Chapter 4
I had worked on it for 2 days.
I leaned forward, lowered my voice, and allowed the wine to occupy the pause I needed.
“I’m a freelance journalist. I cover organized crime for independent magazines along the East Coast. Some of my articles are published under a pseudonym. When I heard your name in the garage, I recognized it from research I had completed months earlier. I knew there was a story, and I knew that if I called the police, they would arrive late, as they always do. I went myself.”
He held the statement in the air longer than necessary.
Then he nodded once, slowly, as though storing it in an internal drawer he would reopen while alone and test piece by piece.
“A journalist.”
“A freelance journalist. Independent publications along the East Coast. Some work is released under another name for safety. That’s why no one would give you my name.”
“And the man following you?”
“I don’t know whether he was truly following me.”
I looked at the glass.
“At the time, I believed he was. Now I think I was too frightened to be certain.”
It was the explanation that fit most naturally inside my mouth.
It was also the most useful half-truth available.
Allowing him to accept 1 small lie made the others easier to swallow.
Dante inhaled deeply.
His shoulders lowered by a millimeter, an almost invisible relaxation that only someone who had studied his physical habits for months would notice.
I watched him permit himself to believe me.
For the 1st time that evening, I felt a shiver unrelated to the possibility of dying.
It came from what I had just done to his life.
“You took an extraordinary risk,” he said quietly. “I could have been someone other than the person you imagined.”
“I know.”
“I could have hurt you, taken you somewhere, or blamed you for the kiss.”
“I know.”
I swallowed.
“I accepted the risk.”
“Why?”
I did not answer immediately.
The true answer remained at the base of my throat, too heavy for an acceptable sentence.
I thought of the girl in the reports, barefoot and described by an informant months earlier as a dark-haired child who always carried a book.
I thought of the Pierce file.
I thought of every night I had watched from the opposite side of a wet street as Dante entered a car and disappeared, unaware that someone was observing him.
“Because someone had to do something,” I said. “And I was all that remained.”
He did not reply.
Instead, he extended his hand across the table and touched the tips of my fingers with his.
It was a minimal contact without pressure, a test lasting less than 3 seconds and occupying far more space inside my chest than it should have.
I did not withdraw.
Neither did he.
Joss appeared with a cheese board I had not ordered and the smile of someone confirming that I remained alive.
I released my breath after she left.
Dante kept his hand beside mine for another second, then withdrew it with the same calm he had used when placing his coat over my lap, as though he had completed what he intended and saw no reason to discuss it.
We spoke for hours.
He asked about my work.
I lied with the ability of someone who had been lying professionally since she was 19.
I described articles I had never written and publications that existed but whose offices I had never entered.
I spoke about frauds I had encountered and disappearances I had read about in late-night newspapers while waiting for sources who failed to appear.
I fitted the lie over the skeleton of truth with a precision that frightened me.
It was the method that made me a successful investigator.
I also knew it would destroy me someday.
Dante spoke little.
He listened.
Whenever I hesitated, he waited without filling the silence.
Whenever I lost the thread of a sentence, he returned it with a short and precise question that appeared casual but was not.
It was an interrogation disguised as dinner.
I participated with my eyes open because the alternative was to rise and leave, and no part of my body wished to do so.
When we left, the rain had stopped.
The pavement was dark and wet, reflecting the orange streetlights like an imperfect mirror.
Dante drove me home.
I gave my address to the driver through the rearview mirror, speaking quietly.
The car traveled through the streets as though it already knew the route.
Perhaps it did.
Perhaps Dante had learned the address during the weeks when I believed the wrong men were following me.
When the car stopped, I got out.
Dante followed.
We climbed the 3 steps to my building beneath the weight of a silence that was not uncomfortable, which made it more concerning.
He did not ask to enter.
He did not attempt to kiss me.
He did not attempt anything.
He stopped on the highest step with both hands in the pockets of the coat he had forgotten to reclaim from my lap at the bar.
He watched me with the patience of a man who had already decided what he wanted and felt no urgency about obtaining it.
“Marceline.”
I turned.
“Yes?”
“It’s a good name. You should have told me sooner.”
I climbed to my apartment with the sound of my name in his mouth striking repeatedly inside my chest.
After closing the door, I rested my back against the cold wood and slowly slid to the floor, lacking the strength to do anything else.
I realized I was smiling.
I removed the smile from my face as though tearing skin from a burn, because it meant that something inside me had stopped calculating.
For the 1st time that night, and for the 1st time since accepting Pierce’s contract, I experienced real fear.
It was not fear of Dante.
It was fear of what I was about to do.
On Friday, Tom Mercer opened the car door for me.
He greeted me with the slight nod dangerous men reserved for people they had not decided whether to like.
The air smelled of wet asphalt, the odor Boston produced while autumn remained uncertain about what it intended to become.
“Good evening,” Tom said.
“Good evening.”
“Did you bring an umbrella?”
“No.”
“Wise.”
He closed the door with a precise click.
“Anyone who brings 1 loses it.”
Dante was already inside.
The corner of his mouth moved in an almost invisible response, the kind he did not conceal when he believed no one was watching.
I also saw how he examined me from head to foot in a single unhurried movement, recording the dark dress and pinned hair for later consideration.
I sat beside him.
The car moved through the narrow North End streets as though it knew every cobblestone by name. Orange streetlight traveled across the windows.
The Italian restaurant was small, with tables arranged along the wall and low yellow lighting.
The owner kissed Dante on both cheeks and referred to me as signora without asking who I was.
We sat in a corner with the wall behind us and the entire room visible.
Tom remained at the bar with his back toward us, eating a plate of octopus as though it were the greatest pleasure available that week.
“Does he always eat at the same table as you?” I asked.
“He doesn’t eat,” Dante answered. “He chews. There is a difference.”
Tom turned his head slightly.
“I’m listening, boss.”
“That was the intention.”
I laughed.
It was a real, unguarded laugh, the kind that arrived before any internal procedure could prevent it.
Dante watched me as one watched a rare object, uncertain what to do except continue looking.
Without fully turning, Tom added, “Within an acceptable range, boss. For now.”
The owner brought wine without being asked, as though the bottle knew its own route.
From the reports, I already knew it was 1 of 3 establishments where Dante ate without ordering.
I pretended to be surprised out of courtesy and raised the glass calmly.
At first, we discussed small matters: the neighborhood, the early cold, and the changing buildings downtown.
Then he asked about my childhood.
This time, I lied very little.
I told him my mother died young and my father disappeared soon afterward.
I said I learned to pick locks before I learned to pass unnoticed and that both skills became a profession without my deliberately choosing them.
He listened without interrupting or offering the inexpensive sympathy of someone preparing an answer before the other person had finished.
When silence came, he slowly rotated his glass by the stem and looked at the white tablecloth.
“My brother died 5 years ago.”
The sentence landed between us like a stone he had carried all evening and finally placed on the table.
It was not presented as a dramatic confession.
It was simply a fact heavier than the others, offered without wrapping.
I did not ask how his brother died.
I did not ask his name.
I already knew the name, the date, and the restaurant.
I also knew what had been placed in archives because evidence had been insufficient.
That knowledge made my silence worse.
I extended my hand and held Dante’s for 2 or 3 seconds.
He looked down at our hands, my 2 fingers resting across his beneath yellow light that made the scene appear warmer than it was.
He did not withdraw.
He did not squeeze my hand.
He remained still, as though needing an anchor and refusing to admit it aloud.
It was the most intimate event of the evening.
Neither of us discussed it.
The following morning, Dante collected me and took me to an art gallery on Newbury Street.
We walked among paintings I pretended to understand, moving from frame to frame with the posture of appreciative people, our chins slightly raised.
Before a large black canvas divided by a single horizontal white line, he tilted his head to the right like a dog hearing a distant sound.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“No.”
“Neither do I. But the gallery owner owes me a favor.”
We left laughing.
Outside, the air smelled of coffee and wet leaves.
I laughed until the corner of my mouth hurt.
We walked along the block without touching, keeping a reasonable distance between our shoulders, though every step carried the accumulated weight of contact that had not occurred.
That was how it was with Dante.
Everything required time.
Everything grew during that time in a way I could not name without tension entering my stomach.
That afternoon, he stopped outside my building and asked whether he could come upstairs.
I agreed before my mind formed an opinion.
That alone was information I should have considered more carefully.
My apartment became smaller with him inside it.
Dante crossed the living room slowly, as though measuring the room so he could preserve it in memory. His hands were behind his back, and his footsteps carried weight across the pale wooden floor.
He examined the books without removing any.
He looked at the records stacked beside the player.
Then he stopped before the gray cabinet beside the window.
The cabinet remained locked with a small key I carried in my wallet. I concealed it beneath a dark-gray wool blanket thrown over the metal as though it were decoration.
His gaze rested there 1 second longer than it should have.
I felt the second completely at the back of my neck, like cold air entering through a crack.
I held my breath.
Dante turned.
A faint smile appeared.
The cabinet remained behind him.
“Do you have any Chet Baker?”
“I do.”
“Put it on.”
I played the record.
The trumpet filled the apartment with the soft, exact melancholy only Chet Baker could create, as though the music understood how much space existed between 2 people and decided to fill it slowly.
During the 2nd song, Dante approached without hurry or announcement.
He stopped a hand’s width from me and looked into my face without touching.
We remained there breathing together for approximately 30 seconds.
It was the most intimate thing that had occurred between us since the restaurant because neither of us surrendered first.
When he stepped away, he did so without hurry.
He lifted his coat from the sofa and folded it over his shoulder like a man who had not decided to leave.
I almost told him everything.
The words began forming at the back of my throat.
Listen—
I swallowed before the sound emerged and forced it back to where it had come from.
He saw something move across my face.
He did not ask what it was.
Instead, he traced the line of my jaw with his thumb for 1 full second while holding my gaze.
Then he withdrew with the patience of a man who had learned that forcing something often broke it before it had a name.
“There’s a charity auction in Beacon Hill tonight,” he said. His voice was low and slightly rough. “Will you come with me?”
“I will.”
It was foolish for 1,000 reasons.
I knew every one.
I accepted anyway.
The auction hall had high ceilings and old chandeliers casting golden, solemn light across people whose surnames I had typed into reports.
I recognized 3 faces before anyone introduced us.
They belonged to men I had seen in magazine photographs, society columns, and newspaper articles read during sleepless nights.
Dante guided me by the elbow with the discreet possession of a man who did not need to announce his presence when entering a room.
The space reorganized itself around him, like water making way.
We accepted champagne and walked slowly among groups of guests and objects displayed on pedestals.
That was when I saw the man.
He stood across the hall near a white marble column with a posture that was slightly wrong.
He did not look at anything in particular and spoke to no one.
His hands were empty and held slightly away from his body.
At an auction, empty hands were suspicious.
People held catalogs, glasses, bidding cards, or bags.
That man held only air.
The detail awakened something old and trained inside me.
My body understood before my mind did.
I pulled Dante backward by the elbow with force.
At the same instant, a bottle of wine shattered 2 tables to our right.
May you like
The sound of breaking glass cut through the conversations for half a second.
From the corner of my eye, I saw 2 men move simultaneously from opposite sides of the hall toward the place where Dante and I had been standing.
