Chapter 4 - THE HOUSE WITH NO LOCKED DOORS
Z
The explosion lifted the delivery van six feet off the pavement.
Glass burst across the access road.
Gabriel turned, wrapped Eleanor against his chest and dragged her behind the SUV as burning metal fell into the motel parking lot.
People screamed.
Alarms began shrieking.
Somewhere inside the Prairie Star, a child started crying.
Gabriel’s men moved instantly.
“Second team, east side!”
“Get Shaw in the vehicle!”
“Call the fire department!”
Gabriel looked at Eleanor.
Her face was white.
“You saw it.”
She nodded.
“The camera.”
“You saved my life.”
“You were standing next to me.”
“Still counts.”
A laugh escaped her.
Wrong moment.
Wrong place.
Pure nerves.
Gabriel found himself wanting to hear it again.
That irritated him.
Twenty minutes later they were moving through Chicago in a three-SUV convoy while local news helicopters began circling the motel.
Julian had escalated.
That told Gabriel two things.
First, the records could destroy him.
Second, Julian did not believe Gabriel understood how large the operation really was.
Gabriel intended to preserve that illusion.
He brought Eleanor, Nathan and Lily to a house in Lake Forest that officially belonged to Moretti Development.
Eleanor expected marble.
Gold.
Armed guards standing beside paintings.
Instead she found dark wood floors, old books, an enormous kitchen and framed family photographs.
“This is your safe house?” she asked.
“My house.”
She turned.
“You live here?”
Gabriel removed his bloodstained jacket.
“Usually.”
“It looks normal.”
“That sounded insulting.”
“It was meant as a compliment.”
Lily ran toward a window overlooking the lake.
Nathan followed.
Gabriel watched them.
Eleanor watched Gabriel.
“You don’t like people knowing where you live.”
“No.”
“But you brought us here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Julian designed the security at every official Moretti property except this one.”
Eleanor understood.
“Why not this house?”
“My mother did.”
That evening a doctor examined Eleanor’s ankle.
Severe sprain.
No fracture.
Bruised ligaments.
Three days without weight if possible.
Eleanor listened politely and then asked for crutches.
Gabriel stood in the doorway.
“No.”
The doctor looked between them.
Eleanor frowned.
“You don’t get a vote.”
“My house.”
“My ankle.”
“My security problem.”
“My body.”
The doctor quietly packed his bag.
“I’ll send medication.”
Gabriel waited until he was gone.
“You could rest for one night.”
“I spent four weeks being ordered around by your people.”
“They weren’t my orders.”
“They used your name.”
That silenced him.
Eleanor leaned back against the pillows in the guest room.
“Do you know what the difference feels like from where I was standing?”
Gabriel stared.
“No.”
“Exactly.”
He left without another word.
At midnight Eleanor found him in the kitchen.
He was standing at the counter in shirtsleeves, stitching his own shoulder.
She stopped.
“That is the stupidest thing I’ve seen today.”
Gabriel glanced up.
“Today included a wedding ambush and an exploding van.”
“Strong competition.”
She moved closer on the crutches.
“You have a doctor.”
“He left.”
“You sent him away.”
“Yes.”
“Sit down.”
Gabriel almost laughed.
She pointed at a chair.
“Now.”
Something about the command amused him enough to obey.
Eleanor washed her hands, found the medical kit and examined the wound.
“You need three stitches.”
“I have two.”
“You have two terrible stitches.”
“They’re functional.”
“They look like a drunk pirate did them.”
Gabriel watched her remove the first.
“You know how?”
“Night motel.”
“That explains this too?”
“Night motel explains almost everything.”
She cleaned the wound.
Gabriel did not flinch.
“Why were you working there?”
She threaded the needle.
“College didn’t work out.”
“Money?”
“My mother got sick.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She died.”
Gabriel looked down.
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-two.”
She made the first stitch.
“My father disappeared after the funeral. Nathan had Lily. Bills existed. Life continued.”
“What did you study?”
“Accounting.”
Gabriel looked at her sharply.
She noticed.
“What?”
“You studied accounting.”
“For three years.”
“And you didn’t mention that while we were looking at Julian’s books?”
“You didn’t ask.”
Gabriel stared at her.
Eleanor smiled.
“There’s that underestimating problem again.”
She finished the final stitch.
“Done.”
Gabriel did not move.
Neither did she.
The kitchen felt too quiet.
The lake outside was black beneath moonlight.
Eleanor was close enough that Gabriel could smell hospital soap and the faint perfume left from a wedding that had never happened.
“You should hate me,” he said.
She tied off the stitch.
“I did.”
“Past tense?”
“Don’t get excited.”
Gabriel’s mouth twitched.
She packed the gauze away.
“I hated the man I thought you were.”
“And now?”
“I’m undecided.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“For you, maybe.”
Marco entered and ruined something neither Gabriel nor Eleanor was prepared to identify.
“We recovered the original drive.”
Gabriel stood.
“Good.”
Marco looked at Eleanor.
“Exactly where she said.”
They gathered in Gabriel’s library.
The original drive contained more than financial records.
Audio.
Video.
Emails.
Julian had been careful, but not careful enough.
Nathan had copied fragments from a larger archive.
The most important file had no title.
Only a date.
January 12, 2017.
Gabriel clicked.
A video opened.
His mother appeared on screen.
Lucia Moretti sat in what Gabriel recognized as the old family study.
Alive.
Thin from cancer.
Blue scarf around her shoulders.
Across from her sat Julian Cross.
Younger.
Smiling.
Lucia’s voice trembled.
“You promised me it was over.”
Julian leaned forward.
“It will be when Gabriel signs the transfer.”
“He will never agree.”
“He already agrees with whatever I put in front of him.”
Gabriel stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
Lucia said, “Those girls are children.”
Julian’s smile vanished.
“Careful.”
“You think because my husband is dead I have no power?”
“I think because your son loves you, you are useful.”
Gabriel gripped the desk.
Eleanor moved beside him.
On screen, Lucia reached beneath her sleeve.
A blue ribbon appeared around her wrist.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
She had signaled him.
Nine years ago.
And he had never seen it.
The video ended.
Nobody spoke.
Gabriel stood with his back to them.
He had built his life around the belief that he learned from his father’s sins.
All this time, evil had continued in rooms bearing his name.
Eleanor touched his arm.
He flinched.
Then hated himself for it.
“She tried to tell me.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
“You were supposed to know a ribbon was hidden under her sleeve in a private meeting?”
“She taught me the signal.”
“She also taught you what it meant.”
Gabriel looked at her.
Eleanor held his gaze.
“It meant she couldn’t speak safely. It didn’t mean you were supposed to become God.”
Nobody had spoken to Gabriel Moretti that way in years.
He needed it more than he wanted to admit.
Marco cleared his throat.
“There’s another file.”
They opened it.
A photograph.
Eleanor’s face disappeared of all color.
The picture showed her father.
Thomas Shaw.
The man who had supposedly abandoned his family nine years earlier.
He was standing beside Julian Cross.
Alive.
The photograph was dated three months ago.
Nathan whispered, “Dad?”
Eleanor gripped the table.
Gabriel enlarged the image.
Behind Thomas Shaw was a warehouse sign.
Bluebird Shipping.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Eleanor’s voice broke.
“He didn’t leave us.”
Gabriel looked at the next file.
A document carrying Thomas Shaw’s signature.
Witness Protection Payment Authorization.
Nathan stared.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Gabriel understood before anyone else.
Thomas Shaw had not abandoned his children.
He had been hidden.
And somebody inside Gabriel’s organization had been paying to keep him hidden for nine years.
Gabriel reached for his phone.
Eleanor stopped him.
“If Julian knows we saw this, my father dies.”
Gabriel looked at her hand on his wrist.
“What do you suggest?”
She stared at the image.
“We do the thing Julian least expects.”
May you like
“What?”
“We finish the wedding.”
