Chapter 4 - THE PICKUP SHEET
Norah stared at him.
“You’re saying this was arranged?”
“I’m saying I don’t know yet.”
“That isn’t what your face says.”
Roman leaned closer.
“My face has kept me alive longer than most men in my business. Stop trying to read it.”
“I was married to that face for five years.”
That silenced him.
The flight continued west.
For the first time that night, Roman forgot about midnight.
Forgot about Denver territory.
Forgot about the wounded lieutenant waiting for him to decide whether men should die in retaliation.
All that mattered was the timeline.
Matteo had helped Norah disappear twelve months earlier.
Elena had kept contact.
Now Elena had directed Norah to Matteo’s property.
And Roman had been pulled toward Denver by violence.
Someone had built two roads.
Both ended in the same place.
“Did Elena ever ask about me?” he said.
Norah hesitated.
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Every time she wrote.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
“That you hated me?”
“I never told her I hated you.”
Roman looked at her.
Norah exhaled.
“I told her I still loved you and didn’t trust you.”
“That seems worse.”
“It was.”
Rose woke and began making small impatient sounds.
Norah unfastened the carrier.
Roman watched her prepare a bottle.
Without being asked, he held the diaper bag open.
Norah noticed.
Neither commented.
The intimacy of the gesture hurt more than hostility.
They had once been effortless together.
Roman knew how she took her coffee.
Norah knew when he was lying before he finished a sentence.
They had danced barefoot in their kitchen at two in the morning.
They had also lived with armed men in the lobby.
Both memories were true.
Roman’s phone connected to the aircraft Wi-Fi.
Messages flooded the screen.
Carlo.
Denver.
Anthony Rizzo was alive but unstable.
The Keane crew appeared to have disappeared from the city.
Three Moretti captains were waiting for Roman’s authorization.
Roman opened the secure group.
Four words had already been typed by someone beneath the last report.
WAITING ON YOUR ORDER.
Norah saw the screen.
She said nothing.
Roman’s thumb hovered.
An hour earlier, retaliation had seemed inevitable.
Now his son was sleeping against Norah’s shoulder.
Roman typed.
NO RETALIATION. HOLD EVERYONE.
Replies appeared almost immediately.
One captain questioned him.
Roman repeated the order.
FINAL.
He locked the phone.
Norah studied him.
“That easy?”
“No.”
“You typed one sentence.”
“You have no idea what that sentence costs me.”
“Good.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
Norah did not back down.
“Maybe it should cost something.”
He looked away.
Twenty minutes later, the captain announced their descent into Denver.
Snow covered the mountains beyond the windows like pale shadows.
Roman’s anger returned as the wheels touched down.
Not the blind anger from JFK.
Something colder.
Useful.
The plane reached the gate at 11:17 p.m.
Three minutes before Norah’s scheduled pickup.
Roman stood immediately.
Norah caught his sleeve.
“No men.”
He looked down.
“What?”
“When we get off. No men with guns around the babies.”
“Norah—”
“You want me to trust you for the next hour? Start there.”
Roman considered arguing.
Then nodded.
“No men.”
She released his sleeve.
They left the aircraft together.
Passengers hurried around them toward Christmas reunions.
Children ran into grandparents’ arms.
Couples embraced near the gate.
Roman walked beside his ex-wife carrying a portable car seat containing a daughter who had never heard his voice before tonight.
The normality of everyone else’s lives felt almost offensive.
They reached baggage claim.
A man in a brown winter coat stood beside Carousel 6.
He looked nearly seventy.
Thin.
Gray hair.
No visible weapon.
He held a white cardboard sign.
NORA HALE + 2 INFANTS
Norah stopped walking.
“That’s my name.”
Roman looked at her.
“Your real name?”
“My rental name.”
“Who knows it?”
“Elena. Matteo.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
Roman handed the car seat to Norah.
“Stay here.”
“Roman.”
“Stay where I can see you.”
He approached the older man.
The man smiled automatically.
“Mrs. Hale?”
“No.”
The smile disappeared.
Roman kept his hands visible.
“Who sent you?”
“I’m with St. Agnes transport.”
“Name.”
“Walter.”
“Who gave you the pickup?”
Walter glanced at Norah.
“I don’t know, sir. It comes through the office.”
“Show me.”
“I’m not supposed to—”
Roman looked at him.
Walter reached into his coat.
Slowly.
He removed a clipboard.
Roman took it.
A printed transportation sheet listed the flight number, arrival time, passenger alias and a note.
TRAVELING WITH TWIN INFANTS. DRIVER TO ASSIST WITH LUGGAGE. NO UNIFORMED SECURITY.
Roman’s eyes stopped there.
No uniformed security.
Exactly what Norah had just demanded.
Except the instruction had been printed before they boarded.
Someone knew what would make her feel safe.
Roman turned the sheet over.
At the bottom was an authorization box.
M. MORETTI.
Roman stared at it.
Matteo.
Norah approached despite being told not to.
“What is it?”
Roman handed her the clipboard.
She read the name.
Her face drained.
Walter shifted nervously.
“I just volunteer at the retreat. I don’t know any Morettis personally.”
Roman believed him.
That made the situation worse.
“When did you receive this?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
Norah looked at Roman.
Yesterday.
She had not decided to leave New York until that morning.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered.
Roman took the page back.
Walter pointed awkwardly toward one line.
“Maybe that helps.”
A handwritten note had been added at the bottom.
Roman recognized the handwriting immediately this time.
He had seen it on birthday cards.
Business ledgers.
Funeral guest books.
And the photograph Norah had carried for one year.
Three words.
BRING THEM HOME.
Roman folded the paper once.
Very carefully.
Norah whispered, “Matteo wrote that.”
“Yes.”
“Why would he know before I did?”
Roman looked toward the glass doors leading into the snowy Denver night.
Then he thought of Anthony Rizzo lying in a hospital.
A man shot during what everyone believed was an Irish ambush.
“We’re not going to St. Agnes.”
“Where are we going?”
Roman lifted Rose’s car seat again.
“To find out whether my lieutenant was shot by the men I came here to kill.”
May you like
He looked at Matteo’s handwriting one last time.
“Or by someone in my own family.”
