Chương 8
“Do you?”
“Not romantically.”
The correction hung between them.
Nora looked away first. “I did not come to interfere with your marriage.”
“But you came to the wedding.”
“Yes.”
“Knowing you carried information about his father.”
“Yes.”
“Knowing my father might react.”
“No.”
Celeste’s expression hardened. “Daniel warned you about him.”
“He warned me not to give Malcolm the envelope. He did not say Malcolm would recognize me.”
“You look like Ana.”
“People say I look like my father.”
“I saw photographs this morning.”
Nora said nothing.
Celeste sat in the chair beside the bed. “My father has known who you were since the quartet list was approved.”
“How?”
“He says he reviews all major event vendors.”
“Does he?”
“No.”
Nora felt cold despite the warm room.
Celeste continued. “Denise sent the musician names to his office three weeks ago. His assistant flagged yours.”
“Why wasn’t I removed then?”
“He says he assumed it was a coincidence.”
“You don’t believe him.”
“I believe my father recognizes threats before other people recognize a room.”
“Then why let me come?”
Celeste looked down at her bare ring finger. She had removed the engagement ring.
“Maybe he wanted to know what you carried.”
The envelope was no longer leverage. It was bait.
Nora reached for her phone and called the storage facility.
No one answered the office line.
She called again.
A recorded message said the facility was temporarily closed due to a police investigation involving unauthorized entry into several units.
Nora stood so fast the room tilted.
Celeste rose with her. “What is it?”
“The envelope.”
The Queens storage facility occupied a converted warehouse between an auto-body shop and a plumbing supplier. By the time Nora, Keisha, Lucas, Priya, and a private security contractor arrived, the police had reopened the front office but restricted access to the second floor.
The manager recognized Nora from the internet.
His eyes moved from her face to Lucas’s, then to the black SUV idling outside.
“I already told the officers,” he said. “Someone got in around four this morning. They cut six locks.”
“Which units?” Nora asked.
He checked a printed list.
Her unit was one of them.
The police officer taking reports would not allow Lucas’s security contractor upstairs. She allowed Nora, accompanied by Keisha.
The hallway smelled of dust, plywood, and overheated wiring. Nora’s lock lay on the concrete outside Unit 214. The door stood open three inches.
Inside, the damage appeared selective.
Boxes of winter clothing were untouched. Her mother’s dishes remained wrapped in newspaper. Two lamps stood against the wall. The violin stand Ana had used for thirty years leaned where Nora had left it.
The sewing cabinet had been pulled forward.
Its bottom drawer lay on the floor.
Nora knelt, ignoring the pain in her wrist, and reached beneath the cabinet.
The tape remained.
The envelope did not.
Keisha crouched beside her. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Could it have fallen?”
“No.”
The thief had known exactly where to look.
Nora sat back on her heels.
The police officer asked whether anyone knew the envelope’s location.
“No,” Nora said.
Then she remembered Daniel’s assistant.
The hospice visit had been arranged by a woman named Meredith Cole. After Daniel’s death, Meredith called Nora once to ask whether she had “secured what he gave her.” Nora, suspicious, said yes. Meredith then asked where. Nora refused to answer.
No one else knew.
Except Nora had not hidden the envelope until after that call. She had taken the wooden box and letter to the storage unit because her apartment had been crowded with hospice equipment Ana’s insurance company had not collected. The storage facility’s security log might show the visit.
A person with access to Nora’s location history could infer it.
A person who had followed her could know.
The officer photographed the cabinet.
“Anything else missing?” she asked.
Nora examined the shelves.
One plastic file box had been opened. Inside, Ana’s letters from Daniel were gone.
The bank statements remained.
So did the newspaper clippings.
The thief had taken only documents bearing Daniel’s handwriting.
Outside, Lucas waited beside the SUV.
When Nora told him, he closed his eyes.
Priya asked for the police report number and began making calls.
Keisha said, “This was not random.”
“No,” Nora answered.
Lucas stared at the warehouse. “My father’s assistant knew you had the envelope.”
“She knew he gave me something.”
“Meredith worked for him for nineteen years.”
“Where is she now?”
“Retired. Vermont, I think.”
Priya ended her call. “Meredith died in March.”
The news settled badly.
“How?” Lucas asked.
“Stroke.”
Nora looked toward the storage entrance. “Then someone else had access to her files.”
“Or she told someone,” Priya said.
Lucas’s phone rang. He looked at the screen and declined the call.
It rang again.
Malcolm.
He answered on speaker.
“Lucas,” Malcolm said. “I hear you are in Queens.”
No one moved.
Lucas’s face emptied.
“How did you hear that?”
“Your security team is not invisible.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to return to Manhattan before this circus causes further damage.”
“Someone broke into Nora’s storage unit.”
A pause too brief to be surprise.
“That is unfortunate.”
“They took Daniel’s letter.”
Malcolm breathed out.
Not relief exactly. Something close.
Nora stepped nearer the phone. “You already knew.”
“I know nothing about a burglary.”
“You knew the letter was there.”
“I knew you were attempting to use Daniel’s illness to manufacture a scandal.”
Lucas said, “What did the letter say?”
“I have no idea.”
“Then why are you afraid of it?”
Malcolm’s voice hardened. “Because a forged document attributed to a dead man can destroy institutions before it is disproved.”
“You keep calling it forged without seeing it.”
“I know your father. Near the end, he was vulnerable to suggestion.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I protected him from people who wanted pieces of him.”
“Did that include Ana Bell?”
Silence.
Then Malcolm said, “Come home.”
Lucas disconnected.
May you like
Nora watched the screen go dark.
“He called before the police report was filed,” she said.
