Chapter 6 - The Key Beneath the Stairs
I went to Haven House.
I did not go alone.
I also did not bring Lorenzo through the front door.
There was a difference.
The police liaison established a perimeter two blocks away. Lorenzo entered through an old maintenance tunnel Rosa remembered from childhood.
I walked through the front entrance carrying the brass key.
Ethan waited in the lobby.
“Always dramatic,” he said.
“You kidnapped your fiancée.”
“Camille made choices.”
“So did you.”
He searched me.
No phone.
No recorder.
The recorder was sewn into my blouse.
He didn't find it.
He led me toward the central staircase.
Camille sat tied to a chair.
Her lip was bleeding.
Gabriel Moretti stood beside her.
He was in his sixties.
Gray hair.
Expensive coat.
No visible weapon.
He looked less like a criminal than most bankers I had met.
“Maya Bennett.”
“Gabriel Moretti.”
“You have your mother's eyes.”
“You don't get to talk about her.”
Something changed in his expression.
“She was difficult.”
“Good.”
A small smile.
“I see.”
He pointed toward the staircase.
“Your mother helped Antonio hide something beneath there.”
“The ledger.”
Ethan's face changed.
He hadn't known.
Interesting.
Gabriel had kept information from him too.
I held up the key.
“Camille leaves first.”
“No.”
“Then you don't get this.”
Gabriel considered me.
Ethan snapped, “Take it from her.”
Gabriel didn't move.
“That is why you'll always work for men like me, Ethan.”
Ethan stiffened.
“You see force as the first answer.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Your mother didn't.”
He untied Camille himself.
She stumbled toward me.
“Go,” I whispered.
Ethan grabbed her.
Gabriel said one word.
“Release.”
Ethan obeyed.
Camille ran.
Good.
One person out.
I approached the staircase.
The foundation stone bearing my mother's name had a small brass opening.
The key fit.
A hidden compartment released.
Inside was a metal box.
Gabriel inhaled.
Twenty years.
He had been waiting twenty years for that sound.
I pulled out the box.
“Open it,” he said.
“No.”
Ethan stepped forward.
“Open it.”
A voice came from the darkness behind him.
“She said no.”
Lorenzo.
Ethan spun.
Gabriel didn't.
He smiled.
“Antonio's son.”
“Not yours to call me that.”
Gabriel finally turned.
“You still stand like him.”
“And you still hide behind other men.”
Police sirens sounded outside.
Gabriel's smile disappeared.
Ethan panicked.
“You said there wouldn't be police.”
“I said there shouldn't be.”
That distinction broke their alliance.
Ethan lunged for the box.
I pulled it back.
Lorenzo intercepted him.
One movement.
Ethan hit the floor.
Lorenzo could have struck him again.
He didn't.
He stepped away.
Police entered.
Gabriel raised his hands.
Calm.
Too calm.
Inside the metal box was no ledger.
Only a note.
Rosa read it later.
IF GABRIEL FOUND THIS, HE FOUND THE WRONG BOX.
Underneath was a second message.
MAYA WILL KNOW WHERE HOME REALLY IS.
Everyone looked at me.
I didn't understand.
Then I remembered.
My mother never called the shelter home.
Home was what she called our tiny apartment afterward.
The apartment where she rebuilt her life.
The apartment I still owned.
I drove there with Lorenzo and Rosa.
Nothing had changed.
Old furniture.
Old photographs.
My mother's sewing machine.
I searched until sunset.
Nothing.
Then I looked at the paper privacy screen she had made.
The same pattern I used in Haven House.
One panel was thicker.
I cut it open.
A small key fell into my palm.
Not brass.
Silver.
A storage-unit number was engraved on it.
C-19.
Rosa whispered, “I know that place.”
We reached the storage facility after dark.
Unit C-19 had not been opened in twenty-two years.
I inserted the key.
The door rolled upward.
Boxes filled the room.
At the back sat an old drafting table.
On it rested a black ledger.
And beside the ledger was a photograph of my mother holding my hand.
Someone had recently placed it there.
The dust around the photograph was disturbed.
Lorenzo touched my arm.
“We're not alone.”
A phone began ringing inside the unit.
An old landline.
Impossible.
There wasn't supposed to be service.
I picked it up.
A man spoke.
“Maya?”
“Yes?”
“You found Antonio's ledger.”
My hand tightened around the receiver.
May you like
“Who is this?”
The man answered with a name Lorenzo had spent twenty years believing belonged to a dead man...
