Chapter 13 - The Hand in the Back Seat
The photograph of the hand was not proof.
Gabriel knew that.
Matteo said it three times.
Chloe said it once.
Beatrice was not there to remind him that hope could coexist with proof.
That absence made the room feel wrong.
Gabriel ordered two teams toward the Newburgh mill.
He wanted to leave with the first.
Matteo stopped him again.
"If Samuel is expecting you, sending you first is exactly what he wants."
Gabriel's voice was flat.
"My mother is in that car."
"Which means you need to arrive alive."
Chloe stood beside the security screens.
She enlarged the frame containing the hand.
A thin scar crossed the thumb.
"Did Vincent have this?"
Gabriel looked.
His face changed.
"Yes."
"From what?"
"Fishing hook."
"He was twelve."
"I pushed him because he stole my bait."
The memory came out before Gabriel could stop it.
For half a second, he looked like a brother instead of a boss.
Then the walls returned.
"It is him."
Matteo shook his head.
"It is a hand that resembles his."
"Do not make the same mistake twice."
Gabriel looked at him sharply.
Matteo did not flinch.
"You accepted a closed casket as certainty because people you trusted gave you paperwork."
"Now you want to accept a blurry hand because you need it to be Vincent."
"We verify."
Gabriel looked at the screen again.
Then he nodded.
"Verify."
The word sounded painful.
Chloe's phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
She showed Gabriel before answering.
He put the call on speaker.
Dominic's voice filled the room.
"You found the garden camera."
Gabriel stepped toward the phone.
"Where is my mother?"
"Safe."
"That word means nothing from you."
Dominic laughed softly.
"She came willingly."
Chloe looked at the footage of Beatrice secretly signing FALSE NAME.
"She left a message," Chloe said.
The line went quiet.
"Hello, Chloe."
"You sound disappointed."
"I am impressed."
"Most hearing people never look at hands unless they want something from them."
"Beatrice knew you would look."
Chloe's skin crawled.
"Where is she?"
"Ask Gabriel about Green Hollow."
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
"I already know."
Dominic paused.
"Then you finally found Victor."
Gabriel's grip tightened on the edge of the console.
"Is Vincent alive?"
Dominic breathed out.
"That depends on what you mean by Vincent."
"Do not play games."
"Memory is a strange thing, cousin."
"Take enough of it away and a person becomes whatever story survives."
Chloe looked at Matteo.
He was tracing the call.
"You kept him alive," Gabriel said.
Dominic did not deny it.
"Vincent kept something that belonged to the family."
"Antonio's archive."
Another pause.
"You are learning."
Gabriel's face darkened.
"You burned Warehouse Nine."
"Careful."
"You are being recorded."
Dominic laughed.
"By whom?"
"Your police friends?"
"The federal agents at Pier Twelve?"
"You still do not understand the scale of the room you are standing in."
Gabriel's eyes sharpened.
"You tipped off the federal agents."
"No."
That answer came too quickly.
Chloe noticed.
So did Matteo.
Dominic continued.
"The raid was not mine."
"Someone else has been watching you."
"Someone who does not care which Costello survives this."
Gabriel looked at Matteo.
A second enemy.
Or another lie.
Dominic's voice softened.
"You want Beatrice back?"
"Bring the flash drive from the chapel."
"No copies."
"No police."
"No Matteo."
"And Chloe comes with you."
Gabriel's expression became murderous.
"No."
Chloe looked at him.
Dominic chuckled.
"That was fast."
"She has nothing to do with this."
"She has everything to do with it."
"Leo made a copy of something that was never meant to leave the family."
"Chloe can tell me where he put the rest."
Chloe stared at the phone.
"I have no idea what you are talking about."
"Maybe not consciously."
"But Leo liked puzzles."
Her blood went cold.
That was true.
Leo had hidden birthday gifts behind riddles.
He had turned grocery lists into ciphers when he was bored.
Dominic continued.
"He left one for you."
"You have had it for two years."
Chloe's pulse began to pound.
"What did he leave?"
"Ask yourself why his old ASL dictionary is still on your shelf."
Chloe stopped breathing.
The intruder had torn apart her apartment.
But the old dictionary had been too heavy to fall from the upper shelf.
She remembered seeing it still there.
Dominic had seen it too.
"You searched my home."
"Not me personally."
"You know I prefer distance."
Gabriel's eyes moved to Chloe.
The phrase was deliberate.
Dominic had either heard their earlier conversation or guessed the wound.
"Where is Beatrice?" Gabriel asked again.
"Midnight."
"Newburgh mill."
"Bring the drive."
"Bring Chloe."
"Then we discuss mothers, brothers, and the people your signature buried."
The line disconnected.
Matteo looked at his screen.
"Call bounced through four relays."
"No location."
Gabriel turned to Chloe.
"You are not going."
"We already covered this language problem."
"This time I am not asking."
"This time I am not listening."
He stepped closer.
"Dominic specifically demanded you."
"Exactly."
"Which means he thinks I know something."
"Or he wants leverage."
"Then use that."
"You are not bait."
"Neither is your mother."
The sentence stopped him.
Chloe softened her voice only slightly.
"Beatrice chose to follow the fake interpreter because she wanted answers."
"She left us a trail because she trusted someone would understand it."
"Do not answer that trust by deciding what everyone is allowed to risk."
Gabriel stared at her.
Matteo pretended to study his screen.
Finally Gabriel looked away.
"We find the dictionary first."
Chloe nodded.
"Agreed."
They returned to her apartment with four guards.
The destruction looked worse in daylight.
Chloe stepped over broken glass.
The old ASL dictionary remained on the top shelf.
It had belonged to Leo before either of them owned smartphones.
The cover was blue cloth.
The spine was cracked.
Chloe took it down.
Nothing fell out.
Gabriel watched from behind her.
"What kind of puzzle?"
"He liked page numbers."
"Acrostics."
"Things that made me threaten to throw books at him."
She flipped through the pages.
Several entries had tiny pencil dots in the margins.
Chloe frowned.
"These were not here before."
Gabriel moved closer.
The marked entries were HAND.
MOTHER.
FIRE.
RIVER.
MIRROR.
NORTH.
Chloe wrote the page numbers down.
They formed six numbers.
41.
18.
33.
9.
72.
4.
"Coordinates?" Gabriel asked.
"Too short."
Chloe stared at the numbers.
Then she remembered Leo's favorite trick.
"Book cipher."
"Page, line, word."
"But he only gave page numbers."
She inspected the inside cover.
A faint impression appeared beneath the paper.
Someone had written on a sheet placed above it.
Gabriel angled a lamp across the surface.
The indentations became visible.
2-5.
1-3.
4-2.
1-6.
3-4.
2-1.
Chloe used the page numbers with the line-word pairs.
The extracted words formed a sentence.
VINCENT HID IT NORTH OF THE RIVER.
Gabriel stared at the words.
Chloe turned the page over.
A second set of impressions appeared.
This one was simpler.
MOTHER KNOWS THE MILL.
Chloe looked at Gabriel.
"Leo knew about Beatrice's mill clue two years before tonight."
Gabriel's face changed.
"Then Newburgh is not just where Dominic took her."
"It is where Vincent hid something."
A sound came from the hallway.
One guard called Gabriel's name.
They stepped outside.
A man stood at the far end of the corridor with both hands raised.
He was thin, bearded, and wearing a maintenance uniform.
One of Gabriel's guards had him pinned against the wall.
Chloe did not recognize him.
Gabriel did.
His face went white.
"Vincent?"
The man looked at Gabriel without recognition.
Then his gaze moved to Chloe's hands.
Slowly, almost unconsciously, he raised his own.
He signed one word.
May you like
"Mother."
