Chương 4
In a folder named HOME REPAIRS, Elena opened the only item investigators had dismissed as corrupted.
It contained seven lines of numbers and three initials.
VC.
AR.
MB.
The file had been modified the night of the fire.
Elena had spent two years trying to understand it. VC might have meant Victor Caruso, Adrian’s underboss and the chief operating officer of several Romano businesses. AR might have meant Adrian Romano. MB could have been Mateo himself, though his middle name was Luis.
There were dates beside each set of initials and amounts ranging from eight thousand dollars to two hundred and forty thousand.
At the bottom, Mateo had typed one sentence.
THE SOUTH DOCK TOTALS DON’T MATCH THE PAPER BOOKS.
Elena closed the laptop when Lily coughed in the bedroom.
For two years, she had told herself she wanted an answer. Some nights that was true. Other nights she wanted a person to blame because grief without a face was impossible to argue with.
Now she worked inside the home of one of the initials.
And he knew who she was.
The next morning, a photograph appeared on three phones before breakfast.
Daniel showed it to Marco in the security room. Marco carried it to Adrian. Mrs. Donnelly saw it when Adrian threw Daniel’s phone across the office and shattered it against the bookshelf.
By nine, Victor Caruso had arrived.
Elena knew none of this until she entered the kitchen and found Rosa staring at her own screen.
“What happened?” Elena asked.
Rosa turned the phone face down too late.
The image showed Adrian sitting on the rug with his eyes closed while Lily painted his face. Elena stood blurred in the background, one hand over her mouth. The photo had been taken from the doorway during the few seconds before she arrived.
A message above it read:
CHICAGO’S NEWEST CRIME BOSS GETS A MAKEOVER.
Elena felt cold under her blouse.
“Where did you get that?”
“My nephew sent it. It’s on some private channel. Then people copied it.”
“Who took it?”
Rosa shook her head. “Not me.”
Elena snatched up the phone and enlarged the image. The angle came from the doorway, slightly left of where Marco had stood. Daniel had been on the right.
The guards had both claimed their hands never moved.
A reflection in the gold frame showed the edge of a raised phone.
“Elena.”
Mrs. Donnelly stood behind her.
“Mr. Romano wants you and Lily in the breakfast room.”
“Lily isn’t here.”
Mrs. Donnelly blinked.
“My cousin took her to preschool.”
The older woman looked relieved, then worried by her own relief.
“Go now.”
Victor Caruso was leaning against the breakfast-room mantel when Elena entered. He was shorter than Adrian, almost fifty, with silver at his temples and an expensive navy suit that looked soft enough to sleep in. His public reputation was cleaner. He sponsored neighborhood festivals, donated to Catholic schools, and appeared in photographs shaking hands with aldermen. Mateo had once called him the kind of man who remembered everybody’s children because information was cheaper than loyalty.
Adrian stood near the windows. Marco and Daniel waited by the door. Daniel’s lower lip was split.
The photograph lay printed on the table.
Victor smiled at Elena without warmth. “The artist’s mother.”
She did not answer.
Adrian turned from the rain. A small muscle moved in his jaw.
“Where is your daughter?”
“At preschool.”
“Which one?”
Elena looked at him. “Why?”
Victor laughed quietly. “Because a picture of her humiliating one of the most recognizable men in this city is being passed around by people who don’t handle humor well.”
“She’s three.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Adrian’s gaze shifted to Victor. “Let me speak.”
Victor raised both hands and moved away from the mantel.
Adrian pointed to the photograph. “Who took this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were in the room.”
“I had just entered.”
“Did you see a phone?”
“No.”
“Did your daughter?”
“I haven’t asked.”
Daniel shifted his weight.
Adrian looked at him. “You said your phone was in your jacket.”
“It was.”
“Marco searched your jacket.”
“It was there.”
“After you left the room.”
Daniel’s face reddened. “I didn’t take the picture.”
Victor folded his arms. “The image is already out. The more useful question is how we stop it from becoming a larger problem.”
Elena looked at Adrian. “What kind of larger problem?”
No one answered immediately.
Victor pulled out a chair and sat. “People in Adrian’s position spend years teaching others how to see them. A photograph can undo work.”
“He was kind to a child.”
“That is not how they’ll describe it.”
“How will they describe it?”
“Weakness.”
The casual certainty in his voice sickened her.
Adrian placed both hands on the table. “The preschool’s name.”
Elena hesitated.
“Saint Agnes Early Learning Center.”
Marco left the room at once.
“What is he doing?” she asked.
“Sending two people to watch the entrances.”
“You can’t put armed men outside a preschool.”
“They’ll be in a car.”
“That doesn’t make it normal.”
“Normal stopped being available when that photograph left this house.”
She looked at Daniel.
He met her gaze, then looked away.
Victor noticed. “You think he took it.”
“I think the reflection shows a phone near where he stood.”
Daniel stepped forward. “I told you—”
Adrian raised one hand. Daniel stopped.
Marco returned. “Car’s on the way.”
Adrian nodded.
Elena’s breath shortened. “I’m picking Lily up.”
“No.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“And someone may use her to reach me.”
“She has nothing to do with you.”
Victor smiled faintly. “That photograph says otherwise.”
Elena turned on him. “She painted his face. She didn’t join a criminal organization.”
The silence that followed was so complete she heard the rainwater moving through the gutter outside.
Victor’s smile disappeared.
Adrian’s expression remained unreadable.
Elena realized she had said the quiet part aloud in a room where silence was an employment requirement.
May you like
“I’m sorry,” she said, though she was not.
Adrian straightened. “Marco will take you to the school. You’ll bring Lily here.”
