Chapter 5 - THE WATCH THAT STOPPED AT 11:17
Norah sat down hard on the metal storage box.
“My mother lied to me.”
Gabriel remained near her but did not touch her.
“She may have had a reason.”
“She told me my father died before she knew she was pregnant.”
Her voice trembled.
“This picture says otherwise.”
Vincent looked miserable.
“Daniel was working with Vittorio.”
“Doing what?”
“I don't know.”
Norah laughed bitterly.
“Another thing nobody knows.”
She stood.
“My mother knew this family. My father worked for this family. Both of them lied about it, and somehow I ended up scrubbing your floors twenty-three years later.”
Gabriel took that without defending himself.
Sometimes defense was another form of selfishness.
Instead he asked, “What did Evelyn tell you about Daniel?”
“That he was kind. That he laughed too loudly. That he wanted a girl.”
Her eyes moved toward the photograph.
“She said he died at a construction site in Indiana.”
Vincent shook his head.
“No.”
Norah looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“Because my father went back into Warehouse Nine after the fire department arrived.”
Vincent swallowed.
“He identified both bodies.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“You never told me there was a second body.”
“The family buried that part.”
“Why?”
Vincent shook his head.
“I honestly don't know.”
Gabriel looked at the coded numbers from Lucia’s rosary.
“But somebody did.”
They returned to the Rossi estate before noon.
Norah should have gone to bed.
Instead, she followed Gabriel into the archive room.
She was finished being told to rest while other people discussed her life.
Gabriel pulled six leather ledgers from a locked cabinet.
For three hours, they searched.
The numbers inside the St. Michael medal were not page numbers.
They were account designations.
Number seventeen appeared beside dozens of payments.
Forty-three beside trucking routes.
Eight marked a union pension account.
Twenty-six corresponded to a construction company.
Eleven appeared beside the name Moretti.
Three was different.
There were no transactions.
Only initials.
D.H.
Norah touched the paper.
“Daniel Hayes.”
Gabriel nodded.
Beside the initials was one phrase.
KEEP SAFE.
Norah stared at Gabriel.
“My father wasn’t stealing from yours.”
“No.”
“He was protecting something.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Gabriel turned several pages.
There.
A line written in Vittorio Rossi’s heavy block lettering.
D.H. HAS THE SECOND SET.
Norah frowned.
“Second set of what?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“I know.”
He pulled another ledger from the cabinet.
“This family made money in ways I’m not proud of.”
Norah gave him a dry look.
“I had guessed.”
“In the late nineties, my father started moving us into legitimate construction.”
“And?”
“Some people didn’t want legitimate.”
“Carlo?”
“Carlo believed legitimacy made us weak.”
Gabriel turned the ledger toward her.
“These books show two sets of financial records. One for our real companies. Another for money disappearing through shell contractors.”
Norah followed the entries.
“Your father thought Carlo was stealing.”
“More than stealing.”
Gabriel pointed to payments linked to Moretti-controlled companies.
“He was selling routes, contracts, names.”
Vincent, standing near the door, exhaled.
“So Vittorio confronted him.”
“Probably.”
Norah remembered the photograph.
“And my father had the second set.”
Gabriel nodded.
“If Carlo knew that…”
“Then Daniel was dangerous too.”
A chill filled the room.
Norah looked at the photograph again.
Her father had not been collateral damage.
He had been part of the reason Warehouse Nine burned.
Mrs. Gable appeared in the doorway carrying coffee and sandwiches.
Nobody had called her.
She placed the tray down.
Then she saw the photograph.
The plate slipped from her hands.
Gabriel caught it before it hit the floor.
Mrs. Gable stared at Daniel Hayes.
“You found it.”
Norah stood.
“You’ve seen this?”
Mrs. Gable slowly nodded.
“My mother trusted you.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
Mrs. Gable looked toward Gabriel.
He said, “Tell her.”
The older woman lowered herself into a chair.
“Daniel was Vittorio’s accountant.”
Norah blinked.
“My father was an accountant?”
“And a good one.”
That almost made her laugh.
Her mother had always claimed Daniel worked construction.
“Why hide that?”
“Because after he died, someone searched your mother’s apartment.”
Norah went still.
“Like mine.”
Mrs. Gable nodded.
“Exactly like yours.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“Evelyn was pregnant with you. Terrified. She believed anyone who knew Daniel had been Vittorio’s accountant would come looking for the books.”
“So she changed the story.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she leave Chicago?”
Mrs. Gable’s eyes filled.
“She tried.”
From her apron pocket, she removed an old train ticket.
Chicago to Minneapolis.
October 19, 2003.
Two days after the warehouse fire.
Norah took it with shaking fingers.
“She kept this?”
“No.”
Mrs. Gable looked at Gabriel.
“Lucia did.”
Gabriel stared at her.
Mrs. Gable continued.
“Evelyn reached Union Station. Lucia met her there.”
“Why?”
“Because Evelyn realized someone had followed her.”
Norah’s throat tightened.
“Carlo?”
“We never knew.”
“Then what happened?”
“Lucia told Evelyn not to board the train. She said running would confirm she knew something.”
Gabriel frowned.
“So my mother hid her here?”
Mrs. Gable shook her head.
“No. That was too dangerous.”
“Where?”
“With people Carlo would never think to ask.”
Norah understood.
“The nursing home.”
Mrs. Gable nodded.
“Lucia arranged the job.”
Norah sat down.
Everything she thought had been random suddenly had roots.
Gabriel looked at Mrs. Gable.
“And the rosary?”
“Lucia gave it to Evelyn at Union Station.”
Norah stared.
“Gave it?”
“She told her, ‘One day Gabriel will be strong enough to hear the truth. Until then, keep this away from Carlo.’”
The room went silent.
For twenty-three years, Evelyn Hayes had been remembered as a thief for carrying out Lucia Rossi’s instructions.
Gabriel stared at his mother’s rosary.
His voice was low.
“We ruined her name.”
Mrs. Gable looked at him.
“Yes.”
Norah expected Gabriel to argue.
He didn't.
“We did.”
That mattered more than she wanted it to.
Norah looked down at the train ticket.
“Why didn't my mother ever tell me?”
“Because she believed silence kept you alive.”
Mrs. Gable paused.
“And because she stopped trusting the Rossi family.”
Gabriel nodded once.
“She was right.”
Again, no defense.
Norah looked at him differently.
Then Vincent, who had been studying the old photograph, suddenly leaned closer.
“Wait.”
He pointed toward Daniel Hayes.
Around Daniel’s wrist was a dark leather band.
A wristwatch.
Not the pocket watch.
Gabriel frowned.
“What?”
Vincent looked at Norah.
“Your father’s watch.”
Norah’s face changed.
“I have it.”
Everyone looked at her.
“My mother gave it to me when I turned eighteen.”
“Where is it?” Gabriel asked.
Norah's stomach dropped.
“My apartment.”
The apartment that had just been torn apart.
Gabriel and Vincent moved at the same time.
Forty minutes later, they were back inside Norah’s bedroom.
She went straight to a small wooden jewelry box the intruder had thrown beneath the bed.
The compartments were empty.
Norah froze.
“No.”
She searched again.
Nothing.
“My father's watch is gone.”
Gabriel looked at Vincent.
“Ray?”
Ray had been under guard since morning.
He could not have taken it.
Vincent shook his head.
“The person who searched this place did.”
Norah looked around the wreckage.
Her eyes settled on the bedroom window.
A small piece of fabric had snagged against the latch.
Dark green wool.
Gabriel picked it up.
His face became unreadable.
“What?”
Norah asked.
Gabriel rubbed the fabric between his fingers.
“I know this material.”
“From where?”
He looked at her.
May you like
“My uncle Carlo has worn the same dark-green overcoat every winter for fifteen years.”
---
