Chapter 5 - The Night Dante Came to Evanston
I woke at seven to the smell of coffee.
Not ordinary coffee.
Expensive coffee.
The kind served by people whose kitchens contained appliances requiring architectural permits.
I found Dante sitting at the long kitchen island.
He looked unfairly composed for a man who had spent half the night hunting an intruder through his house.
Black shirt.
Sleeves rolled.
Hair still slightly damp from a shower.
A tablet in one hand.
Coffee in the other.
“You sleep?” he asked.
“Define sleep.”
“Unconscious for several continuous hours.”
“No.”
“Then no.”
A cup waited beside him.
I picked it up.
Exactly how I drank it.
Two sugars.
Small amount of cream.
I frowned.
“How do you know?”
“You’ve worked for me three years.”
“You noticed my coffee?”
“I notice everything.”
“Except a nine-year conspiracy involving your uncle.”
His eyes lifted.
“I walked into that.”
“Yes.”
I drank.
He returned to the tablet.
“We identified the intruder’s route.”
“And?”
“He came through an old storm access culvert beyond the north wall.”
“That sounds like a security failure.”
“It sounds like three people are losing jobs.”
“Please don’t shoot anyone over drainage infrastructure.”
He looked at me.
“The rugs here are cheaper.”
I stared.
Then laughed.
Dante smiled.
It was still strange.
A smile changed his entire face.
Made him younger.
Not harmless.
Never harmless.
But alive.
Then his expression faded.
“I called Noah’s facility.”
My cup stopped halfway to my mouth.
“Why?”
“To double security.”
“You did what?”
“I doubled security.”
“You can’t send armed men into a psychiatric facility.”
“They’re outside.”
“Dante.”
“After last night?”
I had no argument.
I hated that.
“Dr. Levin agreed?”
“He agreed after I offered to fund a new outpatient wing.”
I stared.
“You bribed a hospital.”
“I donated.”
“You donated with conditions.”
“All donations have conditions.”
“You are exhausting.”
“So I’m told.”
I sat.
“What about the midnight meeting?”
“We’re not going.”
“We are.”
“No.”
“Fine.”
His eyes narrowed.
I smiled into my coffee.
“You’re planning to go without me.”
“That would be the intelligent option.”
“And if the message was intended for me?”
“Then they can be disappointed.”
The address on the card belonged to an abandoned church on the West Side.
Saint Gabriel’s.
Closed for twelve years.
Perfect location for either truth or murder.
Possibly both.
Before we dealt with that, we went to Evanston.
Noah sat in the garden beneath a maple tree.
The rain had stopped.
Dr. Levin said he was calmer.
Dante stayed several yards away.
I sat beside my brother.
“Morning.”
Noah looked at me.
“Did you find it?”
My heart jumped.
“The card?”
He nodded.
“Clara’s files?”
A faint smile.
“She was smart.”
“You remember?”
“Pieces.”
I wanted to grab him.
Demand everything.
Instead I waited.
“How did you meet her?”
Noah looked toward the trees.
“Photography club.”
“What?”
“She came to Northwestern.”
Clara had attended a charity event.
Noah had been taking pictures for the student newspaper.
Later she contacted him because she needed someone unknown to Anthony’s people.
“She paid me.”
“For photographs?”
He nodded.
“One meeting.”
“Of Anthony?”
“And others.”
“Who?”
His eyes clouded.
“Men.”
“Noah.”
“I can’t.”
I touched his hand.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
His jaw trembled.
“They knew.”
“Who?”
“They knew I took pictures.”
My heart tightened.
“What happened?”
“Someone came to my apartment.”
“When?”
“After Clara died.”
“What did they do?”
His breathing sped.
“Noah.”
“They said I imagined everything.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“They showed me things.”
“What things?”
“Pictures.”
He pressed his hands to his temples.
“Doctor.”
“What doctor?”
“A man.”
Dante moved closer.
Noah saw him.
Surprisingly, he did not panic.
“He had a ring,” Noah whispered.
Dante crouched several feet away.
“What kind?”
“Gold.”
“Symbol?”
Noah drew something with his finger on the bench.
A crown.
Inside a circle.
Dante’s face changed.
“You know it,” I said.
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Old organization.”
“What organization?”
He looked at Noah.
Then me.
“The Bellini syndicate.”
I stared.
“Carlo Bellini?”
“No relation. Carlo worked for them.”
“What do they do?”
“Money. Political influence. Information. They avoid street operations.”
Noah looked at Dante.
“They own doctors.”
The words chilled me.
“Were you drugged?” I asked.
Noah closed his eyes.
“I don’t know.”
My anger became something sharp and bright.
For eight years, I had believed Noah’s collapse was illness.
Maybe part of it was.
Maybe not.
Dante’s voice went deadly calm.
“What was the doctor’s name?”
Noah shook his head.
“I don’t remember.”
I squeezed his hand.
“You don’t have to.”
He suddenly gripped me.
“Emily.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t go to the church.”
My blood stopped.
“How do you know about the church?”
His eyes filled with panic.
“He told me.”
“Who?”
“The man.”
“What man?”
Noah’s gaze slid toward the facility windows.
“He came last week.”
I stood.
“What?”
Dr. Levin approached.
“No visitor was documented.”
Noah shook his head.
“Not visitor.”
“How?”
“He wears a coat.”
“That doesn’t narrow things.”
“Gray coat.”
Dante stood.
“Security footage.”
Dr. Levin’s face tightened.
“We can review—”
“Now.”
There was no room in Dante’s voice for refusal.
Twenty minutes later we sat in a small administrative office watching security recordings.
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
Thursday.
Nothing.
Then Noah pointed.
“There.”
A man pushing a maintenance cart.
Gray coat beneath work coveralls.
Cap pulled low.
The camera caught only part of his face.
But Dante recognized him.
“Stop.”
Dr. Levin froze the frame.
I looked at Dante.
“Who?”
His jaw tightened.
“Anthony’s driver.”
My stomach dropped.
“Anthony knows Noah is here.”
“Yes.”
“Then why warn Noah about the church?”
Dante stared at the screen.
“Maybe he didn’t.”
“What?”
“Maybe whoever visited Noah wanted us to think Anthony did.”
Layers inside layers.
Manipulation inside manipulation.
I hated it.
We returned to Noah.
I crouched beside him.
“Did the man give you anything?”
He hesitated.
Then reached inside his sweater.
A key.
Small brass key.
Dante took it.
A number engraved into the head.
214.
“What does it open?” I asked.
Noah whispered, “St. Matthew’s.”
The church Clara visited the night before she died.
We left immediately.
St. Matthew’s still operated near Lincoln Park.
Beautiful stone building.
Quiet weekday afternoon.
We found an elderly priest named Father Michael who had worked there for thirty-four years.
When Dante said Clara’s name, recognition appeared instantly.
“She came here.”
“You remember?”
“Yes.”
“The night before she died?”
Father Michael’s face softened.
“I remember because she was upset.”
“Did she meet someone?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
The priest hesitated.
“I promised confidentiality.”
Dante leaned forward.
“Father.”
I touched Dante’s arm.
He stopped.
“Clara has been dead nine years,” I said. “Someone involved may still be hurting people.”
Father Michael looked at me.
Then at Dante.
“Your wife met a woman.”
Dante frowned.
“Woman?”
“Yes.”
“Name?”
“She called herself Margaret.”
Neither of us recognized it.
“She left something,” Father Michael continued.
“What?”
“A box.”
My heartbeat surged.
“She told me if anything happened to her, I was to keep it until someone arrived with a key.”
Dante and I looked at each other.
Key 214.
Father Michael led us into the basement.
Rows of old cabinets lined the walls.
He stopped at number 214.
I inserted the key.
Turned it.
Inside sat a small wooden box.
Dante lifted it.
There was no lock.
Inside:
A wedding ring.
Not Clara’s.
A passport.
And a photograph.
The passport belonged to a woman named Margaret Hayes.
The photograph showed Margaret standing beside Anthony Marino.
Dante stared.
“Who is she?”
Father Michael whispered, “Anthony’s daughter.”
Dante looked up.
“I don’t have a cousin named Margaret.”
The priest shook his head.
“Not publicly.”
We examined the passport.
Margaret was forty-two now.
Then I looked at the photograph again.
Something about her eyes.
Familiar.
I pulled out my phone and opened a picture of Dr. Levin.
No.
Not him.
Another face surfaced in my memory.
Someone I had seen hundreds of times.
Brooke.
My assistant.
Same eyes.
Same nose.
Same small scar near the eyebrow.
My blood went cold.
Dante saw my expression.
“What?”
I turned the photograph toward him.
“I know her daughter.”
“Who?”
“My assistant.”
Dante stared.
“Brooke?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then my phone rang.
Brooke.
I answered.
“Emily?”
Her voice shook.
“Where are you?”
“At St. Matthew’s.”
A sharp inhale.
“How did you—”
“Brooke, where are you?”
Silence.
“Brooke.”
“I’m sorry.”
My chest tightened.
“For what?”
Another voice appeared faintly behind her.
Male.
“Brooke?”
She began crying.
“Emily, don’t come back to the office.”
Dante reached for the phone.
I turned on speaker.
“Why?”
“Because they know.”
“Who?”
“The people my mother ran from.”
The line crackled.
Then Brooke whispered five words.
“They’re already on the forty-second floor.”
The call ended.
Dante’s face hardened.
May you like
We ran.
---
