For One Hundred Seven Nights, He Stopped Outside Her Door and Said Nothing

Raphael stumbled.

She turned and caught him by the shirt. One of his buttons tore free and struck the floor.

“Sit.”

“We don’t have time.”

“You’ll have less if you fall unconscious.”

He sat on an overturned wooden crate. Elena checked his pulse, asked him his name, the date, and where they were. He answered correctly, though he called the president by the name of a dead New York Yankees manager before correcting himself.

“Was that a joke?” she asked.

“I hoped it was.”

“It wasn’t good.”

“I’m poisoned.”

“You were not funny before.”

He nodded as if accepting a medical assessment.

She loosened his shirt at the throat and listened to his breathing. Without equipment, without a blood pressure cuff or monitor, she was working in darkness both literal and professional. Her fingers felt too small for the responsibility.

“I’m calling Poison Control,” she said.

“No names.”

“They won’t care about your criminal politics.”

“Vale will monitor the call.”

“This is your phone.”

“He monitors my phone.”

Elena took out her own. No service underground.

Raphael pointed toward an old junction box. “Landline in the cellar.”

“Monitored?”

“Probably.”

“Everything in this house is probably monitored.”

“Yes.”

“How do you live like that?”

“I don’t recommend it.”

They continued.

The corridor opened into the original wine cellar, a low brick room lined with empty racks. The Orsini family kept its actual wine in a climate-controlled room upstairs. This space smelled of dust, earth, and old cork.

A single bare bulb glowed above a workbench.

Samuel Pike stood beneath it.

Elena stopped so abruptly Raphael walked into her back.

Pike had removed his earpiece. His pistol was in his hand, pointed toward the floor.

“Close the passage,” he said.

Elena did not move.

Pike looked at Raphael. “You look terrible.”

“I employ observant people.”

“You employed Vale. Don’t congratulate yourself.”

Raphael leaned against the wall. “Are you here to help him or me?”

“I’m here because my earpiece stopped being a useful source of information.”

Pike turned it over in his gloved palm. “Vale ordered the east team to search the gatehouse. There’s nobody at the gatehouse. He ordered the west team to disable the exterior cameras. Then he told me to bring Miss Marlowe to the study if I found her.”

“What did you tell him?” Elena asked.

“That you threatened me with a copper kettle and escaped through a window.”

Despite everything, she looked at the ceiling. “There is no window in that kitchen.”

“He knows that. It was criticism.”

“Why did you say the room was clear?”

Pike’s face gave little away. “Because Mr. Orsini pays me.”

“That has not stopped the others.”

“No.”

“And?”

Pike glanced toward the passage as if checking for movement.

“My son is sixteen,” he said. “Last month, Vale asked him whether he still took the same route home from school.”

Raphael straightened.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I was deciding whether telling you would make him safer.”

Pike’s gaze returned to Elena. “That decision took too long.”

She understood the confession inside the sentence. Cowardice did not always look like fleeing. Sometimes it looked like staying employed for one more day.

“Can you get us to the music room?” she asked.

“No. Vale has six men upstairs and two in the courtyard. Dominic Orsini is in the main study with the family attorney’s junior partner. They’re drafting something.”

“What?” Raphael asked.

“A medical incapacity notice, I think. They intend to announce you entered treatment after an overdose. By sunrise, Dominic controls the holding companies. By tomorrow afternoon, Vale controls Dominic.”

Raphael’s expression barely changed, but his hand flattened against the wall.

Pike continued. “An ambulance has been called to the service entrance. Not a city unit. Private transport.”

“For a body?” Elena asked.

“For a patient who won’t reach a hospital.”

Raphael looked at the old dumbwaiter opening in the far wall.

“The safe,” he said.

Pike shook his head. “You won’t make it.”

“He may not have to,” Elena said. “Tell me how to open the drawer.”

Raphael explained.

The concealed drawer was built into the underside of the library’s west desk. The ring’s crest fit a shallow brass impression beneath the center panel. Turned clockwise, it released a spring latch. Inside was a small steel key marked with a number.

“The music room safe is behind the second bass panel,” he said. “The key opens the outer door. The inner combination is Daniel’s birthday.”

Elena stared at him.

“November third,” he said. “Nineteen ninety-four.”

“You memorized it.”

“Yes.”

Pike watched the two of them without comment.

Elena placed the specimen bag, glass, phone, and handkerchief inside her textbook, then tied the robe tighter at her waist.

“I’ll go.”

“No,” Raphael said.

“You cannot.”

“I said no.”

“And I heard you.”

Pike stepped between them. “Vale’s people know her face.”

“They know yours too,” Elena said.

“They expect me to move through the house. They do not expect you.”

“They also don’t expect a housemaid to enter the library during a security emergency.”

“That is why they’ll stop you.”

Elena looked at his gloves. “Take those off.”

Pike glanced down.

“Why?”

“House staff don’t wear leather gloves indoors. Give me your jacket and earpiece.”

“You’ll look like a child wearing her father’s suit.”

“I’m five foot seven.”

“You’re barefoot.”

She looked at Raphael’s shoes.

“No,” Raphael said.

“Again, not your decision.”

His shoes were too large, but dry socks from an old laundry cabinet and folded dishcloths stuffed into the toes made them usable. Pike gave her his jacket. The shoulders hung wide, and the sleeves reached her knuckles until she rolled them twice. She pinned her hair under a black knit cap found on the workbench.

None of it made her look like a guard. It made her look like someone hoping darkness would do the rest.