Chapter 8 - TEN SECONDS OF DARKNESS
Z
Norah did not scream.
There wasn’t time.
The instant the lights failed, Luca pulled her to the floor.
The gunshot exploded through the darkness.
Glass shattered.
Someone shouted in the hallway.
Luca covered Norah with his body.
“Stay down.”
A second shot never came.
Emergency lights blinked red.
Salvatore’s hospital window had shattered.
The bullet had struck the wall behind his bed.
The bed itself was empty.
Norah stared.
“What—”
The bathroom door slammed.
Luca crossed the room in three steps and yanked it open.
Salvatore was crouched inside.
Alive.
Barely.
“I knew,” he gasped.
“You knew what?”
“They would come back.”
Hospital security poured into the room.
Detective Alvarez arrived twenty minutes later looking ready to arrest the entire building.
“The shot came from the parking structure across the street,” she said. “Shooter abandoned the rifle.”
“Prints?” Luca asked.
“None.”
“Cameras?”
“Looped for eleven minutes.”
Norah looked at the shattered window.
“Another blackout.”
Alvarez followed her gaze.
“Not coincidence.”
“No.”
Ten seconds at the gala.
Less than fifteen seconds at the hospital.
The same signature.
Disorient everyone.
Exploit a controlled interruption.
“What did Salvatore say before the lights went out?” Alvarez asked.
Luca glanced toward his uncle.
Salvatore looked terrified.
“That Graham wasn’t running the network.”
Alvarez pulled up a chair.
“Then who is?”
Salvatore’s lips shook.
“Arthur Hale.”
Norah stared.
“Hale?”
Victoria.
Alvarez swore.
“Relation?”
“Her father,” Luca said quietly.
Arthur Hale had died three years earlier.
Or supposedly had.
Norah was getting tired of dead people refusing to stay dead.
Salvatore shook his head.
“Not Victoria’s biological father. Her grandfather.”
That changed things.
“Arthur founded Harborlight,” Luca said.
“Yes,” Salvatore whispered. “And half the charities Graham used.”
Norah leaned against the wall.
“Arthur would be nearly ninety.”
“Eighty-seven.”
“Alive?”
Salvatore looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
Alvarez frowned.
“Then why would someone be killing people seventeen years later?”
“Because of the ledger.”
Norah remembered Samuel’s tape.
“What’s in it?”
“Names. Accounts. Politicians. Judges. Contractors. Every payment.”
Luca asked, “Where is it?”
Salvatore laughed weakly.
“If I knew, I’d already be dead.”
“You said someone showed it to you.”
“A copy.”
“Who?”
Salvatore looked away.
“Tell him,” Norah said.
His gaze returned to her.
“Elena.”
Luca went still.
“She came to you tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Before the gala?”
“After.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she want?”
“To prove Graham didn’t kill Antonio or Samuel.”
Norah’s anger flared.
“My father was murdered because of his business.”
“Yes.”
“Someone ordered it.”
“Yes.”
“Then who?”
Salvatore closed his eyes.
“Arthur Hale.”
The name settled into the room.
A dead philanthropist.
A hidden financial empire.
A granddaughter running the gala where the Belladonna vanished.
Norah thought about Victoria dismissing the moved pedestal.
Maintaining atmosphere.
Refusing to involve security.
She had been right there.
“Victoria knew,” Norah whispered.
Luca looked at her.
“At minimum, she knew something.”
Alvarez stood.
“I’ll bring her in.”
“She’ll disappear,” Norah said.
“She’s under hotel watch.”
Norah gave Luca a look.
“Ryan was under hotel security too.”
Alvarez checked her phone.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
Victoria Hale had checked out of the hotel forty-seven minutes earlier.
Nobody had stopped her.
By six in the morning, police had identified the vehicle.
By seven, they found it abandoned near Navy Pier.
The driver’s door was open.
Inside lay Victoria’s purse.
Phone.
Wallet.
One high heel.
No Victoria.
A note had been left on the steering wheel.
NORAH KNOWS WHERE THE LEDGER IS.
Norah read the message twice.
“That’s impossible.”
Luca stood beside her.
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Your father hid the tape inside the pedestal.”
“A pedestal I didn’t know existed until tonight.”
“He may have hidden more.”
Norah thought of the old notebooks boxed in her mother’s basement.
Her father’s workshop records.
His habit of making systems inside systems.
“What did he leave you?”
She looked at Luca.
“My mother sold most of the workshop after he died.”
“What did she keep?”
“His tools.”
“What else?”
“Paperwork.”
“Where?”
Norah closed her eyes.
“Her house.”
Thirty minutes later they were driving toward Oak Park.
Norah called first.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Her mother woke before six every morning.
Always.
Norah’s fear became physical.
“Faster.”
Luca’s driver already had them moving well above the speed limit.
They reached the small brick house at 7:41.
The front door stood open.
Norah was out of the car before it stopped.
“Mom!”
Luca caught up.
“Norah, wait.”
She ignored him.
The living room was empty.
Kitchen.
Empty.
Back door.
Open.
A broken coffee mug lay on the tile.
Norah’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“Mom!”
A faint sound came from the pantry.
Luca reached it first.
He opened the door.
Margaret Bennett sat on the floor with her wrists taped together.
Alive.
Norah dropped beside her.
“Mom.”
Her mother clung to her.
“Oh, baby.”
“Who did this?”
“I don’t know.”
Luca cut the tape.
“Did they take anything?”
Margaret nodded toward the basement.
“Your father’s boxes.”
Norah stood.
Every archive carton was gone.
Except one.
A small wooden toolbox remained on Samuel Bennett’s old workbench.
Norah opened it.
Inside lay a measuring tape.
Her father’s.
Beneath it was a folded note.
Her name appeared on the front.
NORI.
Her grandmother’s nickname for her.
Norah unfolded the paper.
Sweetheart,
If somebody ever comes looking for my records, let them take the boxes.
The important measurements were never written on paper.
They’re in the house.
Love,
Dad.
Norah looked around the basement.
Luca slowly smiled.
“Your father was an exhibition designer.”
“So am I.”
“What would he measure?”
Norah looked toward the walls.
Then the ceiling.
Then the workbench.
“No.”
She pulled out Samuel’s measuring tape.
The workbench sat exactly four inches from the concrete wall.
Four inches.
Again.
Norah shoved the bench aside.
Behind it was a metal panel.
May you like
And inside the wall was a book wrapped in oilcloth.
The original ledger.
