Chapter 5 - Locker 417
Matteo noticed the headlights before his driver did.
“Black sedan. Two hundred yards back.”
The driver checked the mirror. “I see it.”
Grace, seated beside Mia in the rear, looked over her shoulder.
“Is it them?”
“Don’t know.”
Matteo’s voice was calm enough that Mia barely looked up from the stuffed rabbit in her lap.
The second security vehicle dropped back.
The sedan accelerated.
Matteo watched the distance close.
“Take the next exit.”
Their SUV left the highway. The black sedan followed.
Grace’s hand moved instinctively across Mia’s chest.
Mia noticed. “Are we playing a game?”
Matteo turned toward her.
“Yes.”
Grace looked at him.
He continued, “A boring car game. You and Grace are going to count red lights. Whoever sees ten first wins.”
Mia brightened. “What do I win?”
“Breakfast.”
“I already get breakfast.”
Matteo almost smiled. “Then you’re an excellent negotiator.”
The SUV turned again.
The trailing sedan stayed with them.
Matteo’s phone vibrated. His guard in the rear vehicle sent one line.
PLATES ARE FALSE.
He typed back: DO NOT ENGAGE. IDENTIFY.
Grace read his face. “Matteo.”
“It’s handled.”
“Don’t say that when it isn’t.”
Mia called, “One red light!”
Grace forced a smile. “Good eye.”
The black sedan suddenly turned away.
No attack. No confrontation.
That bothered Matteo more.
They had not been trying to stop him.
They had been confirming where he was going.
He changed the plan immediately.
Instead of Union Station, the convoy drove to a twenty-four-hour diner near O’Hare. Matteo ordered pancakes for Mia while Grace sat across from him in a booth that smelled like coffee and syrup.
“You’re waiting them out,” she said.
“I’m changing the pattern.”
“You live like this all the time?”
“No.”
She looked unconvinced.
“Most of the time,” he admitted.
Mia poured too much syrup on her pancakes.
Grace reached for the bottle.
Matteo stopped her. “Let her.”
Grace blinked.
He shrugged. “We’re being followed by people connected to a three-year-old murder. She can have extra syrup.”
Mia grinned.
For a moment, it was almost funny.
At 4:40 a.m., Matteo sent one decoy vehicle toward downtown and another toward the estate. At 5:15, he drove the final miles to Union Station in an ordinary gray sedan borrowed from a trusted garage owner.
Mia fell asleep again before they arrived.
Grace stayed with her in the car while Matteo entered the station with one guard.
The great hall was nearly empty.
His footsteps echoed beneath the vaulted ceiling.
Locker 417 was in an older storage corridor scheduled for renovation. Matteo had not seen it in years.
He inserted his key.
It turned.
Inside was a metal cash box, a child’s red mitten, and a sealed envelope with his name written across the front.
MATTEO.
His hands stopped.
The handwriting was Elena’s.
He carried the box into a private maintenance office his guard had cleared.
For the first time since her funeral, Matteo was afraid to touch something his wife had left behind.
He opened the envelope.
The letter was short.
Matteo,
If you are reading this, then I was right to be afraid or wrong in a way I can no longer explain. Either way, please do one thing before you seek revenge: be Mia’s father first.
Do not turn her childhood into the price of loving me.
I think someone close to us is using your fear to control you. I found payments from one of our transportation companies to Raymond Cole. The transfers were approved through Dominic’s office, but that does not prove Dominic ordered them. It proves you need to ask questions before you choose an enemy.
There is a voice recorder under the false bottom of this box. I recorded a conversation I was not meant to hear. Listen alone.
And Matteo—if Grace Bennett ever finds you, trust that she tried. She was my friend before this family taught me to be suspicious of everyone.
Love Mia in daylight.
Elena
Matteo read the final sentence twice.
Love Mia in daylight.
He had loved his daughter through locked gates, armored cars, private schools, guards, trusts, doctors, and rules. He had loved her through protection.
Elena had known that protection could become another kind of absence.
He lifted the false bottom.
A small digital recorder lay underneath.
He pressed play.
Static crackled.
Then Elena’s voice filled the room.
Matteo closed his eyes.
Three years vanished.
At first, the recording captured ordinary office noise. Papers. A door. Then a man spoke.
Dominic.
“You changed the driver?”
A second male voice answered.
“Yes.”
Matteo did not recognize it.
Dominic said, “I told you to change the route, not the driver.”
“The driver wouldn’t cooperate.”
“What does that mean?”
“He knows enough to become a problem.”
Dominic swore.
Then came the sentence Matteo would remember for the rest of his life.
“No one touches Elena. Do you understand me? This is about Matteo’s schedule, not hers.”
The unidentified man replied, “Schedules overlap.”
The recording ended.
Matteo sat absolutely still.
Dominic had lied.
But the recording did not prove he had ordered Elena’s death.
It proved something messier.
Dominic had been running an operation involving routes and drivers behind Matteo’s back, and someone else had turned it deadly.
The guard at the door said, “Sir?”
Matteo looked up.
“Find Raymond Cole’s financials. Everything. Family, debts, accounts, funeral records. And identify the second voice.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Matteo returned to the car, Grace knew from his face that he had found something.
“What was in the locker?”
He handed her Elena’s letter.
Grace read it with one hand over her mouth.
Mia slept between them, curled beneath Matteo’s coat.
When Grace reached the final line, tears slipped down her cheeks.
“Love Mia in daylight,” she whispered.
Matteo looked through the windshield at the first gray light of morning.
“I failed her.”
Grace folded the letter carefully. “You failed at part of it.”
He turned to her.
“That isn’t the same as being beyond repair.”
He studied her face.
“You always talk to people like that?”
“I used to be a nurse.”
“You told dying people they had room for improvement?”
“Only the difficult ones.”
Something almost warm passed between them.
Then Matteo’s phone rang.
Thomas Bell.
He answered.
“Sir,” Thomas said, breathless, “you need to come back.”
“What happened?”
“It’s your mother.”
Matteo straightened.
“Is she hurt?”
“No. But Dominic is gone.”
Matteo’s eyes narrowed.
“Gone where?”
“We don’t know. He disabled his tracker, emptied his office, and took two security men.”
A pause.
Then Thomas added, “And Mrs. Moretti says she knows the man on Elena’s recording.”
Matteo’s blood chilled.
“Who?”
Thomas lowered his voice.
“She says it’s your father’s old consigliere.”
Matteo stopped breathing.
May you like
His father’s old consigliere had been dead for eighteen months.
At least, that was what the family had buried.
