The Photograph Under the Sugar Dispenser

The flashlight beam trembled in my hand, illuminating Dana’s face.

She wasn't wearing her pink diner apron. She wore a dark trench coat, her expression completely void of the nervous, clumsy energy I had known for three years.

“Dana?” I whispered, my mind unable to process the betrayal. “What are you doing?”

“My job,” Dana said coldly. She cocked the pistol. “Carmine pays a lot better than the diner, Em. Put the ledger on the floor and kick it over.”

“You’ve been watching me this whole time,” I realized, a sickening weight dropping in my stomach.

“Since the day your mother got sick,” Dana smiled tightly. “Carmine knew Arthur’s wife would eventually slip up or lead us to the money. But you were so painfully boring, Emily. Until Vincent walked into my diner and blew the whole operation.”

Vincent didn't say a word. His eyes were fixed on the gun, his body perfectly positioned between Dana and little Leo.

“You kill us, Carmine still won't have the money,” Vincent said, his voice low, vibrating with a lethal calm. “The ledgers only have account numbers. The passwords are encrypted.”

Dana frowned. “Carmine said the book was all he needed.”

“Carmine is an idiot,” Vincent said smoothly. “Arthur was a master accountant. You think he wrote the passwords in a book anyone could find? He hid them on an object. Something he gave to Ruth.”

My heart stopped. The rosary.

Dana hesitated, her eyes darting between Vincent and the ledger in my hands.

It was a split-second distraction.

Vincent lunged.

He didn't reach for his gun. He grabbed a heavy iron bedpost and hurled it at Dana. It struck her shoulder, sending her shot wide. The bullet shattered the window behind me.

Vincent closed the distance, tackling her to the rotting floorboards. The gun skittered across the dust.

“Run!” Vincent roared at me.

I grabbed Leo’s hand, clutching the ledger to my chest, and sprinted down the hallway.

We burst through the front doors into the freezing night. The Honda was still running, the exhaust pluming in the cold air.

I threw the back door open. “Mom, move over!”

I pushed Leo into the backseat next to my terrified mother, slammed the door, and got behind the wheel. I looked back at the orphanage.

Vincent burst through the doors, holding his bleeding shoulder, Dana’s gun in his other hand. He sprinted toward the car and dove into the passenger seat.

“Go!” he shouted.

I slammed the gas pedal, tearing away from the orphanage just as two black SUVs pulled up to the gates, their headlights blinding us in the rearview mirror.

“They tracked Dana’s phone,” Vincent grunted, checking the magazine of the stolen gun. “We have to get out of the city.”

“Where are we going to go?” I cried, weaving frantically through the narrow, pot-holed streets. “They control the police! They control the highways!”

“Not all of them,” my mother said from the backseat. Her voice was weak, but entirely clear.

I looked in the mirror. She was holding Leo close to her side.

“Emily,” my mother said, reaching into the collar of her hospital gown. “Your father didn't hide the passwords on my rosary.”

She pulled out a thick, tarnished silver bracelet that I had never seen before. It was locked around her wrist, covered by long sleeves for as long as I could remember.

“He engraved them on the inside of this bracelet the night before he died,” she whispered. “Take us to the federal building in Philadelphia. We are taking the Moretti empire down tonight.”

Before I could answer, a heavy thud rocked the back of the Honda.