Chương 4
“He said I threatened him.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
Elena’s anger faltered.
Teresa met her eyes.
“I told him that if he kept using Nico to carry messages for men who worked around the produce market, I would make sure he never saw either of you again.”
“Nico was fifteen.”
“Fourteen.”
The correction came softly.
Elena felt suddenly cold.
“What messages?”
“Envelopes, mostly.”
“You knew?”
“I found out.”
“And you threatened Dad.”
“I did more than threaten him.”
Teresa’s mouth tightened.
“That was the problem.”
Elena waited.
Teresa did not continue.
“One revelation at a time?”
“This isn’t entertainment.”
“No, apparently it’s my family.”
The swinging door at the end of the corridor opened.
Anthony stepped through alone.
He had put the wallet away.
Teresa moved in front of Elena again.
Anthony stopped several yards away and held up his empty hands.
“I’m not here to hurt either of you.”
“You already put your hands on her,” Teresa said.
“I stopped her from taking photographs.”
“You took her phone.”
“Because she photographed something that can get her killed.”
Elena leaned around Teresa.
“Then give it back.”
Anthony looked at her.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s gone.”
Teresa became very still.
“Gone where?”
Anthony hesitated.
“That’s why I came back upstairs.”
Elena’s pulse climbed.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the phone was taken from me in the parking garage.”
Teresa studied him.
“By whom?”
“If I knew, this conversation would be different.”
“You expect me to believe someone robbed you?”
Anthony’s jaw flexed.
“I expect you to understand that I wouldn’t be standing here admitting it unless we had a serious problem.”
Teresa said nothing.
Anthony looked past her toward Elena.
“What did you photograph?”
“You had the phone.”
“I saw three images before I was interrupted.”
“Interrupted by what?”
“A car alarm.”
Elena almost laughed.
Anthony did not.
“When I looked away, somebody hit me from behind.”
Only then did Elena notice the darkening bruise near his left temple.
“Your two friends?”
“Not my friends.”
“Who are they?”
“Federal contractors.”
Teresa gave a quiet, contemptuous sound.
Anthony looked at her.
“You can dislike the term all you want.”
“I dislike men who borrow authority they don’t possess.”
“They’re investigators working for counsel.”
“Whose counsel?”
Anthony did not answer.
Teresa nodded once, as though the silence confirmed something.
Elena stepped around her grandmother.
“I photographed Nico’s car.”
Anthony’s attention snapped back to her.
“In the garage?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because there was blood on the passenger door.”
“What else?”
“A truck parked beside it.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“White box truck.”
“Company markings?”
“Calderone Produce.”
Anthony exhaled.
“And?”
Elena remembered standing beneath the garage lights while the paramedics rushed Nico toward the elevator.
She had seen the blood first.
Then the open passenger door.
Then a man in a work jacket walking quickly away from the truck.
She had raised her phone because some instinct told her that if she did not preserve what she was seeing, somebody would later tell her she had imagined it.
“There was a man.”
Anthony’s face tightened.
“Did you get his face?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“He turned when I took the picture.”
Teresa looked at Anthony.
“Who?”
“I need to see the photograph.”
“You lost the photograph.”
“I lost the phone.”
Elena frowned.
“It uploads automatically.”
Both of them turned toward her.
She almost enjoyed that.
“My photos back up to the cloud.”
Anthony took one step forward.
Teresa blocked him.
“Where can you access them?”
Elena looked from one to the other.
“My laptop.”
“Where is it?” Anthony asked.
“My apartment.”
Teresa immediately said, “No.”
Anthony ignored her.
“Who has access to your apartment?”
“Nobody.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Roommate?”
“No.”
“Building staff?”
“There’s a super.”
“Key access?”
“Yes.”
Teresa was already dialing.
Elena caught her wrist.
“Who now?”
“Someone who can check the building.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“No more people.”
“You would rather go yourself?”
“I would rather know who you’re bringing into my life.”
Teresa lowered the phone.
For the first time, irritation broke through her control.
“They are already in your life.”
The words struck harder than Teresa seemed to intend.
Silence followed.
Anthony looked toward the corridor entrance.
“We shouldn’t stay here.”
Elena turned to him.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do either.”
“Fine.”
He rubbed the bruise at his temple.
“Stay here and argue until whoever took your phone gets into your account.”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
“They can’t.”
“Passcode?”
“Yes.”
“Good one?”
She hesitated.
Anthony closed his eyes briefly.
“What?”
“It’s six digits.”
“Birthday?”
“No.”
“Your brother’s?”
Elena said nothing.
Teresa muttered something in Italian that Elena had not heard since she was twelve.
Anthony held out his hand.
“Give me the other phone.”
“No.”
“We need to lock your account.”
“I can do it.”
“Then do it.”
Elena took Teresa’s phone and opened a browser.
Her hands were shaking enough that she mistyped the address twice.
The login page appeared.
She entered her email and password.
A notification filled the screen.
New sign-in detected.
Elena stared at the location beneath it.
Anthony read over her shoulder.
Teresa did too.
The access had occurred four minutes earlier.
From Elena’s apartment.
Nobody spoke.
Then Teresa took back her phone.
“We’re not going there.”
“My laptop is there.”
“That laptop no longer matters.”
“The photographs do.”
“So does staying alive.”
Elena looked through the small window in the corridor door toward the treatment wing where Nico lay.
“If that picture shows who hurt him, I’m getting it.”
Anthony shook his head.
“You’re not listening.”
“No, I’m done listening to people who only tell me enough to make me obey.”
She pushed past him.
Teresa caught up before she reached the swinging door.
“Elena.”
“What?”
Her grandmother’s face had lost its hardness.
What remained was older and more frightening.
“I know the address connected to that login.”
Elena stopped.
“You just said it was my apartment.”
“It is now.”
May you like
“What does that mean?”
Teresa looked at Anthony, and something passed between them that Elena could not read.
