Chapter 4 - THE BRASS KEY
I stared at the drawing in Luca’s hand.
The blue crayon house. The crooked tree.
Toby had drawn that picture yesterday. It was pinned to the refrigerator in our tiny kitchen with a dinosaur magnet.
“How did he get that?” I choked out, crawling backward until my shoulders hit the cold steel of the vault wall. “Luca, how did he get my son’s drawing?”
Luca didn’t answer immediately. He was scanning the dark, sealed room with his flashlight.
There was no secondary exit. No air vents large enough for a person.
The shooter had fired from the hallway, hit Patrick, and locked us in.
Luca walked to the heavy steel door. He pushed against it. It didn’t budge.
“Someone is tying up loose ends,” Luca said, his voice dangerously calm.
He pulled out his phone. The screen illuminated his harsh features.
“No signal,” he muttered. “The vault is lined with lead and copper mesh. Dead zone.”
Panic clawed at my throat. “My son, Luca. Thomas went to get Toby. What if the person who shot Patrick is already at my apartment?”
“Thomas is the best I have. If anyone is at your apartment, Thomas will handle them.”
“You don’t know that!” I screamed.
The sound of my own voice echoing off the steel walls shocked me. I had never raised my voice at an employer in my life.
Luca didn’t scold me. He just looked at me with deep, unexpected empathy.
“You’re right. I don’t know that,” Luca said. “So we need to get out of here.”
He walked back to Patrick’s body.
He knelt in the pooling blood without hesitation and began checking Patrick’s pockets.
“What are you doing?” I asked, shivering.
“Patrick was terrified,” Luca said, pulling a leather wallet and a set of keys from the dead man’s slacks. “He was trying to steal the blueprints to appease whoever is really pulling the strings. But he knew he was a dead man walking.”
Luca pulled a small, heavy object from Patrick’s breast pocket.
He held it up in the flashlight beam.
It was a tarnished brass key. It looked antique, with intricate ridges and a square head.
“Do you know what this is?” Luca asked.
I shook my head.
“It’s the manual override key for this vault,” Luca said.
He walked to the steel door, slid aside a small metal plate near the keypad, and inserted the brass key. He turned it.
With a heavy, grinding sound, the deadbolts retracted.
Luca pushed the door open. The dim light of the hallway spilled in.
He drew his gun again, holding the flashlight in his left hand, crossed over his right wrist.
“Stay exactly one step behind me,” he ordered.
We stepped over Patrick’s legs and into the corridor.
It was still empty. The smell of burnt gunpowder hung faintly in the air.
We moved fast. My ankle screamed with every step, but adrenaline drowned out the pain. I couldn’t think about my foot. I could only think about Toby’s blue crayon drawing.
We reached Luca’s study.
He locked the heavy oak doors behind us and immediately went to his desk phone. It was a secure landline.
He dialed.
“Thomas. Status.”
A pause. I held my breath, my fingernails biting into my palms.
“We have them, boss,” Thomas’s voice came through the speakerphone. “The boy and the neighbor. We are pulling through the main gates right now.”
My knees gave out. I collapsed into one of the leather guest chairs, sobbing with relief.
“Was anyone at the apartment?” Luca asked.
“No. But the front door lock was picked. Someone had been inside. The place was tossed.”
“Bring them straight to the study. Do not stop. Do not speak to anyone.”
Luca hung up. He looked at me.
“He’s safe, Rachel. He’s here.”
Two minutes later, the study doors opened.
Thomas, a massive, bald man in a dark suit, walked in.
Behind him was Mrs. Gable, looking bewildered in her nightgown and winter coat.
And holding her hand was Toby.
He was wearing his Spider-Man pajamas, clutching his favorite stuffed bear. He looked sleepy and confused.
“Mommy?” he said, his little voice breaking the tension in the room.
“Oh, baby!” I threw myself onto the floor and pulled him into my arms, burying my face in his soft hair. He smelled like baby shampoo and sleep.
“I got scared,” Toby mumbled into my shoulder. “The loud men came.”
“I know, baby. I know. Mommy’s here.”
Mrs. Gable wrung her hands. “Rachel, dear, what on earth is happening? These men just barged in—”
“I’ll explain everything later, Mrs. Gable,” I said, crying. “Thank you for keeping him safe.”
Luca walked over to Thomas. They spoke in low whispers.
I pulled back and looked at Toby. I touched his cheeks, checking him for any scratches.
“Did anyone else come to the apartment today, Toby?” I asked gently. “Before the loud men?”
Toby nodded. “Yeah. The nice man.”
My blood ran cold.
Luca stopped talking to Thomas. He turned around.
“What nice man, Toby?” Luca asked, kneeling down so he was eye-level with my son.
Toby looked at Luca, completely unafraid. “He had a suit like yours. But he smelled like peppermint.”
Patrick always chewed peppermint gum.
“When was he there, Toby?” I asked, trying not to let my panic show.
“After school. When Mrs. Gable was in the bathroom. He knocked on the window.”
“Did he hurt you?” I asked, my voice cracking.
Toby shook his head. “No. He gave me a present.”
Luca and I exchanged a sharp look.
“What present?” Luca asked.
Toby reached into the pocket of his pajama pants.
He pulled out a heavy, folded piece of thick parchment paper.
He handed it to me.
I unfolded it. It wasn’t a drawing. It was a printed document.
A birth certificate.
I read the name at the top.
David James Moretti.
I stopped breathing. I stared at the paper, then at Luca.
“My husband’s last name was Cole,” I whispered.
Luca slowly stood up. His face was a mask of absolute shock.
“David Cole,” Luca said softly. “The architect who saved my father’s life.”
“Yes.”
Luca took the birth certificate from my hands.
“Rachel,” Luca said, his voice barely audible. “My father had a child before he married my mother. A boy he gave up to keep him out of this life. A boy we thought died in a fire thirty years ago.”
He looked down at Toby.
“Your husband wasn’t just an architect,” Luca said. “He was my older brother.”
I stared at him, the room spinning.
Before I could speak, Thomas’s radio crackled.
“Boss,” a guard’s voice panicked over the frequency. “We have a problem.”
“What is it?” Thomas barked.
“The police are at the front gates. Six cruisers. They’re demanding entry.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed. “Who called the police?”
May you like
The radio crackled again.
“They said they received an anonymous tip,” the guard said. “Reporting a murder in the east wing vault.”
