Chapter 4 - THE TICKING CLOCK
The Drake Hotel’s underground parking garage was a maze of concrete pillars and harsh fluorescent lights.
Rosie sat in the back of Lorenzo’s black SUV, her fingers tracing the jagged edge of the antique silver key.
Her grandmother’s note burned a hole in her pocket.
If you find this, the flour has spoiled.
She closed her eyes, trying to force down the rising panic.
Leo was six.
He was terrified of the dark. He slept with a small plastic dinosaur tucked under his pillow. The thought of him in the hands of Salvatore Rossi’s men made a fierce, unfamiliar anger flare in Rosie’s chest.
“He has asthma,” Rosie said suddenly, breaking the silence in the car.
Mateo glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
“The boy?”
“Yes. If he gets scared, he panics. If he panics, he can’t breathe.” Rosie looked at Lorenzo sitting beside her in the dark leather seat. “Does Rossi know that?”
“Rossi only cares about leverage,” Lorenzo replied, his voice a calm anchor in her storm of panic. “He took the boy to force you to hand over the bakery’s deed. But now that his men found the key missing from the floorboards, he knows you have it.”
“I didn’t even know it existed until ten minutes ago!” Rosie snapped.
“Which means Rossi will contact you very soon.”
Lorenzo reached into a compartment between the seats and pulled out an encrypted tablet.
“There are three banks in Chicago with deposit boxes old enough to match that key. We are going to the first one.”
The SUV tore out of the garage, blending into the midnight Chicago traffic.
Rosie looked down at Leo’s red coat resting on her lap.
She smoothed the fabric, her mind racing.
Wait.
Something wasn’t right.
She dug her hand back into the pocket where she had found the key.
She felt along the inner lining.
There was a small tear near the seam.
Her fingers slipped inside the lining and brushed against a stiff piece of cardboard.
Rosie pulled it out.
It was a faded, blue train ticket.
Union Station to Palermo, New York.
The date punched on the ticket was October 14th, 2014.
The exact day her grandmother had died.
“Mr. Bianca,” Rosie said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
Lorenzo looked over.
She held up the ticket.
“My grandmother wasn’t murdered.”
Lorenzo frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“She was running away,” Rosie said, piecing the puzzle together. “This ticket was in the coat lining. Rossi’s men didn’t leave Leo’s coat behind by accident. They left it because Leo put this inside it.”
Mateo turned the steering wheel sharply, navigating a tight corner.
“How would a six-year-old get a twelve-year-old train ticket?” Mateo asked.
Rosie’s eyes widened.
The reversal hit her with absolute clarity.
“Because it wasn’t hidden in the floorboards.”
She looked at Lorenzo, her heart hammering.
“My sister gave Leo a box of my grandmother’s old buttons to play with yesterday morning. The key and the ticket must have been inside it. Leo brought them to the bakery in his pockets.”
Lorenzo’s eyes darkened.
“Which means Rossi didn’t break into the bakery to find the ledger.”
“No,” Rosie realized, a cold sweat breaking out on her neck. “Rossi broke into the bakery to wait for me.”
Suddenly, Rosie’s cell phone buzzed.
An unknown number flashed on the screen.
She looked at Lorenzo. He gave a single, curt nod.
Rosie answered, putting it on speaker.
“Miss Hastings,” a smooth, sickeningly familiar voice said. The hotel’s general manager, Arthur Vance.
Rosie froze.
“Arthur?”
“I see you left your shift early, Rosie,” Vance said cheerfully. “Such a shame. By the way, a Mr. Rossi dropped off a guest in my office. A very small, very frightened guest.”
A muffled sob echoed through the phone.
“Auntie Rosie?”
May you like
“Leo!” Rosie screamed.
“Bring the key to the Drake’s penthouse in twenty minutes, Rosie,” Vance said coldly. “Or your nephew takes a very long fall from the balcony.”
