Chapter 3 - The Journal Missing From Apartment 4B

Nia’s apartment door was closed when she arrived.

That was the first bad sign.

The second was the lock.

She had installed a cheap brass deadbolt herself after her mother died, because the landlord refused to replace the loose original. The brass plate had always sat slightly crooked.

Now it was straight.

Enzo noticed before she said anything.

He raised one hand.

The two men behind them stopped.

Nia stared at the door. “Someone changed it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I drilled the old holes myself.”

Enzo’s expression sharpened.

“Back up.”

“This is my apartment.”

“And someone has been inside.”

He moved her behind him with an efficiency that made arguing useless.

One of his men tested the knob. Unlocked.

Enzo pushed the door open.

Nothing exploded.

No one fired.

But the silence inside felt wrong.

Nia stepped past him before he could stop her.

The apartment had been searched carefully.

Not trashed.

Searched.

Her couch cushions were returned to the right places but rotated backward. The junk drawer beneath the kitchen counter was closed, yet the chipped wooden spoon she always kept on top had been buried under batteries and tape. A stack of unpaid medical statements sat three inches left of where she remembered leaving it.

Someone had tried to make intrusion look like normal life.

That made it worse.

Nia hurried to the bedroom.

The old green trunk at the foot of her bed was open.

Her grandmother’s journals were gone.

All six.

She stood completely still.

Enzo appeared behind her.

“What was in them?”

“Plants. Recipes. Notes. Warnings. Stories she wrote about people she treated.”

“Anything connecting you to foxglove?”

“Several pages.”

“So someone took the easiest thing we could use to support your explanation.”

Nia turned on him. “You think I staged this?”

“If I thought that, you wouldn’t be standing alone in a bedroom.”

“Comforting.”

“It wasn’t intended to be.”

She knelt beside the trunk and lifted folded blankets, though she already knew the journals were missing.

Beneath them sat a small cedar box.

Untouched.

Nia opened it.

Her grandmother’s pressed-flower cards remained inside, each plant flattened between wax paper and labeled in a narrow, slanted hand.

Chamomile.

Yarrow.

Mullein.

Foxglove.

Nia stopped.

The foxglove card held only a brittle stem and one faded purple petal, but the handwriting beneath it was clear.

DIGITALIS PURPUREA. BEAUTIFUL IS NOT THE SAME AS SAFE.

Enzo crouched beside her.

“Enough?”

“To prove my grandmother knew the plant. Not enough to prove what I smelled in Matteo’s tea.”

“Still useful.”

Nia looked around the room.

“Why take the journals but leave this?”

“Because whoever searched didn’t know what mattered.”

Or because, she thought, they were rushed.

A floorboard creaked in the hallway.

Enzo stood instantly.

One of his men appeared at the bedroom door. “Neighbor.”

A thin elderly woman in slippers peered around him.

“Miss Lewis?”

“Mrs. Givens.”

The woman looked at the suited men and lowered her voice. “Are you in trouble?”

Nia almost laughed.

“Yes.”

Mrs. Givens nodded as though she had expected that answer.

“A man was here this afternoon.”

Enzo stepped closer. “Describe him.”

“Mid-thirties. Brown coat. Said he was from the gas company.”

Nia frowned. “There’s no gas in this building.”

“I told him that.”

“Did you see his face?”

“Not well. Baseball cap.”

“Car?”

“White service van. No logo.”

Enzo asked more questions, but Mrs. Givens had little else.

Before she left, she caught Nia’s hand.

“He had something when he came out.”

“What?”

“A grocery bag. Heavy.”

The journals.

Nia thanked her.

Enzo waited until the door shut.

“Carlo couldn’t have come himself. He was at the estate.”

“He has people.”

“So do I.”

“That’s what worries me.”

Enzo studied her.

“You think someone on our side helped him?”

“I think whoever changed my lock knew I might notice damage. That means planning. Whoever took the journals knew exactly what they wanted. And they got here fast.”

Enzo’s phone rang.

He answered.

His face changed.

“What do you mean he’s gone?”

Nia felt cold.

Enzo listened for five seconds.

Then he swore with quiet precision.

Carlo had escaped the guest room.

One guard was unconscious in a service corridor. The second was missing.

The estate security system had lost seven minutes of camera footage.

Enzo hung up.

Nia looked at him.

“You said two guards.”

“There were.”

“You said nobody could leave.”

“There were protocols.”

“Apparently Carlo had protocols too.”

Enzo turned toward his men. “We’re leaving. Now.”

Nia closed the cedar box and held it against her chest.

As they crossed the living room, she noticed something white beneath the radiator.

A torn corner of paper.

She bent and pulled it free.

Part of a receipt.

BELLWEATHER BOTANICALS.

The date was three months earlier.

The customer name had been torn away.

But one line remained.

DIGITALIS PURPUREA — ORNAMENTAL CUTTINGS — TWELVE.

Nia handed it to Enzo.

His face became unreadable.

“Carlo said he bought tea there,” she said.

Enzo folded the receipt into an evidence envelope.

“Apparently he bought more than tea.”

Behind them, the newly straightened deadbolt gleamed beneath the hall light.

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Someone had entered Nia’s home to erase the past.

Instead, they had left her the first piece of a trail.