Chapter 1 - The Alley Was Waiting
The gunfire came from behind them.
Beatrice Clark had known something was wrong before the first shot.
She had felt it three blocks earlier, when the rain turned the warehouse district into a black mirror and every streetlamp seemed to die twenty feet before it should.
The windows bothered her first.
Warehouses that usually carried a glow from overnight crews were completely dark.
Then there was the fire escape.
A steel ladder hung down beside an abandoned brick building, stopping only a few feet above the wet pavement.
Nobody left ladders like that in this neighborhood.
Not in November.
Not after midnight.
Not on a night Dominic Rossi was expected to arrive.
Beatrice's fingers tightened around the Mercedes steering wheel.
Beside her, Dominic checked a message on his phone.
He looked calm.
He always looked calm.
That was one of the things Beatrice had learned during three weeks of driving him around Boston.
Angry men became quieter when Dominic entered a room.
Restaurant owners found tables that had supposedly been unavailable.
Security guards suddenly remembered doors they had forgotten to unlock.
Men twice his size called him Mr. Rossi.
Dominic never needed to shout.
Power arrived before he did.
Beatrice glanced into the mirror.
Carmine Bellini sat behind Dominic.
Two weeks earlier, Carmine had left a powdered donut on Beatrice's driver's seat.
A white paper napkin beneath it had carried a handwritten message.
FOR CUPCAKE.
She had picked up the donut, placed it carefully on the center console, and driven Dominic to Providence without saying a word.
Carmine had spent twenty minutes waiting for her reaction.
She never gave him one.
The next morning the Mercedes navigation system spoke in the squealing voice of a cartoon pig.
The men nearly choked trying not to laugh.
Beatrice had simply pulled into traffic.
Dominic had watched her from the back seat.
“Doesn't that bother you?” he'd asked.
“The voice?”
“The joke.”
Beatrice had looked at him through the mirror.
“Men who need an audience usually get bored when you don't give them one.”
Carmine's smile had vanished.
Dominic's had appeared.
Barely.
But she'd seen it.
That had been dangerous.
Because Beatrice Clark had not taken this job because she admired Dominic Rossi.
She had not taken it because she needed excitement.
And she had certainly not taken it because she wanted to spend twelve-hour days surrounded by men who thought a widow with thick hips, inexpensive shoes, and a quiet voice was something between a servant and entertainment.
She had taken it because of Daniel.
Her husband had been dead for four years.
And tucked beneath the false bottom of her worn brown purse was the last thing he had carried every day for seventeen years.
His badge.
Beatrice checked the mirror again.
Carmine wasn't laughing now.
Neither were the two men with him.
Headlights appeared behind them.
Too fast.
Two sets.
Beatrice's stomach dropped.
“Mr. Rossi.”
Dominic looked up.
“What?”
“We need to leave.”
His eyes shifted to the windshield.
The Mercedes had just entered the alley.
“Why?”
Beatrice didn't answer immediately.
Another pair of headlights appeared ahead.
An SUV rolled sideways across the far exit.
Behind them, a second vehicle entered the alley.
Dominic's phone disappeared into his pocket.
“Reverse.”
The first impacts cracked against the armored bodywork.
The sound inside the Mercedes was horrifyingly loud.
One of the men in back ducked.
Another swore.
Beatrice's foot hovered over the brake.
“Reverse!” Dominic shouted.
She reached toward the gear selector.
Then she looked in the mirror.
Everyone else was looking outside.
Carmine wasn't.
His face had become strangely peaceful.
Almost relieved.
His right hand had disappeared inside his jacket.
Beatrice watched it emerge holding a revolver.
It wasn't pointed toward either window.
It wasn't pointed at the men outside.
It was turning toward Dominic.
For one impossible second, Beatrice saw three different versions of her life.
Daniel alive at the kitchen table.
Her daughter Grace at twelve years old, sitting on the stairs after the funeral because she could not understand why every adult kept bringing casseroles.
Dominic Rossi three nights earlier, quietly giving his coat to an elderly restaurant owner whose furnace had failed.
None of them belonged together.
Yet here they were.
Carmine raised the weapon.
“Sorry, Dom.”
Beatrice moved.
She slammed the Mercedes into drive.
“Hold on!”
Dominic's head snapped toward her.
The Mercedes launched forward.
The brick wall filled the windshield.
Someone screamed.
Impact.
The front of the armored sedan struck the wall hard enough to explode the airbags.
Carmine flew sideways.
The revolver discharged into the ceiling.
The sound punched through the cabin.
Dominic twisted backward.
One of his men grabbed Carmine's wrist.
The other drove his shoulder into Carmine's chest.
There was a violent struggle.
Beatrice shoved the collapsed airbag aside.
Pain burned through her ribs.
She ignored it.
Outside, the SUV blocking the exit began moving toward them.
Beatrice slammed the transmission into reverse.
“What are you doing?” one of the men yelled.
“Getting us out.”
“There isn't room!”
“There is if nobody cares about the paint.”
She buried the accelerator.
The Mercedes shot backward.
The opening between the two SUVs looked barely wide enough for a motorcycle.
Beatrice took it anyway.
Metal screamed against metal.
The passenger-side mirror disappeared.
Sparks jumped across wet pavement.
The Mercedes fishtailed.
Beatrice corrected.
Another impact hammered the rear quarter panel.
Then suddenly there was open street.
Rain.
Traffic lights.
A delivery truck leaning on its horn as Beatrice cut across the intersection.
She kept going.
“Left,” Dominic ordered.
“No.”
Every man in the car looked at her.
Dominic stared at the side of her face.
“What did you say?”
“They know your routes.”
“Beatrice.”
“Your safe house on Ashland is twelve minutes from here. Carmine knows it. So does whoever is waiting for us there.”
Dominic looked back.
Carmine had been restrained between the two other men.
Blood ran from his nose, but he was conscious.
And smiling.
That smile confirmed everything.
Dominic leaned forward.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere your traitor doesn't know.”
“You don't know any of my secure locations he doesn't know.”
“Exactly.”
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
For several seconds, the only sound was rain smashing against the windshield.
Then something changed in his expression.
He understood.
“You're improvising.”
“I've been driving Boston since before half your men were old enough to rent a car.”
Despite everything, one of the men behind them made a strangled sound that might have been laughter.
Beatrice turned sharply onto a commercial street.
She passed an ambulance depot.
A twenty-four-hour bakery.
A bus yard.
Then she doubled south before circling west.
Three times she changed direction without signaling until the last possible moment.
No headlights stayed with them.
Dominic watched the mirrors.
“You've done this before.”
Beatrice kept her eyes on the road.
“I've driven teenagers.”
“That's not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Another silence.
Beatrice's ribs burned worse now.
Warmth had begun spreading beneath her blouse.
She assumed she'd cut herself against something during the impact.
She could examine it later.
If there was a later.
“Beatrice.”
She looked at Dominic.
He was watching her differently.
Not as an employee.
Not even as the odd woman who had somehow talked him into paying fifty thousand dollars before she completed a single shift.
As a problem he had failed to understand.
“You saw Carmine.”
“Yes.”
“Before he moved.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He wasn't afraid of the people outside.”
Dominic glanced back.
Carmine said nothing.
Beatrice continued.
“Everybody else looked toward the threat. Carmine looked at you.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
For the first time since she had met him, Beatrice saw something beneath the polished control.
Hurt.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Hurt.
Carmine wasn't just an employee.
Beatrice had figured that out after their fourth day together.
There were photographs in Dominic's office showing two boys standing beside bicycles.
A younger Dominic.
A younger Carmine.
Different suits at baptisms, weddings, funerals.
Thirty years of history.
And Carmine had just pointed a gun at him.
“Eyes front,” Dominic said quietly.
Beatrice did not take offense.
It sounded less like an order than an attempt to keep himself from looking backward again.
They drove another seventeen minutes before she turned into the underground entrance beneath one of Dominic's legitimate office buildings.
The security gate opened.
Nobody had followed them.
Only then did Beatrice allow herself to breathe.
She parked.
Turned off the engine.
The sudden silence seemed enormous.
The men in back pulled Carmine out first.
Dominic remained beside her.
For a few seconds neither spoke.
Then he looked at Beatrice.
“You saved my life.”
She swallowed.
“You pay well.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then she reached for the door handle.
Pain tore through her side.
Her vision blurred.
She heard Dominic say her name.
“What?”
“You good?”
“Fine.”
It was the stupidest word she had ever spoken.
She tried to stand.
Her legs folded.
Dominic caught her before her knees struck the concrete.
“Bea?”
His voice sounded far away.
Beatrice pressed a hand against her blouse.
When she pulled it away, her palm was dark red.
The edge of twisted metal from the crash must have caught her.
Dominic's face changed.
“Call the doctor!”
Footsteps ran across the garage.
Beatrice tried to tell him not to make such a fuss.
Instead, her purse slipped from her shoulder.
It struck the concrete.
Coins rolled beneath the Mercedes.
Receipts scattered.
A bottle of antacids bounced twice.
A purple elastic hair tie landed beside Dominic's shoe.
Grace's.
Beatrice's heart stopped.
Not the hair tie.
The purse.
She lunged weakly.
“No.”
Too late.
The false bottom had torn during the collision.
A small leather case slid free.
It landed open.
The silver police badge gleamed beneath the fluorescent garage lights.
Dominic stopped moving.
Beatrice forgot the pain in her side.
Forgot Carmine.
Forgot the rain.
Forgot everything except the badge.
Daniel's badge.
Dominic slowly bent down.
“No,” Beatrice whispered.
His fingers closed around the leather case.
For three weeks, Beatrice had wondered what Dominic Rossi's face would look like when he learned the truth.
She had imagined rage.
Accusation.
Violence.
What she had never imagined was what she saw now.
Recognition.
Dominic looked at the badge.
Then at Beatrice.
May you like
And quietly said the name of the dead man she had never once mentioned to him.
“Daniel Clark.”
