Chapter 2 - Rules for Surviving a Safe House

I slept for ninety-three minutes.

I knew because the digital clock beside the guest bed read 5:41 when I gave up pretending the room was not spinning.

Matteo’s safe house looked nothing like the underground bunker I had imagined. It was a narrow Beacon Hill townhouse with old pine floors, cream walls, a kitchen smaller than the one in my apartment, and framed black-and-white photographs of Boston that had probably been chosen by someone paid to make danger look tasteful.

Someone had left folded clothes outside my door.

Jeans. A gray sweater. New socks.

No note.

I showered, changed, and carried my ruined waitress uniform downstairs in a plastic bag because I refused to leave it behind like evidence of a life somebody else had interrupted.

Matteo stood at the kitchen counter making coffee.

No suit jacket. No bodyguards in the room. Just black trousers, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, and a small bandage along his jaw.

He looked annoyingly human.

“Morning,” he said.

“You own a coffee maker.”

His mouth shifted. “I contain multitudes.”

“Don’t quote poetry at me before caffeine.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Good.”

He poured a second cup and pushed it toward me.

I eyed it.

“You think I poisoned it?”

“I think men who know my mother’s room number should expect suspicion.”

“That’s fair.”

I took the coffee.

It was better than anything the Velvet Room served employees, which felt personally offensive.

A plate of toast sat between us.

I reached for one slice and said, “Rules.”

Matteo leaned against the counter.

“My rules?”

“Mine.”

That got his full attention.

“You do not pay my mother’s bills. You do not call my employer and threaten anyone. You do not put me in a car without telling me where we’re going. If something changes, you tell me. I am not a package you move between secure locations.”

His face remained still, but I could tell he was listening because he did not interrupt.

“And,” I added, “if I say don’t touch me, you stop.”

His eyes met mine.

“I stopped last night.”

“I noticed.”

“Then we agree.”

“That easily?”

“No.” He picked up his coffee. “I reserve the right to argue when your plan is suicidal.”

“That sounds less like agreement.”

“It’s the best you’re getting before six.”

I almost smiled again.

That was becoming a problem.

Leo entered through the front hall carrying a tablet and the expression of a man who had been awake all night and considered that a personal insult.

“Apartment search was thorough,” he said.

My appetite vanished.

“Anything missing?”

“Your laptop is still there. Cash in the kitchen drawer untouched. Jewelry box untouched.”

“So what were they looking for?”

“We don’t know.”

Matteo took the tablet.

Leo continued. “The nightclub shooter used a stolen vehicle. Plates swapped twice. We lost the trail near Somerville.”

“Police?”

“They have the original vehicle report and ballistics from the club. Detective Walsh wants statements today.”

I looked between them. “You work with the police?”

Matteo’s expression went dry.

“Work with is generous.”

“Detective Erin Walsh has spent eight years trying to put half of Boston in prison,” Leo said. “Including him.”

He pointed at Matteo.

“At least somebody has hobbies,” I said.

Matteo handed the tablet back.

“We go to Harbor Pines first. Then you speak to Walsh.”

I blinked. “You’re not going to stop me?”

“Why would I?”

“Because crime bosses in movies generally dislike witnesses talking to detectives.”

“I dislike being compared to crime bosses in movies.”

“That is not an answer.”

“No, Mara. I’m not stopping you.”

There was something almost tired in his voice.

It made me wonder how many times people assumed the worst of him because he had earned enough of it to make the assumption reasonable.

I did not ask.

Not yet.

We left just after seven.

Leo drove. Another SUV followed.

Boston had that washed-out November look where the sky could not decide whether to rain or snow. People hurried along sidewalks holding coffee and thinking about ordinary things.

I envied every one of them.

Harbor Pines sat on a quiet tree-lined street in Quincy. Brick exterior. White columns. Flower boxes stripped bare for winter.

Two men in ordinary coats stood near the entrance.

I looked at Matteo.

“Your people?”

“Yes.”

“They look like accountants.”

“They’ll be thrilled.”

Inside, the morning receptionist greeted me by name and gave Matteo a long second look before professionalism won.

My mother was in the sunroom with a blanket over her knees and a crossword on the table.

She saw me first.

Relief crossed her face.

Then she saw Matteo.

“Oh,” she said.

Matteo stopped three feet from her chair.

“Mrs. Bennett.”

My mother looked him over.

“You got taller.”

I stared at her.

Matteo actually laughed.

Not the short amused sound from the alley.

A real laugh.

“I was seventeen the last time you saw me.”

“You were skinny.”

“I’ve been told.”

“You never listened to your mother.”

“That too.”

I sat beside Ellen.

“You want to explain why you forgot to mention you rehabilitated organized crime royalty?”

She gave me a look.

“I was a nurse. Patients are patients.”

“Matteo says you called him.”

Her humor disappeared.

“I did.”

“Why?”

She folded the newspaper carefully.

“A man came here twice. First time he asked whether you visited on Tuesdays. Second time he asked whether you still worked nights.”

My throat tightened.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you would have quit the Velvet Room, taken more shifts somewhere worse, and lost sleep trying to protect me from a problem you didn’t understand.”

“That is exactly what you did.”

“Yes.”

“That’s different?”

“I’m your mother.”

There was no arguing with that particular form of logic.

Matteo moved toward the window, giving us space.

I lowered my voice.

“What did the man look like?”

“About fifty. Gray hair. Very neat. Navy coat. A little scar under his left ear.”

Leo, standing near the doorway, typed the details into his phone.

“Did he give a name?”

“Mr. Collins.”

“Fake,” Leo said.

My mother glanced at him. “I assumed.”

I squeezed her hand.

“Mom, until we know what’s happening, you cannot go anywhere alone.”

She sighed.

“I live in assisted care, Mara. Alone is not really an option.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

A nurse appeared at the sunroom entrance.

“Mara?”

Something in her face made me stand.

“What?”

“Can I speak with you?”

We stepped into the hallway.

The nurse lowered her voice.

“There was another man here this morning.”

My stomach dropped.

“What man?”

“He said he was your cousin.”

“I don’t have a cousin.”

Behind me, Matteo went completely still.

The nurse swallowed.

“He asked whether he could take Ellen to breakfast. He knew your full name and her date of birth.”

“Did anyone let him in?”

“No. He didn’t have the family code. Reception refused.”

“When was this?”

“About six fifteen.”

Less than two hours earlier.

Leo was already walking toward the front desk.

Matteo came closer, but stopped before touching me.

“What did he look like?” he asked.

The nurse described a younger man than my mother had seen before. Dark baseball cap. Brown coat. Clean-shaven.

Two different men.

Or the same group sending whoever was available.

I turned back toward the sunroom.

My mother watched us through the glass.

For the first time, she looked old to me.

Not weak.

Not helpless.

Just older than I wanted her to be.

“I’m moving her,” I said.

Matteo’s gaze sharpened.

“Where?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Harbor Pines has security now.”

“It also has strangers walking in asking to sign her out.”

“We can place someone at her door.”

“No.”

“Mara—”

“No armed man standing outside my mother’s room.”

“Then we find another option.”

I crossed my arms.

“Together?”

The word came out before I meant it to.

Matteo’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.

“Yes,” he said. “Together.”

My mother called from the sunroom.

“If the two of you are going to negotiate my kidnapping, at least bring me coffee.”

I closed my eyes.

Matteo looked toward her.

“She always like this?”

“She gets worse when she likes someone.”

“That explains you.”

I pointed at him.

“Careful.”

His eyes dropped to my finger.

The same finger I had poked into his chest the night before.

For one ridiculous second, we both remembered it.

Then Leo returned from the lobby.

His face erased the moment.

“The visitor was caught on exterior camera,” he said. “I know him.”

Matteo turned.

“Who?”

Leo looked at me first, as if deciding whether I belonged in the answer.

I did not blink.

Finally he said, “He works for Salvatore Greco.”

Matteo’s entire body went quiet.

I had never heard the name.

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But judging by the way everyone else stopped moving, I had just met the reason my birthday had gone wrong.

I looked through the glass at my mother again. Whatever this was, it had crossed out of Matteo’s world and into mine. That meant I was done waiting for other people to decide what I deserved to know.