Chapter 7 - The Night They Came for SophieSophie Corbin called me at 11:46 p.m.
She did not say hello.
She said, “Nell, I think someone is inside the studio.”
I was out of bed before my brain fully understood the sentence.
“Where are you?”
“Upstairs.”
“Is the door locked?”
“Yes.”
“Can you get out another way?”
Silence.
“Sophie?”
“The fire escape.”
“Use it.”
“I heard someone downstairs.”
“Do not investigate.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Good.
She was Rafael’s daughter, but apparently she had inherited survival instincts from her mother.
“Take your phone. Leave everything else.”
“I have the restoration ledger.”
“Leave it.”
“Nell—”
“Leave it.”
A sound came through the phone.
Wood breaking.
Sophie stopped breathing.
“So do I,” I whispered.
Another sound.
Closer.
“Window,” I said. “Now.”
I grabbed my own phone and called 911 from the landline while keeping Sophie connected.
Then Rafael.
He answered on the first ring.
“Sophie’s studio. Someone is inside.”
There was no response.
Only movement.
Then the line went dead.
I hated that more than anything.
Five minutes later, I was driving.
Yes, I knew that was stupid.
No, I did not care.
By the time I reached the river district, police lights painted the old brick buildings blue and red.
Rafael’s vehicles were already there.
I found him near the alley.
Damon stood beside him.
Rafael’s face looked carved from stone.
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
My knees nearly failed.
Sophie sat inside an ambulance with a blanket around her shoulders.
I pushed past Rafael.
She saw me.
“Nell.”
I hugged her.
I had not planned to.
Neither had she.
But fear changes etiquette.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I got down the fire escape. Whoever came in left through the back when police arrived.”
Rafael approached.
Sophie looked at him.
His composure cracked.
Just a little.
He touched the side of her head.
“My girl.”
“I’m okay, Dad.”
He closed his eyes.
I looked away.
Some moments belong to families even when you are standing inside them.
Police found no intruder.
No usable prints.
Nothing stolen.
That made no sense.
Until Sophie said, “The ledger.”
I turned.
“What ledger?”
“The restoration ledger from St. Vincent’s.”
“What does that have to do with Meridian?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at Rafael.
“I found something inside a wall.”
Of course she had.
Because apparently no one in Rafael Corbin’s orbit was allowed a normal week.
“What?”
“Documents.”
“What kind?”
“Old corporate records. Financial papers. They were sealed behind a damaged panel.”
Rafael went still.
“Which company?”
Sophie looked confused.
“Northstar Chemical.”
I saw Rafael’s face.
“You know it.”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“A manufacturing company.”
“For what?”
“Industrial compounds. Pharmaceutical precursors.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who owned it?”
Rafael did not answer.
Sophie did.
“My grandfather.”
I looked between them.
“Your father’s company?”
Rafael nodded.
The story became older.
Much older.
Northstar Chemical had been founded by Rafael’s father in the 1970s.
According to Sophie, the documents she found were dated twenty-eight years earlier.
Invoices.
Formulas.
Shipping records.
And one photograph.
She had taken pictures before moving the papers to a preservation cabinet.
She showed us.
Three men stood outside a factory.
One was a younger Rafael.
One was his father.
The third man made my skin go cold.
Thomas Vale.
Young.
Smiling.
Standing with his arm around Rafael’s father.
“You knew him,” I said.
Rafael stared at the photograph.
“No.”
“He knew your father.”
“Yes.”
Sophie swiped to the next image.
A contract.
Northstar Chemical had developed a stabilizing compound.
Patent rights transferred twenty-six years earlier.
Buyer:
Vale Biomedical Research.
Meridian’s predecessor.
I read the formula.
My mouth went dry.
It was the original stabilizer used in Velotran.
The safe one.
“Rafael.”
He understood.
“Vale replaced something my father’s company created.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We know why. Cost.”
Sophie frowned.
“But why break into my studio?”
I looked at the documents.
“Because these prove Meridian knew what the original compound was designed to do.”
Mara arrived twenty minutes later.
She read the contract and said one word.
“Intent.”
Exactly.
Meridian could argue manufacturing error.
Supplier failure.
Unexpected degradation.
But if Thomas Vale had known the original stabilizer’s chemical purpose for decades, replacing it with a cheaper compound without equivalent testing became much harder to explain as negligence.
The old papers connected him directly to the science.
And someone knew Sophie had found them.
Rafael looked at Damon.
“Move her.”
“No,” Sophie said.
Everyone stopped.
Rafael turned.
“You are not staying here.”
“I know.”
“You’ll come to the house.”
“No.”
His expression hardened.
“Sophie.”
“I’m not twelve.”
“You were nearly attacked.”
“So was Nell.”
“That is not helping,” I said.
Sophie continued.
“You don’t get to lock me away because you’re scared.”
I watched Rafael absorb the sentence.
Old Rafael would have commanded.
Ordered.
Controlled.
This Rafael looked at me.
Damn him.
I sighed.
“She needs security.”
Sophie glared.
“Reasonable security.”
“Thank you,” Rafael said.
“I wasn’t finished. She chooses where she stays.”
His gratitude vanished.
Sophie smiled.
“I’ll stay with Nell.”
I choked.
“What?”
“You have a spare room.”
“How do you know?”
“Janie told me.”
I needed to have a conversation with Janie about classified information.
Rafael looked horrified.
“My daughter will not stay in an apartment with inadequate perimeter security.”
“I have a doorman.”
“He is seventy-four.”
“Frank is very observant.”
“He sleeps after midnight.”
“That happened once.”
“Nell.”
Sophie crossed her arms.
“I’m staying with Nell.”
Rafael looked at both of us.
For the first time in his life, the most feared man in Providence appeared to realize he had been outnumbered by two women.
He hated it.
I enjoyed it immensely.
“Fine,” he said.
Then he pointed at Damon.
“He stays outside.”
“No,” I said.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Nell.”
“Rafael.”
Sophie started laughing.
Eventually, we compromised.
Two guards.
Across the street.
Not inside.
At 3:30 a.m., Sophie and I sat in my kitchen eating cereal.
She wore one of my oversized sweatshirts.
“You know,” she said, “my father is in love with you.”
I inhaled cereal.
Badly.
She handed me water while I coughed.
“What the hell, Sophie?”
“I thought you knew.”
“I know nothing of the sort.”
She gave me Rafael’s exact skeptical expression.
It was disturbing.
“Nell.”
“No.”
“He visits you without needing anything.”
“Coffee.”
“He owns coffee.”
“That is not evidence.”
“He listens when you tell him no.”
“Occasionally.”
“He changed security policies because you asked.”
“That’s work.”
“He talks about you.”
I stopped.
“What does he say?”
Sophie smiled.
“Ah.”
“No. Forget I asked.”
“Too late.”
“Sophie.”
“He says you make him reconsider things.”
“That could mean anything.”
“For my father? It means everything.”
I looked into my cereal.
“I don’t know what this is.”
“Do you love him?”
The question was too large for three thirty in the morning.
“I care about him.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“You are remarkably intrusive for a houseguest.”
“I’m an artist. We observe.”
“You restore ceilings.”
“Same skill.”
I put the bowl down.
“Your father is complicated.”
“Yes.”
“He has done things I probably don’t want to know.”
“Yes.”
“He lives in a world I spent most of my life avoiding.”
“Yes.”
“And I worked very hard to get myself back. I don’t know if I’m willing to disappear into someone else’s gravity.”
Sophie became serious.
“Then don’t.”
I looked at her.
“My father doesn’t need another person orbiting him.”
Her voice softened.
“He needs someone with her own gravity.”
That stayed with me.
At six, neither of us had slept.
At seven, Rafael arrived.
With breakfast.
Of course.
He entered my apartment and looked around as if conducting a security audit.
“Do not insult my home.”
“I said nothing.”
“Your eyebrows did.”
Sophie kissed his cheek.
“I’m showering.”
She disappeared.
Rafael set down the food.
For a moment, we were alone.
“You look terrible,” he said.
“Romance is alive.”
His eyes changed.
The word hung between us.
I wished I could retrieve it.
I could not.
He stepped closer.
“Sophie told you.”
My mouth fell open.
“That traitor.”
“She has been attempting to interfere in my personal life since she was sixteen.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“What did she tell you?”
We stared at each other.
Then I laughed.
He did too.
The tension broke.
Almost.
“Rafael.”
“Yes?”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“You know.”
“No. Explain.”
I hated him.
“Are you in love with me?”
There.
The sentence existed.
No retreat.
Rafael did not joke.
Did not deflect.
Did not look away.
“Yes.”
My heart forgot its profession.
He continued.
“I did not intend to be.”
“That’s flattering.”
“I mean I understood the risk.”
“What risk?”
“You.”
I stared.
“I’m the risk?”
“You walk toward dying men while guns are pointed at you. You challenge pharmaceutical companies. You argue with federal investigators. You refuse security. You have no respect for sensible fear.”
“I have fear.”
“I know.”
His voice softened.
“You simply move while carrying it.”
Something in me hurt.
“You scare me too,” I admitted.
“Good.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“I know.”
I looked toward the hallway.
Sophie’s shower ran.
The guards were outside.
The city was waking.
And suddenly none of the larger dangers mattered as much as the six feet of kitchen between us.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I said.
“Neither do I.”
“You were married.”
“I knew how to love Elena.”
“That’s different?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I was thirty-one and believed love meant possession.”
He took another step.
“I’m fifty-nine now.”
“And?”
“And I am trying to learn that loving someone may mean allowing her to remain entirely herself.”
My throat tightened.
“That sounds suspiciously healthy.”
“I dislike it.”
I laughed.
Then he touched my hand.
Not my waist.
Not my face.
My hand.
A question.
I answered by turning my palm upward.
His fingers closed around mine.
Then Sophie screamed from the hallway.
We separated instantly.
Rafael reached for a weapon.
I grabbed a kitchen knife.
Sophie appeared holding her phone.
“What?” Rafael demanded.
She stared at us.
Then at our hands.
Then at the knife.
“Oh my God.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“You screamed.”
“Because the news.”
She held up the phone.
Thomas Vale had been found.
Dead.
Inside his car.
Apparent suicide.
On the passenger seat, police found a handwritten note.
It contained three names.
Claire Whitmore.
Nell Hart.
Rafael Corbin.
And beneath them:
I did what Rafael asked.
I looked at Rafael.
He stared at the screen.
The blood drained from his face.
May you like
Someone had just turned a pharmaceutical murder investigation into a case against him.
And me.
