Chapter 2 - A Photograph Taken After the Funeral
Josephine remained completely still.
“Joseph?” she whispered.
The call disconnected.
Behind her, the floor creaked again.
She turned.
Robert stood near the doorway.
His jacket was gone.
His bow tie hung loose around his neck.
“You’re still here?”
Josephine studied him.
Had he been the person Joseph warned her about?
“Why did you come back?”
“I forgot my phone.”
Robert lifted it from a side table.
Josephine glanced at her own screen.
The call from Joseph was still there.
Incoming call.
Eleven seconds.
Proof.
Unless someone had cloned his number.
Robert noticed her expression.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Maybe I have.
Josephine forced herself to breathe normally.
“I’m tired.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
“No.”
“Josephine.”
“I said no.”
Something hard appeared in Robert’s eyes before disappearing.
“Fine.”
He kissed her forehead.
She nearly flinched.
“Lock the doors.”
“I will.”
Robert left.
Josephine waited five minutes.
Then ten.
She checked every room on the main floor before returning to the ballroom.
The mansion had belonged to Joseph.
He bought it shortly after their marriage, claiming he wanted a place large enough for family dinners.
Josephine used to tease him about the twenty-two rooms they never entered.
Tonight, the house felt full of secrets.
She sat at the table.
She examined Dante’s photograph again.
Joseph outside the brick building.
Four days ago.
There was something else in the image.
A street sign.
She enlarged the photo.
MORGAN.
Morgan Street.
Chicago.
She opened a map.
The building stood less than two miles from Hotel Lexington.
That could not be coincidence.
Josephine grabbed her coat.
She did not call Robert.
At 11:48 p.m., she parked across from Hotel Lexington.
The place was not glamorous.
Seven stories.
Old stone façade.
A narrow brass entrance.
No valet.
No doorman.
Josephine stepped inside.
The lobby clerk barely looked at her.
“Room 814?”
He paused.
“There is no eighth floor.”
Josephine stared.
“What?”
“Seven floors.”
She placed the brass key on the desk.
The clerk looked at it.
His expression changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“My husband.”
“What husband?”
“Joseph Miller.”
The clerk immediately pushed the key back.
“You need to leave.”
Josephine leaned closer.
“What does 814 mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You reacted.”
“You should go.”
Before she could answer, the elevator doors opened.
Dante Moretti stepped out.
Josephine nearly laughed from disbelief.
“Are you following me?”
Dante checked his watch.
“You’re late.”
“You knew I’d come.”
“I hoped.”
“The clerk says there is no eighth floor.”
“There isn’t.”
“Then what is this?”
He picked up the key.
“Basement.”
Josephine stared.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if the person numbering the rooms wanted strangers looking in the wrong direction.”
Dante pressed the elevator button.
The clerk looked away.
The elevator descended below the lobby.
B1.
B2.
Then an unmarked level.
The doors opened.
A corridor stretched ahead.
Concrete walls.
Old pipes.
One metal door.
Josephine’s pulse raced.
Dante handed her the key.
“You open it.”
“Why?”
“Joseph left it for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I helped him rent the room.”
Josephine inserted the key.
The lock clicked.
Inside was a small apartment.
Not a hotel room.
A bed.
Desk.
Laptop.
Stacks of documents.
Photographs covering one wall.
Josephine stepped inside.
Her face appeared dozens of times.
Leaving the grocery store.
Entering a bookstore.
Driving.
Meeting friends.
Someone had been watching her for months.
“What is this?”
Dante closed the door.
“Protection.”
“This looks like surveillance.”
“Sometimes they’re the same.”
She moved toward the desk.
One photograph showed Robert.
Another Evelyn.
Martin Cole.
Several strangers.
Each picture had dates and handwritten notes.
Josephine recognized Joseph’s handwriting.
She picked up one folder.
PROJECT HARBOR.
Inside were bank statements involving companies she had never heard of.
Millions transferred overseas.
She looked at Dante.
“My husband was laundering money?”
“No.”
“You sound very sure.”
“Because most of that money belonged to me.”
Josephine stared.
Dante walked to the wall.
“Someone inside Chicago’s organized crime network had been moving money through legitimate companies. Joseph found it while auditing one of my businesses.”
“You hired my husband?”
“No. He found me.”
“Why?”
“He wanted protection.”
“For himself?”
Dante looked at her.
“For you.”
Josephine swallowed.
Dante pointed to a photograph.
Robert entering a warehouse.
“He suspected someone close to you was involved.”
“Robert?”
“He never proved it.”
“So he faked his death?”
“Eventually.”
“You keep saying eventually.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Because the explosion that supposedly killed Joseph was real.”
Josephine stopped.
“What?”
“Someone tried to murder him.”
Her knees weakened.
She gripped the desk.
“He survived?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Dante turned.
“I helped him disappear for seventy-two hours. After that, he stopped contacting me.”
Josephine remembered the video.
Bruises.
Darkness.
“Someone has him.”
“That is what I believe.”
She looked at the wall.
“Then why contact me now?”
“Because whoever has Joseph started watching you again.”
Josephine picked up one photograph.
It showed herself at Joseph’s funeral.
A red circle had been drawn around a man in the background.
She did not recognize him.
“Who is this?”
Dante’s expression darkened.
“Victor Hale.”
“Who?”
“Someone who should have died ten years ago.”
“Is everyone in your world supposed to be dead?”
“More often than you’d think.”
Dante took the photograph.
“Victor ran financial operations for my father. He disappeared after stealing twenty million dollars.”
“And Joseph found him?”
“Possibly.”
Josephine noticed a small recorder on the desk.
She pressed play.
Joseph’s voice filled the room.
“January fourteenth. Robert met Hale at 10:32 p.m. Evelyn delivered an envelope at 11:05. Unknown contents.”
Josephine froze.
Dante looked at her.
“Your uncle and Evelyn.”
She pressed stop.
“No.”
“Joseph recorded it.”
“That doesn’t mean they knew what Hale was doing.”
“No.”
Josephine searched the desk.
There had to be something explaining everything.
She opened drawers.
Receipts.
Passport copies.
A second phone.
Joseph’s.
She recognized the cracked corner.
“This is his phone.”
Dante stepped closer.
Josephine powered it on.
No passcode.
One unread voicemail.
Recorded yesterday.
Josephine pressed play.
A man’s voice spoke.
“You have forty-eight hours to bring us the ledger, Miller. After that, your wife becomes part of this.”
Josephine’s face went cold.
Dante took the phone.
“We need to move.”
“Wait.”
“There may be a tracker.”
“Dante.”
He stopped.
“Who has the ledger?”
Dante looked at her.
“I assumed Joseph.”
“He doesn’t.”
“How do you know?”
Josephine remembered something.
Three nights before the explosion, Joseph had returned home at two in the morning.
He had gone directly to his study.
The next day, he gave Josephine a book.
An old copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.
He had laughed and said, “If I ever disappear, read chapter twenty-four.”
She thought it had been a joke.
Josephine looked at Dante.
“I think Joseph gave it to me.”
They rushed upstairs.
Outside, Dante’s driver waited beside a black SUV.
Josephine insisted on taking her car.
Dante refused.
“Someone photographed you tonight.”
“How do you know?”
She showed him the message.
His expression hardened.
“Get in.”
Twenty minutes later they reached Josephine’s mansion.
The front door stood open.
Josephine stopped.
“I locked that.”
Dante pulled her behind him.
One of his security men entered first.
Another circled the side.
They moved through the house.
No one.
Josephine ran to the study.
Books covered the floor.
Drawers had been emptied.
Someone had searched everything.
She moved toward the shelf.
The Count of Monte Cristo was gone.
“No.”
Dante examined the window.
Broken latch.
“They knew.”
Josephine looked around.
Then she remembered.
She had never left the book in the study.
Joseph hated when she folded page corners, so she kept it beside her bed.
She ran upstairs.
Her bedroom had been searched too.
Mattress overturned.
Closet open.
But beneath the bedside table—
The book.
Josephine grabbed it.
Chapter twenty-four.
A rectangular section had been cut from the pages.
Inside was a flash drive.
Dante exhaled.
“The ledger.”
Josephine removed it.
Her phone vibrated.
Another unknown message.
THANK YOU FOR FINDING IT.
Josephine’s blood turned cold.
A second message appeared.
NOW LOOK AT YOUR WINDOW.
She slowly lifted her eyes.
Across the courtyard, in the dark guesthouse, a light switched on.
A man stood behind the glass.
Josephine knew that silhouette.
Joseph.
She ran toward the door.
Dante caught her arm.
“Wait.”
Josephine tore free.
“That’s my husband!”
The guesthouse light went out.
She reached the courtyard.
The guesthouse door stood open.
Inside, the rooms were empty.
Then Josephine heard a voice from upstairs.
Her husband’s voice.
“Josie?”
She climbed the stairs.
At the top, a door slowly opened.
Josephine took one step forward.
Then Dante grabbed her shoulder.
May you like
Because the man emerging from the room was not Joseph.
He was holding Joseph’s severed wedding ring.
