Chapter 5 - Roman ordered everyone out of the apartment except Tommy.
Norah did not appreciate the decision.
It transformed her tiny home into a crime scene controlled by the same man who had secretly owned the building for nearly three years.
Two men photographed the broken lock. Another examined the fire escape. Someone from downstairs complained about the activity until Tommy quietly spoke to him in the hallway, after which the complaint disappeared.
Norah stood in the center of the room and watched strangers handle the ruins of the life she had built.
Roman remained near the mirror.
HE LIED, NORA.
The lipstick had belonged to her.
A cheap drugstore red she had purchased six months earlier and worn exactly twice.
Whoever had entered knew enough to search her belongings and use something personal for the message.
“Stop ignoring me,” Norah said.
Roman turned.
“I am not ignoring you.”
“You haven’t answered me.”
“I am determining whether answering you here places you in greater danger.”
She laughed without humor.
“That sounds remarkably similar to selectively removing reality.”
Tommy looked toward the broken window.
Roman shot him a look.
Norah folded her arms.
“Tell me what Luca thinks you lied about.”
“We don’t know Luca wrote this.”
“Someone who knows my real name did.”
“Yes.”
“Someone who knows you.”
“Yes.”
“Someone who wants me to distrust you.”
Roman’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“Then either it is completely invented, in which case you could tell me that immediately, or there is something you haven’t told me.”
Roman walked toward her.
“There are thousands of things I haven’t told you.”
“About Moretti.”
His silence answered.
Norah nodded slowly.
“Fine.”
She moved toward the bedroom closet.
Roman caught her wrist.
“Where are you going?”
“To pack.”
His grip tightened reflexively.
Norah stared down at his hand.
Roman released her.
“I thought you weren’t running.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you packing?”
“Because I’m not staying in a place someone just broke into.”
“You’re returning to the penthouse.”
“For tonight.”
His eyes narrowed.
“For tonight?”
“That is what I said.”
“Nora.”
“You wanted me back. Congratulations. You have me back. Unfortunately, the woman you found isn’t the twenty-two-year-old who thought expensive dinners counted as emotional security.”
Roman’s jaw flexed.
“What do you want from me?”
“The truth.”
“I told you Vincent targeted you.”
“And apparently not all of it.”
Roman looked toward Tommy.
“Leave.”
Tommy hesitated.
“Boss—”
“Leave.”
Tommy walked out.
Roman closed the apartment door behind him.
Norah waited.
For several moments he said nothing.
Then he moved toward the single narrow window overlooking the alley.
“Vincent Moretti did intend to take you.”
“I believe that part.”
“He also believed you had something.”
“What?”
“I never knew.”
Norah stared at him.
“That makes no sense.”
“It did not make sense to me either.”
Roman turned.
“Three days before the warehouse, one of Vincent’s men contacted Tommy through an intermediary. He offered to trade information.”
“About what?”
“You.”
Roman’s expression hardened at the memory.
“He said Vincent had become convinced you possessed documents belonging to him.”
“I was an art assistant. I spent my days arguing with wealthy women about lighting.”
“I know.”
“I had never met Vincent Moretti.”
“I know.”
“Then why would he think I had his documents?”
“That is the question I never answered.”
Norah frowned.
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“The night before everything happened.”
She searched her memory.
Three years earlier.
Roman arriving late.
His strange questions at dinner.
Had anyone approached her?
Had anyone given her anything?
Had anyone entered her office?
At the time she thought it was ordinary paranoia.
“You asked whether anyone had spoken to me at the gallery.”
“Yes.”
“You never mentioned documents.”
“If you knew something, I wanted your reaction before you had time to construct an answer.”
Norah stared at him.
“You interrogated me without telling me I was being interrogated.”
“I asked you questions.”
“That is not better.”
“No.”
The blunt admission disarmed her slightly.
Roman continued.
“You said nothing unusual had happened. I believed you.”
“Then Vincent was wrong.”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
Roman looked at the destroyed apartment.
“He died believing otherwise.”
A cold thought entered Norah’s mind.
“Did you kill him before finding out what he meant?”
Roman said nothing.
“Oh my God.”
“He was not interested in having a conversation by that point.”
“You could have kept him alive.”
“For what?”
“To find out why he was targeting me.”
Roman’s gaze became hard.
“He put a price on your abduction. I was not interested in preserving his health.”
Norah turned away.
This was the impossible thing about Roman.
He loved with the same extremity that he destroyed.
To him, the two actions were not opposites.
They were adjacent.
“You said Luca lived in Europe.”
“Yes.”
“What if Vincent told him?”
“Possible.”
“And what if Luca believes I still have whatever Vincent wanted?”
“Possible.”
Norah looked around.
“That explains this.”
Roman nodded.
It also explained why the cash had not been taken.
They were searching.
Not punishing.
Not yet.
Norah moved toward the bedroom.
Roman followed.
She began picking through the contents of her overturned closet.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“You did not have anything belonging to Moretti.”
“I didn’t knowingly have anything.”
Roman became still.
Norah pushed aside a pile of sweaters.
“Three years ago, before I left you, I worked at the Hollis Gallery.”
“I remember.”
“About two weeks before the warehouse incident, we had a private showing.”
Roman stepped closer.
“What kind?”
“Estate pieces. Paintings, jewelry, some antique manuscripts. Nothing unusual.”
“Who attended?”
“Half of Chicago.”
“Nora.”
“I don’t remember everyone.”
“Try.”
She closed her eyes.
It had been a winter exhibition.
Champagne.
Black dresses.
Too many people pretending to understand abstract art.
“One of the donors was old. Maybe seventy. White hair. He kept calling me Natalie.”
Roman’s expression changed.
“What?”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know. He came with another man.”
“Describe him.”
“Roman, it was three years ago.”
“Describe him.”
Norah concentrated.
“He had a cane. Navy suit. Gold cuff links shaped like lions.”
Roman swore in Italian.
She opened her eyes.
“You know him.”
“Salvatore Moretti.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Vincent’s father?”
“Uncle.”
“What?”
“He died six months after Vincent.”
Norah searched the memory harder.
Salvatore had spoken with her for perhaps ten minutes.
He seemed confused.
He asked about a painting.
Then—
Norah froze.
Roman saw it.
“What?”
“He gave me something.”
The room became silent.
“What did he give you?”
“A book.”
Roman stepped closer.
“What book?”
“I don’t know. It looked old. Leather cover. He told me his granddaughter had left it near one of the benches. He asked me to put it in lost and found.”
“And did you?”
“I…”
Norah stopped.
Roman waited.
The memory became clearer.
The gallery had been chaotic.
One of the event coordinators had shouted for her.
Norah had carried the book toward the staff room.
Then her bag had been sitting on a chair.
She had placed the book inside temporarily because she needed both hands.
Later that night—
“I forgot.”
Roman’s expression became unreadable.
“I forgot the book was in my bag.”
“What happened to it?”
“I took it home.”
“To the penthouse?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nora.”
“I forgot it existed.”
Roman began walking toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“The penthouse.”
She followed him.
“You think it is still there?”
“I know nobody has removed anything from your old rooms.”
Norah stopped.
“My old rooms?”
Roman turned.
“You kept them?”
“Yes.”
“For three years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His answer was simple.
“Because they were yours.”
That unsettled her in a different way.
Thirty-five minutes later, Norah stood inside the dressing room she had abandoned three years earlier.
Roman had told the truth.
Everything remained.
Her shoes.
Her dresses.
Perfume bottles.
A silk scarf still hung from the chair exactly where she remembered leaving it.
Time had been preserved.
Norah ran her fingers over the vanity.
“You never came in here?”
Roman stood in the doorway.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t enjoy being reminded that you were gone.”
She looked at him.
For a moment, the Moretti problem disappeared.
There was only the image of Roman living alone inside a penthouse containing a room frozen around an absent woman.
Then Norah remembered the book.
She searched drawers.
Shelves.
Boxes.
Nothing.
Roman called Tommy and ordered two men to search storage.
Norah opened the lowest drawer of the vanity.
Old receipts.
A passport holder.
A sketchbook.
Then she noticed the handbag.
Black leather.
She had carried it constantly during the final months before leaving.
Norah lifted it.
Empty.
She nearly put it back.
Then something clicked against the bottom.
She turned the bag upside down.
A tiny brass key fell onto the carpet.
Roman crouched and picked it up.
Norah stared.
“That isn’t mine.”
Roman examined it.
No markings except a stamped number.
“What does it open?” she asked.
Roman looked toward her.
“Safe-deposit box.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve seen hundreds.”
“Which bank?”
“That is the problem.”
Norah sat slowly on the edge of the bench.
Salvatore Moretti.
A leather book.
A key.
Vincent believing she possessed documents.
“Maybe the key was inside the book.”
Roman nodded.
“And when someone realized the book had disappeared, they traced the last person Salvatore spoke to.”
“Me.”
“Yes.”
“But where is the book?”
Roman looked toward the handbag.
“When you left me, you took a backpack.”
“Yes.”
“Did you take anything else?”
“No.”
“You moved three times afterward.”
“Nothing from here.”
“What about the gallery?”
Norah frowned.
Her desk.
The day after the exhibition, she had emptied her bag while searching for a charger.
She remembered seeing the old leather book.
She had meant to call the donor list and return it.
Then Roman had arrived unexpectedly and taken her to dinner.
After that—
“I put it in my desk at work.”
Roman was already reaching for his phone.
“The Hollis Gallery closed two years ago,” Norah said.
His hand stopped.
“The owner died. The collection was sold.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
Roman smiled without humor.
“I do.”
Of course he did.
“Who?”
“Graham Pierce.”
Norah recognized the name.
Billionaire collector.
Shipping investments.
Political donations.
And, if the newspapers were remotely accurate, a man who had purchased half a dozen historic buildings simply because he disliked other people owning them.
Roman called Tommy.
“Find out where Pierce stored the Hollis Gallery archives when he acquired the estate.”
He paused.
“No. Do not contact him yet.”
Roman ended the call.
Norah stared at the brass key in his palm.
“For three years, Luca Moretti may have believed I had something I forgot existed.”
“Yes.”
“And now he is back.”
“Yes.”
Roman curled his fingers around the key.
“You are not leaving this penthouse without me.”
Norah sighed.
“We already had this argument.”
“This is different.”
“You always say that.”
“Nora, if this key opens what I think it opens, Moretti did not come back to Chicago because he misses the weather.”
Norah took the key from him.
Roman looked down at her closed fist.
“It stays with me,” she said.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“It could be the reason they want you.”
“Which makes it mine.”
“It belonged to Salvatore.”
“He handed me the book.”
“Accidentally.”
“We don’t know that.”
Roman became still.
Norah felt the same thought form between them.
Salvatore had called her Natalie.
At least that was what she remembered.
What if he had not been confused?
“What was Salvatore’s granddaughter’s name?” Norah asked.
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“He didn’t have one.”
A chill moved over her.
“Roman.”
“What exactly did he say to you that night?”
Norah searched the memory.
The gallery.
The old man.
The leather book.
His hand on her wrist.
She had thought he was unsteady.
Now she remembered his expression.
Focused.
Not confused.
He had leaned toward her and whispered something as he placed the book in her hands.
At the time, music had nearly drowned it out.
Three years later, the words returned.
“Don’t let the wolves see you carrying it.”
Roman’s face changed.
Norah looked at the brass key.
May you like
Salvatore Moretti had not misplaced the book.
He had chosen her.
Related Stories
