Chapter 2 - The Silver Bell

The apartment looked smaller with James Moretti standing inside it.

Maybe it was the suit.

Maybe it was the fact that two men remained downstairs near the entrance while Luca checked the hallway before letting us in.

Or maybe power simply took up more space than ordinary people did.

I set Chloe on the couch and turned on the little lamp beside it.

"You can sleep here, sweetheart."

"I'm not tired."

She yawned before she finished the sentence.

James removed his coat from her shoulders and handed it to me.

"Keep it."

"No."

"Grace."

"That coat probably costs more than my car."

Luca glanced at the window.

"It does."

James gave him a look.

"Helpful."

"Always."

I pushed the coat back toward James.

"Take it."

He did, but his eyes moved around the apartment.

He noticed the peeling paint near the kitchen ceiling. The space heater beside Chloe's bedroom. The stack of final notices I had turned face down on the counter.

I hated that he saw any of it.

"The Christmas box is in the closet," I said.

Chloe sat up.

"Can I see Daddy's ornaments?"

I stopped.

I had avoided that box because opening it felt like volunteering to hurt.

Tonight avoiding it felt worse.

"Yes."

I pulled a plastic storage bin from the hall closet and set it on the floor.

The lid was dusty.

My hands trembled as I opened it.

Tinsel. A string of lights. Handmade paper angels. A photograph of Evan wearing reindeer antlers while holding a two-year-old Chloe.

I looked away too late.

James saw it.

He didn't say anything.

Chloe reached into the box.

"There's my snowman."

"Careful."

"And the mitten."

Then she found the silver bell.

It fit in her palm.

Evan had bought it from a Christmas market near Faneuil Hall. I remembered because he had complained that twelve dollars was robbery for something smaller than a golf ball.

Chloe shook it.

No sound came out.

She frowned.

"It's broken."

My heart began to pound.

"It wasn't broken before."

I took it from her.

The bell looked ordinary except for a narrow seam around the middle.

James crouched beside me.

"May I?"

I handed it to him.

He turned it under the lamp.

"This was modified."

"How can you tell?"

"The solder is newer than the metal."

Luca leaned over his shoulder.

"There's a notch."

James used the edge of a coin from his pocket.

The bell twisted open.

Inside was a tiny black memory card wrapped in clear plastic.

No one spoke.

Chloe whispered, "Daddy put that there?"

I closed my fingers around the bell.

"I think so."

James looked at Luca.

"Laptop."

"In the car."

"Get it."

I stood.

"Wait."

James looked at me.

"If that card belonged to Evan, I decide what happens next."

"Agreed."

"You don't copy it without asking."

"Agreed."

"You don't make a phone call, send it to one of your people or make it disappear because something on it is inconvenient."

His face tightened.

"Agreed."

"And Chloe stays out of this."

"Absolutely."

Luca returned with a laptop.

While it started, I made Chloe cocoa from the last of the milk.

James watched me divide the remaining amount between the mug and a small bowl of cereal for morning.

"Don't," I said.

"Don't what?"

"Look at my kitchen like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're making a list of everything you can fix."

He leaned against the counter.

"Maybe I am."

"I'm not a project."

"I didn't say you were."

"Men with money rarely have to."

For a moment, something almost amused passed through his eyes.

"You really don't like me."

"I met you two hours ago and found out my dead husband worked for you under a company name he hid from me. Give me time."

"Fair."

Chloe carried her cocoa to the couch.

"Mr. James?"

"Yes?"

"Did you know my daddy?"

James's expression changed.

"Not well."

"Was he nice at work?"

I held my breath.

James sat on the edge of the chair across from her.

"I read things he wrote. He was careful. Brave too."

Chloe looked at me.

"Mommy says brave people can still be scared."

"Your mommy is right."

"Are you brave?"

Luca came back into the room and stopped.

James seemed genuinely uncertain.

"Sometimes."

"Are you scared?"

A faint smile touched his mouth.

"Sometimes."

Chloe nodded, satisfied.

"Then you're probably brave."

She drank her cocoa.

Luca stared at James.

"Don't say it," James warned.

"I wasn't going to."

"You were."

The memory card opened without a password.

There were twelve files.

Invoices. Photographs. Spreadsheets. Scans of checks.

And one audio recording.

I sat beside the laptop.

The first spreadsheet showed vendor payments from Harbor Atlantic.

James pointed to a column.

"These are the false companies Evan mentioned."

"Northline Supply. Boston Marine Systems. Calder Freight."

Luca nodded. "All dissolved now."

"Who owned them?"

"On paper? Different people."

"In reality?"

James looked at the screen.

"That's what we never proved."

I opened a folder labeled DM.

James and Luca both became very still.

"What?"

Luca looked at James.

James answered.

"My cousin's name is Dominic Moretti."

I stared at him.

"DM."

"Maybe."

"You think your cousin killed my husband?"

"I think initials are not proof."

"But you thought of him immediately."

James did not answer.

I clicked on a photograph.

It showed a loading dock at night.

A truck backed against a warehouse.

A man stood near the driver's door.

The image was grainy, but a flash of silver was visible on his right hand.

Luca leaned closer.

"Wolf ring."

"What?"

James's eyes darkened.

"Dominic wears a silver ring with a wolf's head. Has since he was nineteen."

I opened another photograph.

Same dock.

Same man.

Same ring.

"Why would Evan photograph him?"

"Because the warehouse in that picture wasn't on Harbor Atlantic's active inventory," James said.

"What was inside?"

"I don't know."

"You own the company and you don't know?"

"I owned dozens of properties through holding companies. Dominic managed harbor operations."

I turned on him.

"Convenient."

"Grace."

"You keep saying you didn't know. You didn't know about the email. You didn't know about the warehouse. You didn't know who was stealing money. You didn't know whether someone killed Evan. What exactly did you know?"

His face hardened.

"That I inherited an organization at twenty-nine from a father who believed fear was a management system. That half the men around me lied when they said good morning. That every attempt to move money into legitimate businesses created three enemies who preferred the old way."

He stopped himself.

The apartment went quiet.

"None of that excuses Evan," he said. "Or me."

I had expected him to defend himself.

The fact that he didn't made it harder to keep my anger simple.

Luca pointed at the audio file.

"We should hear that."

I clicked it.

Static filled the laptop speakers.

Then Evan's voice came into the room.

I stopped breathing.

Three years disappeared.

He sounded tired.

"If you're hearing this, I probably didn't get the chance to deliver the records myself. Grace, if it's you, I'm sorry. I told myself I was protecting you by keeping this from you. Maybe I was protecting myself from seeing how afraid I was."

My hand covered my mouth.

Chloe was asleep on the couch.

Thank God.

Evan continued.

"The numbers are bigger than theft. Someone is using Harbor Atlantic to move cash through fake equipment purchases. I followed one shipment to Pier Nine. The crates weren't machinery. They were sealed medical supplies, most of them marked for hospital donation programs."

James swore under his breath.

The recording went on.

"I saw Dominic Moretti there twice. I don't know if James knows. I tried emailing him, but something about the system is wrong. Messages disappear. I don't trust internal security."

A chair creaked as Evan shifted.

"There is one person I think might help. A woman named Elena Park in the U.S. Attorney's Office. I haven't contacted her yet. If I do, I need to make sure Grace and Chloe are safe first."

My eyes blurred.

His voice softened.

"Gracie, if this is you, listen to me. None of this is your fault. Kiss our girl for me. Tell her I kept every ridiculous drawing she made. Even the purple dog with six legs. Especially that one."

A broken laugh escaped me.

I remembered the drawing.

It had been on our refrigerator for a year.

Then his tone changed.

"One more thing. The ledger on this card is incomplete. The real payment map is somewhere no one in that office would think to look. I put the key where Chloe always finds Christmas first."

The recording ended.

For several seconds, there was only the heater clicking in the corner.

I wiped my face with the heel of my hand.

"Where Chloe always finds Christmas first," I whispered.

James looked at the storage box.

"The ornaments?"

"No."

I stood.

Every Christmas morning, Chloe never ran to the tree first.

She ran to the window.

Evan used to spray fake snow around the edges of the glass and leave a tiny set of footprints on the sill, telling her the elves had checked the weather.

"The window."

I crossed the room.

The apartment had new windows now. The landlord replaced them the summer after Evan died.

My hope collapsed.

"No."

James came beside me.

"What?"

"The windows were replaced."

"Who did it?"

"The landlord. There was water damage."

"Where did the old frames go?"

"How would I know?"

Luca was already on his phone.

"What's the landlord's name?"

I stared at him.

"Mr. Feldman. Aaron Feldman."

Luca stepped into the hallway to make the call.

James looked at the memory card.

"Elena Park is still in Boston."

"You know her?"

"I've been interviewed by her twice."

"About what?"

"Things you would expect a federal prosecutor to ask a man with my last name."

"Did you lie to her?"

"Yes."

The answer was immediate.

I blinked.

"At least you're honest about lying."

"I'm trying something new."

Despite everything, I almost smiled.

Then Luca returned.

"Feldman remembers the windows. Contractor took the frames to a salvage yard in Everett."

"Three years ago," I said. "They'll be gone."

"Maybe."

Luca held up his phone.

"The yard is family-owned. They keep architectural pieces. Old wood frames sell to restoration companies."

James reached for his coat.

"We go in the morning."

"It's Christmas morning."

"Salvage yards don't care about Christmas."

Luca shook his head. "This one does. Closed until the twenty-sixth."

James looked annoyed, as though holidays were an operational failure.

I removed the memory card and slipped it back into the opened silver bell.

"Then we wait."

"You don't stay here."

"Here we go again."

"Grace, Evan named Dominic. If Dominic knew he had records and failed to find this card, there is a chance he believed the evidence died with him. The moment anyone starts asking about the old windows, that changes."

"You think your cousin watches a salvage yard?"

"I think people who survive by hiding things notice when old questions come back."

I looked at sleeping Chloe.

"Where do you suggest we go?"

"A hotel under another name."

"No."

"My house."

"Absolutely not."

Luca rubbed his forehead.

"I vote hotel."

James ignored him.

"My house has security."

"Your house also contains you."

"That is generally how houses work."

"I am not bringing my six-year-old daughter into the home of a man who admits he lies to federal prosecutors."

James absorbed that.

Then he nodded.

"Fair. Hotel."

I expected an argument.

His willingness to yield unsettled me more.

"One night," I said. "Then I decide what happens."

"Agreed."

"And tomorrow you call Elena Park."

James's eyes narrowed.

"Tomorrow is Christmas."

"You said holidays don't matter."

Luca laughed outright.

James looked at him.

"Enjoying yourself?"

"Immensely."

I picked up Chloe carefully.

She woke just enough to wrap her arms around my neck.

"Mommy?"

"I'm here."

"Are we going home?"

I looked around the apartment that had been home because I had no other choice.

Then I looked at the silver bell in my hand.

"Not tonight."

As we stepped into the hall, James walked ahead of us, checking the stairwell before I followed.

At the bottom of the stairs, a black sedan waited at the curb.

Across the street, half-hidden beneath a broken streetlamp, another car sat with its engine running.

Luca stopped.

James stopped too.

The second car pulled away.

Not quickly.

Not dramatically.

Just slowly enough to tell us the driver wanted to be seen leaving.

James's face turned cold.

"They already know," he said.

I tightened my hold on Chloe.

"Who?"

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He watched the taillights disappear into the snow.

"That's what we're going to find out."