Chapter 2 - The Letter Rosa Hid for Eleven Years
Nobody moved.
Rain hammered the windows of Benny's diner.
Gabriel still held the recipe card.
"What something else?"
Norah wished she had kept her mouth shut.
"I don't know if I should tell you."
Leo almost laughed from disbelief.
"Lady, that's not how conversations with Gabriel Hayes usually work."
Gabriel raised one hand.
Leo fell silent.
Gabriel looked at Norah.
"Where is it?"
"At my apartment."
"What is it?"
"An envelope."
Gabriel leaned back.
"You've had a letter for me for eleven years?"
"I didn't know it was for you."
"But you just said—"
"Rosa didn't put your full name on it."
Norah tried to remember the exact words.
"She told me that someday I might meet a man who recognized the stew. She said if his name was Gabriel and he knew what cinnamon meant, I should give him the envelope."
Gabriel stared at the bowl.
Cinnamon.
His mother had always added it.
He had never understood why.
Gabriel finally picked up the spoon.
Leo stiffened.
"Boss."
Gabriel ignored him.
He tasted the stew.
The room disappeared.
Suddenly he wasn't thirty-eight.
He was eight.
His shoes were wet from snow.
His mother stood over a stove in their tiny apartment.
"Wash your hands, Gabriel."
"I'm hungry."
"I know."
"Why cinnamon?"
His mother smiled.
"Because thyme comes from the ground. Cinnamon comes from far away."
"So?"
"So a person needs to remember where he came from without forgetting there is a bigger world."
He could hear her voice.
Gabriel lowered the spoon.
A tear threatened the corner of his eye.
He wiped it away before anyone could decide they had seen it.
Then he took another spoonful.
And another.
Leo watched in astonishment.
After eight days, Gabriel Hayes was eating.
Norah didn't understand why that frightened her more than when he had refused.
Gabriel ate half the bowl before stopping.
"Take me to your apartment."
Norah's stomach tightened.
"Tonight?"
"Now."
"I don't invite armed strangers into my home."
Leo coughed.
Gabriel almost smiled.
Almost.
"Fine. You go inside. Leo waits downstairs. Bring the envelope out."
Norah looked at Benny.
He gave her an expression that clearly said please don't get me killed.
"Okay."
The ride took twelve minutes.
Norah sat beside Gabriel in the SUV while Leo sat in front.
She kept as much distance between herself and Gabriel as possible.
"How did you know Rosa?" he asked.
"She lived across the hall."
"Where?"
"Calder Street."
Gabriel turned toward her.
"What number?"
"418."
His expression changed again.
"Apartment?"
"4B."
Gabriel looked out the window.
Norah noticed.
"You know it."
"I grew up in 4A."
Her heart skipped.
"You lived across from Rosa?"
"No."
Gabriel's voice became colder.
"My mother did."
Norah stared.
"But Rosa—"
"Rosa was my mother."
The SUV seemed suddenly too small.
Norah shook her head.
"Her name was Rosa Bellini."
"Before she married my father."
"She told me she never had children."
"Apparently my mother told a lot of lies."
They reached Norah's building.
Leo inspected the entrance.
Norah went upstairs alone.
Her apartment was small but neat.
Textbooks covered the kitchen table.
She pulled a chair toward the refrigerator and climbed onto it.
Above the cabinets sat an old blue cookie tin.
Inside were photographs, receipts, two birthday cards from her mother, and the envelope Rosa had given her.
Norah removed it.
For the first time, she studied the front carefully.
One word:
GABRIEL
Underneath it was a sentence.
When he remembers the cinnamon.
Norah's skin prickled.
She returned downstairs.
Gabriel was standing beneath the awning.
She handed him the envelope.
He didn't open it immediately.
"Get in."
Back inside the SUV, Gabriel broke the seal.
A small brass key fell into his palm.
Then a letter.
He unfolded it.
Gabriel,
If this has reached you, then somehow the world has been kinder than I expected.
You believe I died.
That lie saved your life.
Gabriel stopped reading.
His breathing changed.
Leo turned.
"Boss?"
Gabriel continued.
The night your father was killed, men came looking for both of us. I was told that if I remained your mother, you would never survive childhood. So Rosa Hayes died, and Rosa Bellini returned.
I watched from a distance.
I watched you become powerful.
I also watched you become the kind of man your father feared you would become.
For that, perhaps I am partly responsible.
There are things you do not know about your family.
Things people around you have spent years making sure you never discover.
The key opens box 317 at Union Central Station.
Inside is the truth about your father's death.
Trust the girl who brings you this letter.
She doesn't know why yet.
But she is part of the reason I stayed alive.
Gabriel stopped.
He looked at Norah.
"What?"
Norah asked.
He gave her the letter.
She read it.
By the final line, her hands were shaking.
"What does that mean?"
"I was hoping you'd tell me."
"I can't."
Gabriel examined the brass key.
Stamped into it:
317.
Leo turned fully around.
"Union Central has old storage lockers underneath the west terminal."
Gabriel folded the letter.
"We go now."
"No."
Norah surprised everyone.
Gabriel looked at her.
"No?"
"I have an exam review tomorrow."
Leo stared at her as though she had announced plans to vacation on Mars.
"You just found out a dead woman wasn't dead and left a secret locker about a mafia murder, and you're worried about class?"
"Yes."
Gabriel studied her.
Then he laughed.
It was weak.
Brief.
But unmistakably real.
"Take Miss Bennett home."
Norah looked surprised.
"You're not going tonight?"
"Not without you."
"Why?"
Gabriel held up the letter.
"Because my mother told me to trust you."
He paused.
"And there are maybe three people alive she ever said that about."
Norah opened the door.
"Nine tomorrow morning."
Gabriel raised an eyebrow.
"Ten."
"Nine."
Gabriel stared at her.
"Nobody negotiates with me."
"Then consider this educational."
She closed the door.
Leo watched her walk into the building.
Then he looked at Gabriel.
"I like her."
Gabriel gave him a warning glance.
But Leo saw something he hadn't seen in weeks.
Color had returned to Gabriel's face.
The next morning, they entered Union Central Station.
Locker 317 was hidden in an abandoned underground corridor.
Gabriel inserted the key.
The door opened.
Inside sat a metal box.
No money.
No weapon.
Only documents.
Photographs.
And a cassette recorder.
Gabriel picked up the first photograph.
His father stood beside several men.
One of them was Leo's father.
Another was Paulie Moretti.
And the third man made Gabriel freeze.
It was Victor Hayes.
Gabriel's uncle.
The man currently serving as Gabriel's most trusted adviser.
On the back, Rosa had written:
These are the men who betrayed your father.
But beneath it was another sentence.
One of them is still sitting at your table.
Gabriel slowly looked at Leo.
Then at Norah.
May you like
Because Victor wasn't the only man in that photograph who was still alive.
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