Chapter 5 - The Name Vincent Found Buried Inside Ruby’s Background Check

Vincent moved Ruby and Luca to the east wing before dawn.

It was not safer because of thicker walls. It was safer because Marco could control one staircase, two windows, and a private exterior door. Vincent stationed four men nearby and ordered everyone else out.

Ruby did not sleep.

Luca finally collapsed beside her at three twenty, one hand wrapped around the red scarf. She sat against the headboard listening to his breathing and trying not to hear Caleb’s last words.

The child was.

At five, Vincent entered with two folders.

He looked as if he had aged during the night.

“I had your background check reopened.”

Ruby’s spine stiffened.

“You already did that.”

“The first check was employment-level. This was not.”

“You mean you had strangers tear through my life while I was sitting upstairs with your son.”

“Yes.”

The lack of apology made her furious.

“Get out.”

“Ruby.”

“No. You don’t get to use Luca’s fear as permission to invade everything about me.”

Vincent set the folders on a table.

“My wife’s car was sabotaged. Your brother signed the final maintenance report. Someone entered my son’s room through a hidden passage. Then a photograph of you appeared at my gate.”

“And that makes me a suspect?”

“It makes you connected.”

She slid carefully from beneath Luca’s hand and crossed the room.

“Then say it. Do you think I came here for you?”

“I don’t know.”

The answer hurt more than she expected.

Ruby nodded once.

“Then find another nanny.”

Vincent’s gaze shifted to Luca.

The boy had begun to stir.

Ruby lowered her voice.

“I mean it.”

Vincent opened the first folder.

“Caleb Jenkins worked at Romano Motor Works for ninety-two days. He was hired through Gabriel’s logistics company.”

Ruby stopped.

“He quit three days after Sofia died.”

“He told me the garage downsized.”

“It didn’t.”

Vincent opened the second folder.

“Eight months later, Caleb was admitted to St. Joseph’s after being struck by a delivery truck in Queens. Police called it a hit-and-run.”

Ruby’s hands went cold.

“You think I don’t know how my brother died?”

“I think the police report was altered.”

He showed her a copy.

The first responding officer had documented blue paint transfer on Caleb’s jacket. Laboratory intake listed the sample. The final evidence inventory did not.

“Blue paint means what?”

“Nothing by itself.”

“Then why show me?”

“Because the truck that killed Caleb was described by a witness as white.”

Ruby stared.

Vincent turned another page.

The witness had withdrawn the statement forty-eight hours later.

His name was Martin Vale.

“He disappeared six weeks after that,” Vincent said.

Ruby sat down because her legs stopped cooperating.

Caleb had been twenty-eight. Restless, unreliable, funny when he wanted forgiveness. He borrowed money and returned it late. He had once driven from Brooklyn to Newark at two in the morning because Ruby called crying after a breakup.

He had also lied.

Apparently about more than she knew.

“Why would Gabriel hire him?”

“I’m finding out.”

“Don’t.”

Vincent looked at her.

Ruby wiped her face angrily.

“Don’t say that like you’re doing me a favor. I want the truth even if he did something terrible.”

Vincent closed the folder.

“You may not like the truth.”

“I already don’t like the lie.”

Luca sat up.

His hair stuck sideways. He blinked at Vincent, then at Ruby.

For one suspended second, nobody moved.

Then Luca reached for Ruby.

Vincent watched her lift him.

Jealousy was too small a word for what crossed his face. It was grief mixed with relief and shame.

Ruby saw it.

She sat Luca on her lap and handed him the wooden train.

“Your father is here.”

Luca looked at Vincent.

“Papa stay?”

Vincent’s breath caught.

Ruby pretended not to notice.

He crouched.

“Yes.”

Luca pushed the train across the blanket toward him.

Vincent picked it up.

The child waited.

Vincent rolled it back.

Once.

Twice.

On the third pass, one wooden wheel loosened and fell onto the bed.

Something metallic flashed inside the axle.

Ruby leaned closer.

“That isn’t part of the toy.”

Vincent turned the train over.

A tiny brass key had been fitted inside the hollow wheel, wrapped in black thread.

Elena appeared at the doorway and made a sound like a prayer breaking.

Vincent looked at her.

“You knew.”

Elena’s eyes filled.

“I knew Mrs. Romano hid things for Luca.”

“What does the key open?”

“I don’t know.”

Vincent stood.

Elena shook her head.

“She told me if anything happened, I was never to search for it. She said searching would tell the wrong person we knew.”

Ruby looked down at the battered train.

It had been in the nursery when she arrived.

Luca had thrown it at her before anyone could explain a single thing.

Perhaps it had not been random.

Perhaps the boy had spent fourteen months guarding the only object his mother had managed to leave behind.

Vincent held the brass key under the light.

Stamped along one side were three tiny characters.

G17.

Ruby knew what they meant before he did.

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Her brother had rented locker G17 at the Port Authority bus terminal for years.

Caleb had kept the key after all.