Chương 8
Unknown: Then Dominic may not know.
E: Or he knows and wants distance.
Unknown: You said he loves her.
E: Love is not evidence of innocence.
The final message arrived the night Eva recorded the voice note for Nora.
Unknown: Meeting confirmed. Foundation, 11 p.m. Bring the blue file. Use the east alley. I will give the October phrase.
Eva had responded:
No phrase. Sing the song.
Nora read it twice.
“The meeting contact knew the song,” she said.
“Who had this number?” Ruiz asked.
Pike shook his head.
Dominic took the phone. “Eva arranged to meet someone who claimed to be helping her. She created a verification test using the lullaby.”
“And Marcus knew the test because he had the nursery bugged,” Nora said.
“Or because the contact was Marcus,” Ruiz replied.
Dominic scrolled through the contacts. “Can you trace the number?”
“It’s a relay service. We’ll send it to the lab.”
Pike had found what he was looking for: an old appointment calendar.
“Eva met me January ninth,” he said. “She deposited the box afterward. She told me she planned to speak with a federal investigator.”
Dominic’s head lifted.
Pike looked uncomfortable. “She did not provide a name.”
“You knew she was speaking to the government.”
“I knew she was considering it.”
“And you said nothing.”
“Attorney-client privilege does not dissolve because you dislike it.”
Dominic stepped toward him.
Nora remained on the floor, holding the charger. “Don’t make Marcus right about you.”
The sentence stopped him.
Pike adjusted his glasses. “Mrs. Rosetti did not want to destroy you. She wanted leverage to leave safely with Lily.”
Dominic’s face changed.
“Leave?”
Pike looked at Nora as if asking permission to continue. Nora could give none.
“She had prepared separation documents,” he said. “They were in the blue folder.”
Dominic sat down.
The room became ordinary around his grief. A radiator knocked in the wall. Someone laughed in the reception area. Pike’s desk clock ticked with a tiny mechanical impatience.
Nora had seen Dominic angry, commanding, suspicious, and tender. She had not seen him embarrassed.
He looked at his hands.
“She told me we were repairing things.”
“Perhaps she hoped you were,” Pike said.
Dominic’s voice remained low. “Did she plan to take Lily without telling me?”
“She planned to ask a court for emergency protection based on evidence in the folder.”
“What evidence?”
“I did not review all of it.”
“You wrote the documents.”
“I wrote options. She had not filed them.”
Dominic stood again, but there was no threat in the movement now. “Marcus killed her before she could decide.”
Nora unplugged the phone. “Or before she could show the file to the investigator.”
Ruiz’s phone rang.
She listened, asked two questions, then looked at Dominic.
“Bellini’s body was found in the utility vehicle.”
“Marcus killed him,” Dominic said.
“Shot once in the back of the head. Vehicle abandoned in Queens.”
The man who had freed Marcus had become another loose end.
Ruiz added, “Bellini received four payments from a shell company connected to Marcus. He also accessed the hospital employee database yesterday.”
Dominic looked at the message demanding the blue folder.
“Midnight,” he said.
Ruiz crossed her arms. “You are not going alone.”
“I’m not bringing police.”
“You called the police this morning.”
“Nora made me.”
Nora rose from the floor. “And now she’s making you again.”
He looked at her. “Marcus will see surveillance.”
“Then let him see what he expects.”
“He expects me.”
“He expects you angry, isolated, and unwilling to involve authorities. That is why he chose you.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “What are you proposing?”
Nora held up Eva’s phone. “Give him what he thinks he wants.”
They created a blue folder from Pike’s office supplies and filled it with copies of financial pages already documented by police. Ruiz’s team placed a tracking device inside the binding and treated the folder for prints.
The real flash drives remained in police custody.
Dominic objected to every element of the operation. He objected to the listening device Ruiz wanted him to wear, to the unmarked vehicles positioned beyond the alley, to the arrest team waiting inside the music foundation, and to Nora’s presence anywhere within five miles.
Marcus sent another message at nine.
Bring Nora after all. She opens the box.
“He doesn’t know it is already open,” Nora said.
“He knows you have the bracelet.”
“He may believe there’s another lock.”
Dominic deleted the message from his screen before remembering that police had mirrored the phone.
“You’re not coming.”
Nora looked at Ruiz. “Does he have the authority to decide that?”
“No.”
Dominic turned on the detective. “If Marcus shoots her, that becomes your procedure?”
Ruiz answered evenly. “Ms. Vale is a civilian and cannot be compelled to participate. She also cannot be confined because you object.”
Nora said, “Marcus wants me because he thinks Eva told me something.”
“She did,” Dominic replied.
“Not what he needs.”
“He may kill you to confirm that.”
“He tried to kill Lily in a hospital bed because he believed a five-year-old remembered a song. He is not going to stop because we lock the doors.”
Dominic moved close enough that Ruiz’s partner shifted near the hallway.
Nora did not step back.
“You think fear is a moral failure,” he said.
“No. I think pretending we can avoid fear by obeying it is.”
“You ignored Eva’s message because you were afraid.”
The words landed where he intended.
Nora looked at him. “Yes.”
He seemed to regret using them, but did not take them back.
“I left her alone,” Nora said. “I saw her name on my screen, and I thought about your men, your money, the stories people told about what happened to anyone who interfered with this family. I told myself she was dramatic. I told myself she would call again if it mattered.”
Dominic’s voice softened. “Nora.”
“She did call again.”
May you like
He became still.
“The night she died. I had blocked the number after the voice message.”
