Chapter 1 - The Man in the Kitchen

The man beside me had just said he had never seen James Moretti do anything like this when a pan clattered in the kitchen.

I flinched.

Chloe did not. She was still wrapped in James's coat, small hands tucked beneath the black wool, watching the swinging kitchen door as though Santa Claus himself had disappeared through it.

“Is he really cooking?” she whispered.

The man who had spoken to me gave a short, uncertain laugh.

“Apparently.”

He was broad-shouldered, gray at the temples, and old enough to look uncomfortable in the role of bodyguard.

“I’m Luca Ferraro,” he said. “Since you’ve already heard me call him boss, there’s not much point pretending I’m the accountant.”

I managed a weak smile.

“Grace Bennett.”

His expression changed.

It happened so fast I almost convinced myself I had imagined it.

Then he looked toward the kitchen.

“What did you say your last name was?”

“Bennett.”

The color left his face.

Before I could ask why, James returned carrying two plates.

He had somehow found pasta, butter, garlic, canned tomatoes, and a bag of frozen meatballs in the kitchen. Nothing about the meal looked fancy, but steam rose from the plates and Chloe sat up so quickly the coat slid from one shoulder.

James set the smaller plate in front of her.

“Careful. It’s hot.”

Chloe stared at him.

“You made this?”

“I had help.”

Luca snorted.

“You yelled at a saucepan.”

“The saucepan deserved it.”

Chloe giggled.

James looked at her, and for the first time I saw what his face looked like without the distance people whispered about. It made him seem younger. Tired, but younger.

Then his eyes returned to me.

“Sit.”

“I’m working.”

“You’ve been scrubbing a floor that was already clean when I came in.”

“That doesn’t mean I get to stop.”

“It does tonight.”

My manager, Dennis, had gone home two hours earlier. If he found out I had stopped working because the owner had told me to sit, I could already hear him saying I should have known better.

“I can’t risk this job.”

James pulled out the chair across from Chloe.

“Grace, I own the restaurant.”

“That’s exactly why I’m nervous.”

Luca looked down to hide a smile.

James did not.

“Sit,” he repeated, but the word had lost its edge.

So I sat.

He brought me a plate too.

I hated the way my throat tightened at the smell of garlic and warm tomato sauce. Hunger was one thing when it belonged to me. It became shame when someone else noticed it.

Chloe did not have that problem.

She took one bite and closed her eyes.

“This is really good.”

James leaned against the table.

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“You look like you order food.”

Luca coughed into his fist.

James stared at her for a second, then laughed.

A real laugh.

The other two men near the front door turned to look.

I had the strange feeling that I was watching something private.

Then James looked at me again.

“Bennett,” he said.

My fork stopped.

“What?”

“Your last name.”

“Yes.”

“Was your husband Daniel Bennett?”

The room changed.

Not visibly. The Christmas lights still blinked against the windows. Chloe still twirled pasta around her fork. Somewhere in the kitchen, an old refrigerator hummed.

But every muscle in my body locked.

“How do you know Daniel?”

James's face gave me no answer.

Luca looked away.

I stood.

“Mr. Moretti, how do you know my husband?”

Chloe looked between us.

“Mommy?”

I forced my voice lower.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.”

James moved away from the table.

“Grace, sit down.”

“No.”

I had spent two years learning how to answer questions about Daniel without crying. Car accident. Wrong place, wrong time. Driver never found. End of story.

But James Moretti had said my dead husband’s full name like a man recognizing a threat.

“You knew him.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

James glanced toward Chloe.

“Not here.”

“Then where?”

“Somewhere she doesn’t have to hear it.”

My hands began to shake.

“Daniel worked in municipal auditing. He hated organized crime. He hated people who thought money made them untouchable. So unless you want me to believe the two of you met at a charity picnic, I need an explanation.”

Luca stepped forward.

“Grace—”

“You knew him too?”

Silence.

That was my answer.

Chloe pushed her plate away.

“Mommy, are we leaving?”

I knelt beside her.

“No. Finish eating.”

“But you’re mad.”

“I’m confused.”

James crouched on the other side of the booth.

“Your mom has every right to be.”

I looked at him.

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“It shouldn’t.”

Chloe studied James.

“Did you know my daddy?”

James went still.

“Yes.”

“Was he your friend?”

His eyes moved to me before returning to her.

“I respected him.”

That was not the same thing.

Chloe seemed to understand.

“My daddy said respect is what people say when they don’t know if they like somebody.”

Luca made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sigh.

James almost smiled.

“Your father was very observant.”

“He was funny too.”

“I know.”

That hurt more than I expected.

James stood.

“Eat. Both of you. Then I’ll tell Grace what I can.”

“What you can?”

“What I know.”

Those were different promises, and we both knew it.

I sat down again because Chloe was watching.

The rest of dinner tasted like paper to me.

When she finished, James brought her hot chocolate. She curled into the booth beneath his coat and fell asleep before she drank half of it.

Only then did he pull out the chair across from me.

Luca remained standing near the aisle.

James folded his hands.

“Daniel contacted me twenty-seven months ago.”

My breath caught.

That was three months before he died.

“Why?”

“He was reviewing contracts connected to harbor redevelopment.”

“I know. He complained about it constantly.”

“He found irregularities.”

“He always found irregularities.”

“These weren’t ordinary.”

I stared at him.

James continued.

“Money disappeared through subcontractors. Invoices were doubled. Companies that had no equipment were receiving seven-figure payments. Several of those companies were connected to businesses with my name on them.”

My stomach dropped.

“You were stealing city money.”

“No.”

I laughed once.

“You expect me to take your word for that?”

“No. Daniel didn’t either.”

That sounded exactly like my husband.

James leaned back.

“He came to me because the theft was too sloppy to be mine.”

I blinked.

“What?”

Luca spoke quietly.

“Daniel said if James were stealing that much money, no one would find it in a spreadsheet labeled consulting.”

Despite myself, I could hear Daniel saying it.

A sharp, dry comment delivered with one eyebrow raised.

My eyes burned.

“So he suspected someone inside your organization.”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“We never proved it.”

“You had two years.”

James's jaw tightened.

“We had three months.”

I knew what he meant.

I hated him for saying it.

“Don’t use his death to excuse yourself.”

“I’m not.”

“Then tell me why nobody told me.”

James did not answer immediately.

Luca did.

“Because Daniel asked us not to.”

I turned toward him.

“He told you to leave his wife and child in poverty?”

“No.”

“Then what did he tell you?”

Luca looked at James.

James nodded once.

Luca reached inside his coat.

Every nerve in my body screamed before I realized he was removing a folded piece of paper.

He placed it on the table.

It was a photocopy.

At the bottom, beneath several typed lines, was Daniel’s signature.

I knew every curve of it.

I picked up the page with both hands.

If anything happens to me, do not contact Grace unless you are certain the people responsible have been identified. She knows nothing. Chloe knows nothing. Keep them outside this.

My vision blurred.

I read it again.

And again.

“This isn’t possible.”

“It’s real,” James said.

“Why would he write this?”

“Because he believed someone was watching him.”

My heart began pounding.

“Who?”

“We never found out.”

“You said you respected him.”

“I did.”

“Then you let his murder become a hit-and-run?”

The word murder escaped before I could stop it.

James's expression changed.

Not surprise.

Confirmation.

I stood so fast the chair scraped across the floor.

“No.”

“Grace.”

“No. The police said—”

“The police said there was no evidence the driver knew him.”

“You’re telling me someone killed Daniel because of your business?”

“I’m telling you Daniel believed he was in danger before he died, and I have never believed the collision was random.”

I slapped him.

The sound cracked through the empty restaurant.

Luca moved, then stopped when James raised one hand.

My palm stung.

James did not touch his face.

“That was deserved.”

“Don’t.”

My voice broke.

“Don’t act like you get to decide what you deserve.”

“I don’t.”

“Did you know?”

“No.”

“Did you send him into this?”

“No.”

“Did you protect him?”

James said nothing.

That silence broke something inside me.

“You didn’t.”

“No.”

I pressed both hands to my mouth.

For two years I had hated an invisible driver.

For two years I had imagined some drunk stranger stumbling out of a car after destroying my life.

Now there was shape around the darkness.

Not a face.

But intent.

Chloe stirred.

I wiped my eyes before she could wake.

James spoke quietly.

“There’s more.”

I looked at him.

“Of course there is.”

“The night Daniel died, he called Luca.”

Luca’s face tightened.

“He said he had proof. Enough to expose everyone involved.”

“Where is it?”

“We never received it.”

“What happened?”

“He said he had hidden a copy somewhere nobody would think to look.”

My mouth went dry.

“Did he say where?”

Luca nodded slowly.

“Only one thing.”

“What?”

“He said, ‘Grace won’t know she has it.’”

I stared at him.

The restaurant seemed suddenly too large.

Too quiet.

I thought of every box I had packed after Daniel’s funeral. Every shirt I had donated. Every notebook I had kept because his handwriting still existed inside it.

“You searched my home.”

James's eyes hardened.

“No.”

“You knew he said I had something.”

“He also said you knew nothing and were not to be contacted until we identified the threat.”

“So you watched us instead?”

Luca looked ashamed.

“For a few months.”

Rage flooded me.

“You watched me lose our apartment?”

James answered.

“I did not know you had.”

“You watched me sell his car?”

“No.”

“You watched me take two jobs?”

“No.”

“Then you weren’t watching very well.”

He absorbed that without defending himself.

I hated that too.

I wanted him to argue so I could keep being angry.

Instead he said, “I failed your husband.”

That was too close to the truth I had been thinking.

“And now?”

“Now I think someone else may know what Daniel told us.”

My skin turned cold.

“Why?”

James looked toward the front window.

A black sedan had stopped across the street.

Its headlights were off.

Luca followed his gaze.

His entire posture changed.

“Boss.”

James stood.

“What is it?”

Luca moved toward the window.

“That car was outside when we arrived.”

One of the men by the door reached beneath his jacket.

James's voice became flat.

“Do not draw anything in front of the child.”

The man lowered his hand.

I looked at Chloe.

She was still asleep.

“What does this mean?”

James turned back to me.

“It means you and Chloe are not going home alone.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“That’s not a request.”

I stepped toward him.

“You don’t get to order me around because my husband trusted you.”

“No. I get to insist because there is a car outside that has been sitting in the dark for forty minutes, and because your husband died after telling us you unknowingly possessed evidence worth killing for.”

I had no answer.

The sedan across the street pulled away.

Luca watched it disappear.

James picked up his coat from Chloe and wrapped it around her more securely.

“Where do you live?”

I hesitated.

“Dorchester.”

“Apartment?”

“Yes.”

“What floor?”

“Second.”

“Anyone else in the building?”

“Three families.”

James looked at Luca.

“Send Marco first. Quietly.”

Luca nodded and left.

I stared at James.

“You’re sending a man to my apartment?”

“To make sure no one is already there.”

“What if someone is?”

“Then you will be glad you didn’t go first.”

The truth of that made me furious.

I gathered Chloe into my arms.

James reached to help.

“I’ve got her.”

He stopped.

“Fine.”

We walked through the restaurant beneath strings of cheap Christmas lights.

At the door, I turned.

“My husband left me with eighteen dollars and forty-three cents on Christmas Eve because he thought ignorance would keep me safe.”

James's face changed.

“He thought distance would.”

“He was wrong.”

“Yes.”

“And you were wrong too.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“You shouldn’t yet.”

The word yet made me look at him.

He opened the door.

Cold Boston air rushed inside.

“I’m going to find out who killed Daniel,” I said.

James looked past me at the dark street.

“So am I.”

“No.”

I tightened my grip on Chloe.

“We are.”

For the first time that night, the most feared man in Boston looked uncertain.

Then his phone rang.

He answered.

Luca’s voice was loud enough for me to hear.

“James.”

“What?”

“We’re at the apartment.”

A pause.

Then Luca said, “Someone got here before us.”

Every ounce of warmth left my body.

James looked at me.

“What happened?”

Luca answered.

“The door is broken.”

Another pause.

“And whoever went inside wasn’t looking for money.”

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My heart stopped.

“They tore the place apart.”