Chapter 2 - The Photograph at 5:13 A.M.
By 5:20 a.m., there were three reporters outside Aunt May's laundromat.
By 5:35, there were nine.
At 5:47, somebody with a television camera tried to interview a seventy-three-year-old customer who had arrived early because Thursday was half-price comforter day.
Aunt May locked the door and flipped the sign to CLOSED.
"We have never closed on Friday morning," she said, staring through the blinds.
Avery stood behind her wearing sweatpants, an old college sweatshirt, and the expression of a woman beginning to understand how quickly privacy could disappear.
Aunt May was sixty-three and five feet tall on a generous day. Her gray hair was cut bluntly below her chin, and her patience for nonsense had been exhausted sometime during the Reagan administration.
She looked at Avery.
"Did you marry a criminal last night?"
"No."
"Did you agree to marry one?"
"No."
"Did he propose?"
"No."
"Did you kiss?"
"Aunt May."
"I'm establishing facts."
"The fact is that I delivered a package."
Aunt May turned back toward the blinds.
"Apparently everybody else delivered a completely different story."
Avery's phone continued buzzing.
She had stopped answering.
Her dispatcher had left a voicemail explaining that the company was "temporarily suspending her route pending a safety evaluation," which sounded professional until Avery translated it.
They didn't want photographers following one of their drivers.
She was effectively unemployed.
Dana arrived at 6:10 wearing sunglasses despite the storm clouds.
Avery opened the back entrance.
Her sister pushed inside.
Dana was thirty-one, narrow-waisted, carefully highlighted, and perpetually dressed as though she might encounter somebody important at a gas station.
She removed her sunglasses.
"You broke the internet."
"I delivered a parcel."
"To Lorenzo Vitali."
"Yes."
"After he said he'd marry whoever came through a door."
"I was not consulted."
Dana stared.
"Do you understand how insane this is?"
"Yes, Dana. I noticed the cameras."
Her sister lowered her voice.
"Is he actually interested in you?"
Avery looked at her.
There it was.
Not concern.
Not immediately.
Disbelief.
The tiny pause before Dana had said you carried years of meaning.
Avery folded her arms.
"I met him for approximately eight minutes."
"But he defended you."
"How do you know that?"
"It's online."
Avery's blood went cold.
"What exactly is online?"
Dana handed her phone over.
A gossip site had published details from inside the dining room.
Odette's comment.
Lorenzo's response.
Even Avery's simple request for a signature.
Avery read twice.
Somebody hadn't merely photographed the moment.
Somebody had listened closely enough to reconstruct the conversation.
Aunt May read over her shoulder.
"That is not a leak," she said quietly.
Avery looked at her.
"What?"
"That's a transcript."
The phone rang again.
Unknown number.
Avery nearly declined it.
Then a text arrived from the same number.
Miss Boon, this is Gabriel Russo, counsel for Lorenzo Vitali. Please answer. This concerns your safety, not publicity.
Dana saw it.
"Oh my God."
Avery pressed CALL.
A man answered immediately.
"Miss Boon?"
"Yes."
"My name is Gabriel Russo. I represent Mr. Vitali."
"Congratulations."
A pause.
"I can see why he warned me you might say something like that."
Despite herself, Avery almost smiled.
"What do you want?"
"We believe your home address may have been accessed."
Her smile vanished.
"By whom?"
"We don't know yet."
"How?"
"The photo originated from an encrypted account. Several media outlets received background information about you within hours."
"What background information?"
"Your employment history. Your mother's obituary. Your aunt's business registration."
Avery sat down.
Dana stopped smiling.
Aunt May's face hardened.
Gabriel continued.
"None of that is classified information, but the speed of collection suggests somebody prepared portions of it before the photograph was published."
Avery remembered the guard.
Seven minutes.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying Mr. Vitali would like you and your aunt moved somewhere private until we understand what's happening."
"No."
"Miss Boon—"
"No."
"That was fast."
"I am not moving into the mansion of the man whose stupid joke caused this."
"I didn't say mansion."
"Hotel?"
"Possibly."
"No."
Gabriel sighed.
"Mr. Vitali predicted this answer."
"He's learning."
Another voice came faintly through the phone.
Then Gabriel said, "One moment."
There was a rustle.
Then Lorenzo Vitali spoke.
"Avery."
She closed her eyes.
"Lorenzo."
Dana's mouth fell open.
Aunt May pointed sharply toward the speaker button.
Avery ignored her.
"I owe you another apology."
"You're developing a collection."
"I prefer not to."
"Then stop doing things requiring them."
"Working on it."
His voice sounded different over the phone.
Less imposing.
More tired.
Avery looked through the blinds at another reporter arriving.
"You said someone may have had information about me before the photo went out."
"Yes."
"Do you believe I was deliberately sent to your house?"
Silence.
Too much silence.
"Lorenzo."
"We're examining that possibility."
Avery stood.
"Examining?"
"The timing was unusual."
"Your guard held me outside."
"How long?"
"Seven minutes."
Another silence.
This one sharper.
"Exactly?"
"From 7:41 to 7:48."
"What happened at 7:48?"
"His phone rang. After the call, he let me through."
Avery heard Lorenzo say something away from the receiver.
She couldn't make out the words.
Then he returned.
"Do not go anywhere alone."
Her irritation flared.
"You don't get to issue instructions."
"Then treat it as a request."
"That's not how you said it."
"Avery."
His tone softened.
"I think somebody wanted you in that doorway."
The laundromat suddenly felt colder.
"Why me?"
"I don't know."
"That's comforting."
"I'm coming to you."
"No."
"Too late."
The call ended.
Avery stared at her phone.
Dana whispered, "He is coming here?"
Apparently.
Twenty-six minutes later, a black SUV stopped across the street.
The reporters surged.
A second SUV pulled behind it.
Two men stepped out first.
Then Lorenzo.
He wore a dark overcoat over a charcoal suit, his expression unreadable as microphones appeared around him.
"Mr. Vitali! Is Avery Boon your fiancée?"
"Did you really promise to marry her?"
"Is Camila Duca out?"
"Is this a publicity stunt?"
Lorenzo ignored every question.
He crossed the sidewalk.
Avery unlocked the door before Aunt May could stop her.
He entered alone.
Up close, Avery noticed he looked as though he hadn't slept.
Aunt May blocked his path.
"You."
Lorenzo stopped.
"Mrs. Mayfield?"
"Miss Mayfield."
"My apologies."
"You're the man who made my niece famous for walking through a door."
"Yes."
"I don't like you."
"Understandable."
Aunt May blinked.
Avery almost laughed.
Lorenzo looked toward her.
"We need to speak."
"Then speak."
"Privately."
"My aunt stays."
Aunt May folded her arms.
Lorenzo accepted the defeat immediately.
"Last night's package was not scheduled through our normal receiving system."
Avery frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"We receive hundreds of deliveries. High-security deliveries are logged before arrival."
"Mine was a courier reroute."
"Exactly."
Lorenzo removed his phone and placed it on the counter.
On the screen was an image of the parcel Avery had carried.
"This shipping label was generated at 6:46 p.m."
"Six minutes before I got the reroute."
"Yes."
"Who generated it?"
"We don't know."
"What's inside?"
Lorenzo's expression changed.
That was the first moment Avery saw genuine concern.
"Documents."
"What kind?"
"Records connected to one of our port subsidiaries."
"And?"
"They suggest somebody has been stealing from my companies."
Dana finally spoke.
"How much?"
Lorenzo glanced at her.
"Potentially eight figures."
Aunt May whistled.
Avery didn't.
"Why send them with me?"
"That's what I intend to discover."
Avery stared at the rain outside.
"What does the photograph have to do with the documents?"
"Maybe nothing."
"You don't believe that."
"No."
Avery turned.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Lorenzo took a moment.
"The family meeting last night wasn't only about marriage."
Of course it wasn't.
"It concerned control of the company."
Lorenzo continued.
"Several relatives want me to step aside as executive chairman."
"Why?"
"Because I have refused a proposed merger with Duca Maritime."
Camila.
Odette.
Avery understood.
"The woman in cream."
"Camila Duca."
"And her mother was the one who insulted me."
"Yes."
"So your family wants you to marry Camila and merge companies."
"Some of them."
"And you made your little door declaration."
"Unfortunately."
"Then I appeared carrying evidence somebody was stealing from your company."
"Yes."
Avery stared at him.
"That's a ridiculous coincidence."
"Exactly."
A pounding came from the front door.
Everyone turned.
Not a reporter this time.
A delivery man stood outside holding flowers.
Dana brightened.
"Oh."
Avery didn't.
The courier raised a card against the glass.
Her name was written across it.
Lorenzo's security man entered from the back and approached the door first.
He inspected the flowers before allowing them inside.
Avery removed the card.
No signature.
Only one sentence.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED OUTSIDE THAT DOOR.
Aunt May stopped breathing for a second.
Dana whispered, "What the hell?"
Lorenzo's face changed completely.
The restrained man from the dining room vanished.
In his place appeared somebody colder.
Somebody Avery suddenly understood could make an entire room silent with one word.
He took the card carefully by its edge.
"We're leaving."
Avery looked at him.
"I'm not—"
The front window exploded.
Avery ducked instinctively.
Aunt May screamed.
Lorenzo crossed the space between them and pulled Avery behind the counter.
His security team rushed forward.
For half a second Avery thought someone had fired a gun.
Then she saw the object rolling across the tile.
A brick.
Nothing more.
Wrapped around it was another photograph.
The same picture from the Vitali estate.
Except somebody had drawn a red circle around Avery's face.
The reporters outside scattered.
Lorenzo looked down at Avery.
His hand was still around her shoulder.
"Now," he said quietly, "will you consider the hotel?"
Avery stared at the broken window.
Rain blew through the jagged opening.
On the floor beside the brick lay her own photographed face.
And beneath it, written in black marker, were four words.
May you like
THIS WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT.
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