Chapter 3 - A Radio Turned Face Down

Gabriel returned before the last strip of winter light had disappeared from the private facility's windows.

This time he brought his security chief, Marco DeLuca, a compact man in his forties whose calm never reached his eyes. Sarah had seen Marco pass through the estate dozens of times. He always acknowledged her with a nod, which made him unusual there.

She described the service corridor. The guard. The radio in his hand. She tried to remember the man's face, but the memory came in pieces.

“Dark hair,” she said. “A little scar near his chin. He was wearing the usual heavy coat.”

“Was the radio Rossi issue?” Marco asked.

“I don't know. It looked smaller. Black, no long antenna.”

Marco exchanged a glance with Gabriel.

“Why didn't you report it?” Gabriel asked.

Sarah's face warmed. “Because I didn't know there was anything to report. I was carrying socks.”

He seemed about to reply, then stopped himself.

“That's fair.”

Marco took a chair at the foot of the bed. “Did he speak?”

“He asked if Mrs. Gable was coming back. I said she was sick.”

Gabriel's head lifted.

“He asked that before the shooting?”

“Yes.”

Marco wrote it down. The inquiry took only ten minutes, but Sarah was shaking when it ended. Memory had become a responsibility she hadn't requested.

“You did enough,” Gabriel told her. “More than enough.”

The words sounded strange coming from him.

After the men left, she slept heavily. The next morning, Maria helped her stand beside the bed. Sarah's knees trembled. There were two steps to the chair, and crossing them felt like dragging herself through deep water.

“Recovery is measured in inches,” Maria said. “Today you made two feet.”

Sarah almost laughed. It hurt too much to finish.

By Sunday she could sit upright long enough to drink tea. Gabriel came in the afternoon. He was holding Leo's train track again, though Sarah hadn't realized he'd taken it from the cabinet.

“He wanted me to bring this back after I showed it to him,” he said.

“Why?”

“He thinks it belongs wherever you are.”

Sarah turned her head so he wouldn't see her cry.

Gabriel pulled his chair closer. “Marco identified the guard you saw. His name is Peter Voss. He worked the western rotation for six months.”

“Is he all right?”

“He disappeared the night of the attack.”

A chill moved through her despite the blanket.

“Does that mean he helped them?”

“It means I want to ask him questions.”

Gabriel was learning, Sarah noticed, to answer without turning every suspicion into a verdict.

“He left his issued radio in a locker,” Gabriel continued. “The security logs show that his patrol assignment was altered at 2:52. Someone used Marco's access credentials.”

“Could Marco have changed it?”

“He says he didn't.”

“You believe him?”

“I believe proof.”

She studied his face. “And what do you believe about Mrs. Gable?”

“She called in sick from her own phone. The doctor confirms she was seen that morning with a fever. I haven't found a reason to accuse her.”

Relief came unexpectedly. Sarah hadn't liked the sleeping nanny, but that wasn't evidence of murder.

“Then somebody knew Leo would be in the sunroom anyway,” she murmured.

“His routine was predictable.”

“Only to people who watched.”

Gabriel lowered his gaze to the track.

They sat quietly until the question that had been troubling Sarah finally escaped.

“Why was he alone so often?”

Gabriel looked at her.

“Mrs. Gable was there.”

“She was there when she wasn't asleep.”

He didn't defend the arrangement.

“After his mother died, Leo stopped wanting most people near him,” he said. “I thought giving him space was helping.”

“He didn't need space when the track wouldn't fit.”

The words were gentle. Gabriel flinched anyway.

“I know,” he said.

For the first time she heard grief beneath his authority. It had probably been there for years, hidden beneath the orders.

She asked about Leo's mother, then wished she hadn't. Gabriel stared at the floor long enough that Sarah expected him to leave.

“Her name was Elena,” he said. “She died in a car fire three years ago. He remembers the noise more than her face.”

Sarah didn't ask for the underworld rumors that followed the fire. She knew too much about what happened to people caught inside those stories.

Instead she touched the edge of the wooden track.

“You can tell him he didn't break it,” she said. “It only needed turning.”

Gabriel's expression changed in a small, painful way.

That evening Marco returned without Gabriel. He asked Sarah to identify several staff photographs. She recognized Peter Voss immediately. In the picture, the chin scar was clear.

She also recognized the man beside him.

“That's Daniel Kearns,” she said, pointing. “He brings supply boxes through the service entrance.”

Marco's pen stopped.

“How often?”

“Every Tuesday. Sometimes Thursdays. He signs for cleaning materials, but I never saw him carry them farther than the pantry.”

“Did you see him the day of the attack?”

Sarah searched the memory. “I saw the boxes stacked that morning. Not him.”

Marco showed her a dated delivery receipt. A neat signature had been entered at 2:46 p.m. on Tuesday.

“Is that his handwriting?”

“I don't know his handwriting.”

Marco thanked her for not guessing.

Later, Gabriel called instead of visiting. His voice sounded rough over the phone.

“Peter Voss's apartment was emptied yesterday,” he said. “But the property manager found a second radio charger behind the refrigerator.”

“Was that the one I saw?”

“We don't know yet.”

“Gabriel?” She had never called him by his first name. The silence after it surprised both of them. “Be careful what you think you know.”

“I will.”

He hung up. Sarah stared at the phone in her hand, astonished he'd listened.

On Monday, the facility's door opened to reveal a small boy holding Marco's hand. Leo's dark hair was neatly combed. The bright blue in his eyes made Sarah think of the paint that had splashed across his face.

He approached her chair slowly.

Gabriel stood behind him, watching.

Leo placed the other wooden train-track piece in Sarah's open hand. It fitted against the one on her lap with a familiar click.

Then he whispered, “Again.”

Sarah looked up at Gabriel. His face had gone completely still.

She turned the pieces, joined them once more, and smiled through tears.

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The next morning, Marco called with a discovery. Daniel Kearns's delivery vehicle had entered the estate on Tuesday, but the recorded exit time preceded the entry by four minutes.

Someone had altered more than a guard schedule.