Chapter 2 - The Dead Man in the Photograph
Josephine spent the ride from Laurent telling herself Mateo was wrong.
Nathaniel could not be inside her home.
Nathaniel could not be alive.
Nathaniel could not have watched her apartment yesterday.
The photographs on her lap argued otherwise.
Chicago smeared past the tinted SUV windows.
Rain turned headlights into long ribbons across Michigan Avenue. Mateo sat beside her, silent, one hand resting loosely on his knee while two vehicles followed behind them.
Josephine finally looked at him.
“How many men are following us?”
“Enough.”
“That isn’t a number.”
“Six.”
She stared.
“You brought six armed men to dinner?”
“I brought eight.”
Her expression changed.
“Two left to find Kline.”
“That’s supposed to reassure me?”
“No.”
She looked back through the window.
“Do you ever answer a question normally?”
“When normal answers are useful.”
“I already dislike you.”
“Most people take longer.”
She almost laughed.
It irritated her that he noticed.
The SUV turned toward her building.
Mateo’s phone rang.
He answered in Italian.
Josephine understood only pieces.
Door.
Camera.
Garage.
Then the final English sentence.
“Don’t enter until I arrive.”
He hung up.
“What?”
“Your building’s garage camera went offline twenty-three minutes ago.”
Her pulse jumped.
“That happens sometimes.”
“Does the lobby camera happen to fail simultaneously?”
Josephine said nothing.
Mateo looked at her.
“Stay in the car.”
“No.”
“Josephine.”
“My home.”
“Which is exactly why—”
“My home.”
She met his gaze.
Mateo studied her for several seconds.
Then nodded once.
“Fine. You stay behind me.”
“I am not—”
“Then behind Luca.”
The man in the front passenger seat turned.
Large shoulders.
Black suit.
Expressionless face.
“Ma’am.”
Josephine folded her arms.
“You people are exhausting.”
Mateo opened his door.
“Welcome to my evening.”
The building manager met them in the private lobby looking pale.
“Mrs. Miller, I’m sorry. We had a technical problem with the security system.”
Mateo walked past him.
“What floor?”
The manager blinked.
“Excuse me?”
Mateo stopped.
Josephine almost pitied the man.
Almost.
“My floor is seventy-one,” she said quickly.
The private elevator rose in silence.
Josephine watched the numbers.
61.
62.
63.
Her stomach tightened.
Mateo noticed.
“You don’t need to go in.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because for one year I’ve been afraid of an empty apartment.”
He looked at her.
“I’m not letting Nathaniel make me afraid of an occupied one too.”
The elevator opened.
Her front door looked normal.
Mateo raised one hand.
Everyone stopped.
Luca stepped forward.
The door was unlocked.
Josephine’s heartbeat thundered.
“I locked it.”
Mateo’s face hardened.
“I know.”
“How could you possibly—”
“You checked it twice before leaving Laurent. People who don’t lock their doors don’t do that.”
She stared at him.
“You watch everything.”
“It keeps me alive.”
Luca entered first.
Another man followed.
Mateo went next.
Josephine ignored his instruction and stayed two steps behind him.
The apartment lights were off.
Nothing moved.
“Clear,” someone called from the kitchen.
“Clear.”
“Bedroom clear.”
Josephine walked toward the office.
The door stood open.
She knew immediately.
Someone had been there.
One drawer sat slightly crooked.
Nathaniel always hated crooked lines.
Josephine had inherited the habit.
She approached the desk.
“Don’t touch anything,” Mateo said.
She ignored him.
Her fingers went beneath the middle drawer.
The tape was gone.
So was the key.
Josephine closed her eyes.
“It’s missing.”
“What kind of key?”
“Small. Brass. Number stamped on one side.”
“What number?”
“317.”
Mateo looked toward Luca.
“Safe deposit facility?”
“Could be.”
“Storage unit?”
“Could be that too.”
Josephine turned.
“He took it.”
“Probably.”
“If he already has what he wanted, why should I be afraid?”
Mateo’s expression told her she had asked the wrong question.
“What?”
“If Nathaniel knew exactly where the key was, he could have taken it eleven months ago.”
Josephine frowned.
“He was supposedly dead.”
“He was alive. He could have sent Kline.”
She understood.
“So he didn’t know where it was.”
“No.”
“And he came tonight because—”
“You remembered it.”
She stared at him.
“At dinner.”
Mateo nodded.
Josephine felt sick.
“Someone was listening?”
“Possibly.”
“At Laurent?”
“Definitely.”
“Your people?”
“I trust my people.”
“Do you?”
The question landed.
Mateo’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
Josephine continued.
“Nathaniel stole millions from you while working with companies you controlled. You didn’t know. Someone helped him. If you trust everyone around you, you’re not as smart as Chicago thinks.”
Luca turned his face away.
Josephine suspected he was hiding a smile.
Mateo, surprisingly, didn’t get angry.
“That,” he said slowly, “is the first genuinely useful thing anyone has said to me tonight.”
Josephine moved around the office.
Nothing else appeared missing.
Her old drafting table stood near the windows, buried beneath magazines.
A cardboard archive box sat beneath it.
She crouched.
“What’s that?”
“My old work.”
Mateo joined her.
Josephine opened the box.
Sketchbooks.
Survey maps.
Presentation boards.
Photographs.
For a moment her fingers rested on the logo stamped across one folder.
MILLER STUDIO.
She had designed the logo herself.
Looking at it felt like finding a photograph of someone she used to be.
“You loved this,” Mateo said.
She glanced up.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
“No. You know facts.”
“There’s a difference?”
“A large one.”
Mateo accepted that.
Josephine pulled out the transitional-housing project.
HARBOR HOUSE.
A concept for thirty-six apartments, communal childcare, secure courtyards, counseling offices, job-training rooms.
She had spent seven months on it.
Nathaniel had called it naive.
Then he had told her their accountant believed the studio couldn’t afford another speculative project.
She closed Miller Studio three months later.
Mateo looked over the drawings.
“This is good.”
“You’re an architect now?”
“I own buildings.”
“That doesn’t qualify you.”
“I know what people want to live in.”
“And what do people want?”
He looked at the drawings again.
“To feel safe without feeling imprisoned.”
Josephine went quiet.
That had been exactly the principle behind Harbor House.
Most secure housing felt institutional.
Locks everywhere.
Bars.
Concrete.
She wanted sunlight.
Gardens.
Spaces where children could play without mothers watching every doorway.
“How did you know?”
Mateo’s gaze stayed on the plan.
“My mother spent three years living in places where she never felt safe.”
Josephine looked at him.
He said nothing more.
Then she noticed a red mark across one blueprint.
“What is that?”
A parcel number had been circled.
She didn’t remember doing it.
Mateo leaned closer.
“Who marked this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your handwriting?”
“No.”
Nathaniel’s.
Josephine knew immediately.
A little backward hook on the number seven.
She traced the mark without touching it.
“Nathaniel did.”
“What parcel?”
She searched the project notes.
“Industrial land near the South Branch.”
Mateo’s expression changed.
“What address?”
Josephine read it.
He went still.
“Mateo?”
“That property belonged to one of my companies.”
Her head snapped up.
“When?”
“Until nineteen months ago.”
“What happened nineteen months ago?”
“It was sold.”
“To whom?”
“A development company.”
“What company?”
Mateo looked directly at her.
“Mercer Urban Holdings.”
The name slammed into her.
Daniel Mercer.
The alias Nathaniel used after his death.
Josephine sat back on her heels.
“He used my project.”
Mateo’s jaw tightened.
“Maybe.”
“He knew about Harbor House. He asked for the surveys.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“Before the theft began.”
“Yes.”
Mateo took out his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Buying us time.”
“For what?”
“To find out what Nathaniel built using your name.”
Within twenty minutes, Josephine’s apartment had become an investigation room.
Laptops appeared.
Calls were made.
Property records were pulled.
At 1:12 a.m., Luca placed a tablet in front of Mateo.
“We found Mercer Urban.”
Josephine stood beside him.
The company had acquired five properties.
Three in Illinois.
One in Indiana.
One in Wisconsin.
The largest was the parcel from Harbor House.
And attached to the purchase paperwork was something Josephine recognized instantly.
Her signature.
“No.”
Mateo zoomed in.
“Is it yours?”
“It looks like mine.”
“Did you sign this?”
“No.”
She stared.
The signature was excellent.
But the J tilted wrong.
Nathaniel always teased her about the exaggerated loop in her J.
Whoever forged this had almost copied it perfectly.
Almost.
Josephine whispered, “He used Miller Studio to buy property.”
Mateo continued reading.
“Not just property.”
He turned the tablet toward her.
A financial filing listed Miller Studio as a guarantor on an investment vehicle worth—
Josephine stopped breathing.
“Four point five million dollars.”
Mateo nodded.
Everything connected.
The exact amount Nathaniel stole.
Her studio.
Her signature.
His alias.
The property.
Josephine pressed both hands against the desk.
“He didn’t just steal from you.”
“No.”
“He built it to look like I did.”
Mateo didn’t answer.
She looked at him.
“If you hadn’t found out Nathaniel was alive, what would happen when this surfaced?”
“Depends who found it first.”
“And if the police found it?”
“You’d be investigated.”
“For stealing your money?”
“For laundering it.”
Josephine’s legs weakened.
Mateo caught her elbow.
She pulled away immediately.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He let go.
She paced to the window.
Chicago glittered below.
For twelve months, she had thought Nathaniel’s death was the final thing he had done to her.
She had been wrong.
Even dead, he had arranged for Josephine to carry the blame.
A sound came from the hallway.
One of Mateo’s men entered.
He held a plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a phone.
“Found it behind the bookcase.”
Josephine stared.
“That isn’t mine.”
Mateo took it.
Burner phone.
The screen lit when he touched it.
One message.
Sent fifteen minutes earlier.
HE REMEMBERED THE KEY.
Josephine’s skin went cold.
“Who sent that?”
Mateo checked the recipient.
Unknown number.
Then another message arrived.
This time, the phone was receiving.
Mateo read it.
His expression became absolutely still.
“What does it say?”
He didn’t answer.
“Mateo.”
He turned the screen toward her.
Five words.
BRING JOSEPHINE TO ME ALONE.
A second message appeared.
Or Edward Kline dies.
Josephine’s breath caught.
Then a photograph loaded.
Edward Kline sat in a chair somewhere dark.
Alive.
Terrified.
And standing behind him was the husband Josephine had buried one year earlier.
May you like
Nathaniel smiled directly into the camera.
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