’s hand went under his jacket again.
Dominic stopped him.
“Not in front of her.”
Victor’s eyes flicked to Nora.
Shame crossed his face.
That interested Dominic.
“Downstairs route?” Sheriff Nolan shouted.
Victor shook his head.
“Gone. Kitchen wall collapsed.”
They used the window.
Nolan secured Nora into a rescue harness and lowered her to the boat.
Dominic followed.
Victor came last.
The farmhouse gave a low groan as if some enormous animal were waking beneath it.
The boat pulled away just before a section of the porch tore free and vanished into the flood.
Nora did not scream.
She sat between Dominic and Nolan, white-faced and rigid.
When the Moretti estate came into view, Lily was visible behind the glass.
She began jumping.
Claire pulled her back.
Nora stared.
“That’s really her.”
Dominic looked at the two rabbits.
“How do you know Lily?”
Nora’s expression closed.
“Mr. Gray showed me pictures.”
Victor looked away.
Dominic saw it.
When they reached high ground, paramedics took Nora immediately.
Claire wrapped a blanket around Lily and kept her several feet back.
Dominic stepped onto the lawn.
Lily ran toward him.
“Did you get her?”
“I got her.”
“Can I see?”
“When the doctor says.”
Lily spotted Victor being helped from the second boat.
“Uncle Victor?”
The title hit Dominic wrong.
Victor had earned that name through years of Sunday dinners and birthday gifts.
Now he stood on the lawn of Dominic’s home with a child he had helped keep hidden.
Dominic handed Lily to Claire.
“Take her inside.”
Claire read his face.
“What happened?”
“Not here.”
She nodded.
Nora refused to let the paramedic take Moon.
Lily approached slowly.
“Hi.”
Nora stared at her.
Lily held up Snowball.
“They look like twins.”
Nora’s mouth trembled.
Then she whispered, “You’re real.”
Lily frowned.
“Of course I’m real.”
Nora looked past her at Dominic.
“Mr. Gray said you were made up.”
No one spoke.
Victor sat on the edge of the ambulance with his head in his hands.
Dominic walked over.
“Who is Mr. Gray?”
Victor stared at the wet grass.
“Gavin Reece.”
Dominic knew the name.
Everybody in Chicago’s old criminal world did.
Reece had once handled books and political favors for Dominic’s father. He had disappeared five years earlier after being accused of stealing millions from three families at once.
Dominic had assumed he was dead.
“Reece is alive?”
Victor nodded.
“And you knew?”
“For six months.”
Dominic’s anger finally showed.
Marco stepped closer.
“Boss.”
Dominic did not need the warning.
He looked toward Lily and Nora.
Two little girls with matching rabbits.
One had grown up surrounded by guards.
The other had grown up being told the first one did not exist.
“Why was Nora in that house?”
Victor rubbed both hands over his face.
“Because her mother kept evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“Against Reece.”
“Where is her mother?”
Victor looked at him.
“I don’t know anymore.”
Dominic crouched until they were eye level.
“You have about ten seconds before I stop believing anything you say.”
Victor’s eyes reddened.
“I was trying to get them out.”
“By hiding a child in a condemned house during a flood?”
“It wasn’t supposed to flood.”
“That is not the defense you think it is.”
Victor looked toward Nora.
“She and Ava have been moved between safe houses for years.”
“Ava Bell.”
“Yes.”
The name struck something in Dominic’s memory.
A bookkeeper.
Young.
Quiet.
Brilliant with numbers.
She had vanished around the same time as Reece.
Everyone said she stole money and ran.
Dominic had signed the order freezing her accounts.
He had never seen her again.
“Ava is Nora’s mother?”
Victor nodded.
Dominic stood slowly.
“And Reece kept them?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then exactly.”
Victor swallowed.
“Ava escaped him two years ago. She started collecting proof. Reece found Nora before he found Ava.”
Dominic’s stomach turned.
“And you?”
“I found out six months ago.”
“You told me nothing.”
“I thought if I moved Nora quietly, I could use her to find Ava.”
Dominic stared.
“You used a child as bait.”
“No.”
“That sentence you’re about to say does not matter.”
Victor stood.
“You don’t understand. Ava’s evidence can destroy Reece’s whole network.”
Dominic looked toward the ambulance.
Nora sat under a blanket while Lily held Snowball next to Moon.
“I understand perfectly.”
Victor stepped closer.
“Boss—”
“Don’t call me that.”
Victor stopped.
Dominic’s voice remained calm.
“You do not get to hide behind loyalty after this.”
Victor’s face tightened.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“No. You were trying to solve a problem without telling me what it cost someone else.”
The words sounded familiar because Dominic had lived most of his life that way.
He hated them more for that reason.
A paramedic called from the ambulance.
“Mr. Moretti?”
Dominic turned.
Nora was holding something.
A small brass key.
She had pulled it from a slit in Moon’s stuffed belly.
“Mommy said,” Nora whispered, “if the water ever came, give this to Lily’s daddy.”
Dominic took the key.
A paper tag was tied to it with red thread.
Three handwritten words.
ST. AGNES. 214.
Victor went pale.
Dominic saw it.
“You know what this opens.”
May you like
Victor did not answer.
But this time Dominic did not need one.
