Chapter 5 - Miriam’s Kitchen

Miriam answered on the third call from the car.

“Natasha? Why are you calling at two in the morning?”

Natasha nearly collapsed with relief.

“Are you okay?”

“I was asleep until someone decided I needed a heart attack.”

“Lock your doors.”

“They are locked.”

“Go to the bathroom. No windows.”

Miriam paused.

“What happened?”

“I’ll explain. Please.”

The older woman heard something in Natasha’s voice and stopped arguing.

“All right.”

“Take your phone.”

“I’m not senile.”

The line stayed open.

Elena drove. Matteo sat in the passenger seat, speaking in short phrases to two security teams.

Natasha listened to Miriam breathe.

“Miriam?”

“I’m here.”

“Do you hear anything?”

“My refrigerator sounds like a dying tractor.”

“Miriam.”

“No. Nothing else.”

They reached the house in seven minutes.

Two security vehicles arrived seconds later.

Matteo turned to Natasha. “Stay in the car.”

“No.”

“This is not a power struggle.”

“Then stop making it one.”

“Someone photographed her through a window.”

“And she is my friend.”

He looked at her for a long second.

“Behind Elena.”

“Fine.”

The front door was locked.

Miriam opened it only after Elena identified herself through the camera.

She stood there in a purple robe holding a cast-iron skillet.

Natasha ran to her.

Miriam hugged her once, hard.

Then she pulled back and saw the bruise on Natasha’s wrist.

Her face changed.

“Richard?”

Natasha nodded.

“I knew that man was wrong.”

“You told me he was charming.”

“Charming is often wrong.”

Matteo entered last.

Miriam squinted at him. “And who are you?”

“Matteo Rossi.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“Oh.”

Natasha said, “You know him?”

“I read newspapers.”

Matteo looked almost offended.

Elena checked every room.

No intruder.

At the kitchen window, one latch showed fresh scratches.

“Someone tested it,” she said.

Miriam tightened her grip on the skillet.

“Next time they’ll meet Lodge cast iron.”

Natasha laughed unexpectedly, then cried.

Miriam put the skillet down.

“Oh, honey.”

She held Natasha while the others looked away.

After a few minutes, Miriam made coffee because it was her answer to catastrophe.

Natasha told her the shortest version.

Richard’s threat.

The music box.

The card.

Her father’s video.

Miriam listened without interrupting.

When Natasha mentioned the clue about buildings, Miriam stopped stirring sugar into her cup.

“Your father said that to me.”

Natasha looked up. “What?”

“Buildings don’t forget.”

“When?”

“The week before he died.”

Every person in the kitchen went still.

Miriam sighed. “I suppose that matters now.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“He came here with a folder. Asked whether I still had the architectural drawings from the courthouse restoration.”

Natasha stared.

Miriam had been a preservation architect before retirement.

“What courthouse?”

“The old Dade County annex. Your father’s office was two doors down.”

“Do you still have them?”

“Somewhere.”

“Miriam.”

“I have forty years of drawings.”

They went to the converted garage behind the house.

Flat files lined the walls.

Miriam opened drawer after drawer until she found a tube marked VOSS ACCOUNTING / 1998 INTERIOR SURVEY.

Natasha unrolled the plans across a drafting table.

Matteo pointed to a wall.

“That wall no longer exists.”

Miriam shook her head. “Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“When Castellano Tower absorbed the structure, preservation rules required them to retain original masonry behind the new lobby paneling.”

Natasha understood.

“A wall inside a wall.”

Miriam nodded.

“Your father asked me how someone could access it after renovation. I thought he was being sentimental.”

Elena said, “Did you tell him?”

“Yes. Service corridor B, behind the old elevator shaft.”

Matteo looked at Natasha.

“The ledger.”

“Maybe.”

Miriam touched the plan. “There’s more.”

She turned the sheet over.

In Adrian’s handwriting:

B4. 17. Blue.

Natasha whispered, “Blue Moon.”

Miriam frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Matteo said, “B4 could mean basement level four.”

“No,” Natasha replied. “The building only has two basement levels.”

Miriam tapped the drawing.

“Bay four.”

A sequence of structural bays had been labeled B1 through B9.

Bay B4 contained the preserved wall.

Seventeen could be a measurement.

Blue could be a marker.

“We can find it,” Natasha said.

Matteo’s phone rang.

He answered, listened, then looked at her.

“What?”

“My office received a call.”

“From Richard?”

“No.”

“Who?”

“Deputy Chief Castellano.”

Richard’s uncle.

“What did he want?”

“To warn me away from you.”

Natasha folded the drawing carefully.

“What did you say?”

“That he should speak to my attorney.”

Miriam snorted.

“Coward.”

Matteo glanced at her. “Mrs. Feld, I am beginning to like you.”

“Don’t.”

Natasha’s phone buzzed again.

This time the message was from Richard.

You are making this worse.

She typed before anyone could stop her.

No. I am making it visible.

Three dots appeared.

Then vanished.

A new message came.

Your father tried the same thing.

Natasha’s fingers froze.

Matteo read over her shoulder.

“Do not answer.”

She looked at him. “Why?”

“Because he just admitted knowledge he was never supposed to have.”

Elena nodded. “Screenshot. Export. Preserve.”

Natasha did.

Then another message appeared.

Ask Rossi what happened to Luca.

Matteo went still.

A final message followed.

Ask him who ordered it.

Natasha slowly turned.

“You said you killed the man who killed Luca.”

“Yes.”

“Who ordered Luca’s death?”

Matteo’s face hardened.

“I believed Vittorio Castellano did.”

“Believed?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t know?”

“No.”

“Then why is Richard telling me to ask you?”

Matteo looked at the phone.

For the first time since Marea, Natasha saw fear in his eyes.

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Not fear of Richard.

Fear of an answer.