Chapter 6 - Box 317The safe-deposit vault belonged to a bank that no longer officially existed.
That frightened Nora more than anger would have.
She watched his limousine disappear through the iron gates.
“He wanted you to accuse me again.”
“Yes,” Matteo said.
“Why?”
“Because you are useful to whoever is doing this.”
Nora turned.
“Useful how?”
“You found Isabella.”
“By accident.”
“Maybe.”
The word made her stomach twist.
“You think someone chose me?”
“I think the alley was chosen.”
Nora remembered her route home.
“I don't usually walk that way.”
Matteo looked at her sharply.
“Why did you?”
“The subway entrance on Franklin was flooded.”
Dominic immediately pulled out his phone.
“Flooding was reported at ten thirty.”
“Could someone have caused it?” Matteo asked.
“Maybe.”
Nora stared.
“You think someone forced me into that alley?”
“I think coincidences are becoming expensive.”
They drove to Nora's apartment that afternoon.
Matteo insisted on security.
Nora insisted he stay downstairs.
He followed her upstairs anyway.
Her apartment occupied the fourth floor of an old brick building.
Tiny kitchen.
Secondhand couch.
Books stacked everywhere.
Matteo stood in the doorway looking strangely out of place.
“You can stop judging.”
“I wasn't.”
“You have a face.”
“I have several.”
Nora almost smiled.
Then she noticed the door.
The lock had been scratched.
Her expression changed.
Matteo saw it.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
He entered first.
The apartment looked untouched.
Until Nora reached the bedroom.
Her mattress had been sliced open.
Drawers emptied.
Closet destroyed.
On the wall, someone had written in red lipstick:
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT HER THERE.
Nora stopped breathing.
Matteo moved in front of her.
“Don't touch anything.”
She stared at the words.
“They know where I live.”
“They won't get near you again.”
“You don't know that.”
“I do.”
He sounded terrifyingly certain.
Detective Hale arrived twenty minutes later.
He photographed everything.
“No forced entry?”
“Lock was picked,” Dominic said.
Hale glanced at Matteo.
“You running your own investigation?”
Matteo shrugged.
“I own eyes.”
“You own too many.”
Nora ignored them.
Something near the window bothered her.
A tiny blinking light.
She moved closer.
“What's that?”
Dominic pulled her back.
A technician removed the device.
Camera.
It had been aimed directly at Nora's bed.
Hale's expression darkened.
“Someone has been watching you.”
“For how long?”
The technician examined it.
“Could be weeks.”
Nora sat down.
A memory surfaced.
Three weeks ago.
The stranger outside the hotel.
Luca.
“He didn't ask me for directions.”
Matteo turned.
“What?”
“Your brother.”
Nora looked at him.
“He asked whether the number seven bus still stopped on Parker Street.”
“So?”
“There hasn't been a seven bus on Parker Street in years.”
Dominic frowned.
“Then why ask?”
“He wanted to speak to me.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“Did he say anything else?”
Nora closed her eyes.
She replayed the encounter.
Rainy afternoon.
Luca standing under the hotel awning.
His eyes repeatedly moving toward the street.
He'd seemed nervous.
He had asked about the bus.
Then he'd said something strange.
“If you ever find something you're not supposed to find, don't trust the first story.”
Nora opened her eyes.
Matteo stared.
“Why didn't you mention that?”
“Because until yesterday I thought he was just a weird tourist.”
Hale wrote it down.
“Anything else?”
“He handed me a dollar.”
“For directions?”
“I refused it.”
“Then?”
“He put it inside the newspaper I was carrying.”
Nora froze.
“The newspaper.”
Everyone looked at her.
“I threw it in the recycling.”
Dominic crossed the room.
“Where?”
“Kitchen.”
The recycling basket had been overturned by the intruder.
But beneath the cabinet was one folded piece of newspaper.
Nora grabbed it.
Matteo unfolded the page.
Taped inside was a memory card.
No one spoke.
Back at the mansion, Dominic loaded it onto an isolated computer.
There were forty-three files.
Photographs.
Bank records.
Audio clips.
Security footage.
One video changed everything.
It showed Celeste Ward, Isabella's nanny, meeting Luca inside a parking garage.
Celeste looked terrified.
“I can't keep doing this.”
Luca answered, “One more week.”
“He knows.”
“Who?”
“Victor.”
Silence filled the office.
Celeste continued.
“He knows Sofia kept records.”
Matteo stiffened at his wife's name.
“What records?” Luca asked.
“The fertility clinic. The payments. Everything.”
Celeste looked over her shoulder.
“If he finds the original birth documents, he'll know Isabella controls the trust.”
Matteo leaned toward the screen.
“What trust?”
The video continued.
Luca lowered his voice.
“Where are the documents?”
Celeste answered.
“Mara hid them.”
“Mara's dead.”
“Then find the woman she gave them to.”
“Who?”
Celeste hesitated.
“A housekeeper.”
Nora's skin went cold.
Matteo slowly turned toward her.
Nora shook her head.
“No.”
On screen, Celeste said the name.
“Nora Bennett.”
The room fell silent.
Nora stared at the video.
“I never met Mara Vale.”
Dominic paused the footage.
Matteo's eyes remained on Nora.
“Maybe you did.”
Nora wanted to argue.
Then a memory rose from fourteen months earlier.
A woman checking into the Hawthorne Hotel.
Green eyes.
Scar above the eyebrow.
Room 814.
She had looked sick.
Terrified.
Nora had found her crying beside the service elevator.
The woman had pressed a small brass key into Nora's palm.
“If anyone asks, you've never seen me.”
Nora had assumed she was escaping an abusive boyfriend.
The next morning the woman was gone.
Nora had kept the key.
She still had it.
At the bottom of an old jewelry box.
Matteo's voice became quiet.
“What does it open?”
Nora looked at him.
“I have no idea.”
Then Dominic enlarged one of Luca's photographs.
A row of private safe-deposit boxes.
May you like
Box 317.
Nora's brass key had the same number.
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