Chapter 4 - The Bullet Through the Window
Gabriel refused to tell me who the woman was.
That lasted exactly forty-eight hours.
Then I fell on him.
It was movie night.
Gabriel had completed therapy without threatening anyone, which qualified as a national holiday.
I wore pink pajama pants covered in cats.
He looked personally offended.
“You dress like a twelve-year-old.”
“You own six identical black sweaters.”
“They’re not identical.”
“They are black.”
“One is cashmere.”
“Tragic.”
I carried popcorn around his desk.
My slipper caught the Persian rug.
The tray flew.
Popcorn exploded.
I landed across Gabriel’s lap.
The wheelchair tipped.
We crashed onto the rug.
Then the window cracked.
A perfect round hole appeared in the glass.
The bullet buried itself in Gabriel’s leather chair.
Where his head had been.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then alarms screamed.
Gabriel grabbed my waist and pulled me flat.
“That bullet was meant for me.”
My teeth began chattering.
“I’m sorry.”
His expression hardened.
“For saving my life?”
Another shot hit the exterior stone.
Vincent and two guards burst inside.
They barricaded us behind the desk.
Gabriel kept one arm around me.
Not because he needed protection.
Because I was shaking.
Security found the sniper’s position forty minutes later.
Empty.
But the shooter had left something behind.
A brass casing.
On it, scratched by hand, was a single letter.
M.
Gabriel stared at it.
Then he finally told me about the death certificate.
The woman’s name was Maria Moretti.
His mother.
She had supposedly died eight years earlier.
Now someone using her identity was receiving money from Moretti accounts.
More than twelve million dollars.
The transfers began two weeks before Gabriel was shot.
We checked the dates.
Every transfer occurred on Thursday.
My stomach went cold.
Then Vincent entered carrying a security tablet.
“We found how the shooter knew where Gabriel would be.”
He showed us footage from the study.
Someone had moved the curtains that afternoon.
Someone inside the house had marked Gabriel’s usual chair position.
The person’s face never appeared.
Only one hand.
A silver ring.
Gabriel stared.
I had seen that ring.
Carmine wore it.
Then the footage jumped.
Three minutes disappeared.
When the image returned, a second person stood in the study.
A woman in blue scrubs.
Marissa.
She turned toward the camera.
Raised a piece of paper.
And wrote three words.
HE KNOWS EVERYTHING.
Then the screen went black.
Gabriel whispered, “Who knows?”
Vincent enlarged the final frame.
Behind Marissa, reflected faintly in the window, stood a man.
Not Carmine.
Gabriel leaned closer.
His face changed.
“Impossible.”
I looked at him.
“Who is it?”
He pointed at the reflection.
“My father.”
Gabriel’s father had been dead for twelve years.
Before anyone could speak, the study phone rang.
Gabriel answered.
Nobody spoke.
Then a recording began.
A man’s voice.
Old.
Rough.
Familiar to Gabriel.
“If you are hearing this, son, Carmine has already tried to kill you.”
Gabriel stopped breathing.
The voice continued.
“And the person you trust most helped him.”
May you like
The recording clicked.
A name began to play...
