Chapter 4 - Black Cars on Mercer Street
Luca read the note without changing expression.
That frightened Harper more than rage would have.
She had seen angry men.
Her father had been one.
Customers at Brennan's became angry when their steak was medium instead of medium-rare.
Derek became angry when servers refused double shifts.
Anger was loud.
Luca's reaction wasn't.
He read the words again.
Then handed the phone to Vincent.
“Find them.”
Two words.
Vincent nodded.
No argument.
No clarification.
He simply left.
Harper watched from beside the desk.
“What happens when you find them?”
Luca looked at her.
“You don't need to know.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It isn't meant to.”
“It succeeds.”
He moved toward a cabinet and poured himself water.
His hand shook slightly.
Harper noticed.
“You need to sit.”
“I'm fine.”
“You're injured.”
“I've been injured before.”
“That's not how biology works.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
Harper realized with annoyance that she liked making him smile.
“Sit.”
This time, Luca obeyed.
She checked his bandage.
A small amount of blood had seeped through.
“Your doctor said bed rest.”
“My doctor says many things.”
“Maybe that's why you're still alive.”
“That would be partly because of you.”
Harper looked up.
Their faces were closer than she expected.
For one second, something changed between them.
Harper pulled away first.
“I need my things.”
“Vincent will have whatever can be recovered brought here.”
“My apartment isn't a storage unit. It's my home.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
Luca's eyes narrowed slightly.
Harper regretted the words.
But not enough to apologize.
“You've probably lived in houses like this your entire life.”
“No.”
That surprised her.
Luca leaned back.
“My father owned a grocery store in East Boston.”
Harper stared.
“You're joking.”
“I rarely joke.”
“I've noticed.”
“He worked six days a week. My mother did the books at the kitchen table.”
“That doesn't match the internet.”
“The internet discovered me later.”
There was something in his tone Harper couldn't read.
“What happened?”
“To what?”
“Your parents.”
Luca became quiet.
“My mother died when I was nineteen.”
“I'm sorry.”
“My father died five years later.”
“How?”
Luca's gaze shifted.
Harper understood.
“Never mind.”
“Heart attack,” he said.
She looked back.
“He spent his life working and worrying. One morning he opened the store at six. At six-fifteen, a customer found him behind the counter.”
Luca's expression remained controlled.
But Harper could hear the old grief beneath it.
“He left me the store and seventy-eight thousand dollars in debt.”
“What did you do?”
“Paid the debt.”
“How?”
Luca almost smiled.
“That story is less respectable.”
Harper nodded toward the enormous study.
“I suspected.”
They talked longer than either intended.
Not about crime.
Not directly.
About Boston.
Food.
Work.
Harper explained why she left nursing school.
Her mother had become ill during Harper's second year.
Harper had worked evenings while attending classes.
When medical bills accumulated, tuition became impossible.
Her mother died eight months later.
Harper never returned.
“I kept thinking I'd save money and go back,” she said.
“Why haven't you?”
She gestured vaguely.
“Forty-two dollars.”
Luca looked at her.
“What?”
“That's what I had yesterday.”
“In your account?”
“Yes.”
His expression hardened.
Not at her.
At the concept.
“Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Look like you're about to solve that.”
“I wasn't.”
“You were absolutely solving it.”
Luca smiled.
“You're difficult.”
“So I've been told.”
A knock came.
Vincent entered carrying a cardboard box.
Harper's expression changed.
“That’s from my apartment?”
“What we could recover quickly.”
Inside were clothes.
Her laptop.
Two photographs.
The cracked ceramic pieces of her mother's bowl.
Harper touched them.
Vincent said, “Someone will repair it.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“I mean…I’ll do it.”
Harper swallowed.
“Thank you for bringing these.”
“There’s something else.”
Vincent glanced toward Luca.
The two men communicated silently again.
Harper sighed.
“Please stop doing that.”
Vincent put another item on the desk.
A small black device.
“What is it?”
“A tracker.”
Harper frowned.
“Where was it?”
“Under your car.”
She stared.
“My car hasn't moved in two days.”
“Exactly.”
Luca stood.
“Someone had identified Harper before last night.”
The room became silent.
Harper looked between them.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“No,” Luca said. “It doesn't.”
“If whoever attacked you only connected me afterward, how could there already be a tracker?”
“They couldn't.”
Vincent's face was grim.
Harper felt cold.
“You're saying this started before I found you?”
Luca nodded.
“Maybe.”
“Why would anyone track me?”
“That’s what we're going to discover.”
Vincent placed a thin file on the desk.
“We ran Harper.”
She stared.
“You what?”
“Background.”
“You investigated me?”
Luca answered.
“I authorized it.”
Harper's anger returned instantly.
“You had no right.”
“I needed to know whether our meeting was actually accidental.”
“Our meeting?”
“The vestibule.”
“You thought I arranged that?”
“I couldn't rule it out.”
Harper grabbed her coat.
“I'm leaving.”
“Harper—”
“No.”
She headed toward the door.
Luca followed.
“Where will you go?”
“A hotel.”
“Your cards have less than—”
Harper stopped.
She slowly turned.
“You checked my bank account?”
Vincent looked at the floor.
Luca knew he had made a mistake.
“I needed—”
“You needed nothing.”
“Someone may be targeting you.”
“And you think that gives you permission to invade every part of my life?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Men always say that right before deciding they know what's best for a woman.”
Luca's jaw tightened.
“That isn't what this is.”
“It feels exactly like it.”
Harper opened the door.
Two guards stood outside.
Her laugh was bitter.
“Perfect.”
Luca said, “They won't stop you.”
Harper looked back.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
She walked past the guards.
Nobody touched her.
She reached the grand staircase.
Then stopped.
Because a woman stood below.
Late fifties.
Elegant gray coat.
Silver hair.
Harper had never seen her before.
The woman looked directly at her.
“You're Harper Hayes.”
Harper's body tensed.
“Who are you?”
Luca came into the hall.
For the first time since Harper had met him, genuine shock crossed his face.
“Evelyn.”
The woman looked up.
“Hello, Luca.”
Vincent emerged from the study.
His reaction was stronger.
“What are you doing here?”
Evelyn ignored him.
She walked toward Harper.
“You look like your mother.”
Harper's anger disappeared.
“What?”
The woman stopped three feet away.
“Your mother was Katherine Hayes.”
Harper's throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“I knew her.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“No.”
Evelyn removed a photograph from her handbag.
She handed it over.
Harper looked down.
The photograph was nearly thirty years old.
Her mother stood outside a restaurant.
Younger.
Laughing.
Beside her was Evelyn.
And behind them stood a man Harper recognized immediately despite the age difference.
Vincent.
Harper looked up.
“What is this?”
Nobody answered.
Her eyes moved toward Luca.
He genuinely looked as confused as she felt.
Evelyn's next words changed everything.
“Your mother once saved someone in Luca Moretti's family too.”
Harper's fingers tightened around the photograph.
“Who?”
Evelyn looked directly at Luca.
“His father.”
And suddenly the freezing stranger beneath the mailboxes no longer looked like an accident.
It looked like history repeating itself.
May you like
The only question was why.
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