Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN BENEATH THE BALLROOM
Z
Elena Vale had supposedly been dead for seven years.
That was the first problem.
The second was that Luca already knew she wasn’t.
Norah learned both things before midnight.
They were inside Luca’s private office on the Meridian Grand’s forty-second floor, a room Norah hadn’t known existed because apparently rich men kept secret offices inside hotels the way normal people kept spare chargers.
Chicago spread below them in glittering lines.
The gala had been suspended.
Guests were finally leaving after being photographed, questioned and warned not to discuss an active criminal investigation.
Naturally, half of them were already posting about it.
Norah’s phone contained forty-three missed notifications.
One headline read:
CURVY CONTRACTOR QUESTIONED IN BELLADONNA DIAMOND DISAPPEARANCE.
Another was worse.
MYSTERY WOMAN DEFENDED BY ALLEGED MOB BOSS AFTER $3M JEWEL HEIST.
“Alleged?” Norah muttered.
Luca looked over from the liquor cabinet.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He poured water.
Not bourbon.
That surprised her.
“Why did Graham say his daughter was dead?”
Luca brought her the glass.
“Because officially she is.”
Norah waited.
He sat opposite her.
“Elena was twenty-six when her car went into Lake Michigan. They recovered the vehicle. They didn’t recover her.”
“So everyone assumed she drowned.”
“Her father did more than assume.”
“What does that mean?”
“He had her declared legally dead unusually fast.”
Norah’s fingers tightened around the glass.
“You knew she survived.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Luca said nothing.
She stared.
“Oh, come on. You can’t drop a sentence like that and then go mysterious mafia gargoyle.”
One corner of his mouth moved.
“Mafia gargoyle?”
“You heard me.”
“My family helped her disappear.”
Norah became very still.
“Why?”
“Because Graham was going to have her killed.”
The joke disappeared from her face.
Luca leaned forward.
“Seven years ago Elena discovered financial records connecting several Vale charitable foundations to offshore accounts. Money went into children’s hospitals, scholarship funds and arts programs on paper. In reality, millions were being redirected.”
“By her father?”
“Graham claimed someone else was responsible.”
“You didn’t believe him.”
“No.”
“What did Elena believe?”
“That he was one part of something larger.”
Norah thought of the Harborlight gala.
The Belladonna Diamond.
The insurance policy.
“Why come back now?”
“That’s what concerns me.”
Norah stood and paced toward the windows.
“If Elena stole her father’s diamond, she didn’t need to frame me.”
“Agreed.”
“If Graham planned the theft, he wouldn’t need Elena.”
“Agreed.”
“So there are at least two agendas happening.”
“Possibly three.”
Norah groaned.
“I preferred this evening when my biggest problem was a badly positioned pedestal.”
Luca looked at her.
“You were almost arrested.”
“I noticed.”
“You’re making jokes.”
“I do that.”
“When you’re frightened?”
“When I’m breathing.”
He studied her for a moment too long.
Norah looked away first.
“Why did you help her disappear?”
“Elena?”
“Yes.”
“My mother knew her.”
That answer contained an entire locked room.
Norah recognized one when she heard it.
She didn’t push.
Instead, she opened her phone and brought up photographs she had taken during installation.
“I take documentation before and after every setup.”
“How many photos?”
“Three hundred twenty-six.”
Luca blinked.
“You really like details.”
“Details pay my rent.”
They began scrolling.
Images of the ballroom.
The walls.
Pedestal.
Case.
Lighting fixtures.
Contractors.
Flowers arriving.
Staff moving through the room.
Then Norah stopped.
“Wait.”
One photo showed the Belladonna display the previous afternoon.
Graham stood beside the woman they now knew was Elena.
Behind them, reflected faintly in the acrylic case, was another figure.
Victoria Hale.
Watching.
Luca leaned closer.
“Time stamp?”
“4:18 p.m.”
“Victoria told security she arrived at five-thirty.”
Norah’s pulse changed.
She enlarged the reflection.
Victoria wasn’t alone.
A man stood partly behind a column.
Only half his face showed.
But the expensive black-framed glasses were unmistakable.
Norah knew those glasses because she had spent four years waking up beside them on the nightstand.
“Ryan.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
Norah kept swiping.
4:21.
Victoria near the display again.
4:23.
Ryan carrying a tool case.
4:26.
Elena speaking with Graham.
Then—
4:29.
Norah froze.
The photograph showed Graham walking away.
Elena remained beside the pedestal.
Her head was turned toward someone outside the frame.
On the polished black base, reflected like a warped mirror, was a hand.
A man’s hand.
Large.
A heavy signet ring on the little finger.
Luca stopped breathing.
Norah noticed instantly.
“You recognize it.”
He stood.
“Luca.”
He walked toward the window.
“Who is it?”
For several seconds, he didn’t answer.
Then he pulled out his phone.
“Marco, find my uncle.”
Norah stared.
Luca ended the call.
“My mother’s brother wears that ring.”
“What’s his name?”
“Salvatore DeLuca.”
The name meant something even to Norah.
A real estate investor.
Political donor.
The kind of businessman reporters described carefully.
She crossed her arms.
“And what does your uncle have to do with Graham Vale?”
“If Elena is right?”
Luca looked back at the photograph.
“Everything.”
A soft knock interrupted them.
One of Luca’s men entered carrying a sealed plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a cheap prepaid phone.
“Found in the lower corridor.”
Luca accepted it.
“Anything on it?”
“One outgoing call after the blackout.”
“To who?”
The man hesitated.
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Say it.”
“Ryan Mercer.”
Norah felt her stomach drop.
The man continued.
“And one saved photograph.”
He unlocked the screen.
Norah stared at the image.
It was a photograph of her.
Not from tonight.
Not from the gala.
May you like
It showed Norah leaving her apartment three weeks earlier.
Someone had been watching her long before the Belladonna Diamond disappeared.
