Chapter 2 - The Warning Behind the Wine
Chloe was halfway through the kitchen doors when Marco grabbed the empty tray from her hands.
"What happened?"
"I may have corrected Gabriel Costello's interpretation of his own mother."
Marco went pale.
"You did what?"
"Technically, there was no interpretation."
"Chloe."
"He kept ordering bread when she wanted wine."
Marco closed his eyes.
"I am going to die because you know sign language."
The chef shoved a plate of seafood risotto toward them.
"Table 7."
Chloe reached for it.
Marco blocked her.
"Send someone else."
"She asked me."
"She asked you for food."
"She asked me because nobody else in there understands her."
Marco looked toward the mahogany doors as if they led into a burning building.
"That is exactly why someone else should go."
The doors opened before either of them could move.
A man in a navy suit stepped into the kitchen.
Chloe recognized him from Gabriel's right side at the table.
He was perhaps forty-five, silver at the temples, handsome in a polished way that made his smile feel rehearsed.
"Mr. Costello wants the waitress back inside."
Marco's hand tightened around the tray.
"She's finishing another section."
The man's smile did not change.
"He did not ask what she was finishing."
Chloe took the risotto.
"What's your name?"
The man looked at her as though waitresses did not usually ask him questions.
"Dominic Costello."
The surname explained the confidence.
"Cousin?"
"To Gabriel."
"That explains the family resemblance."
Dominic glanced at Marco.
"She really is funny when she's nervous."
Chloe stopped breathing for half a second.
Marco had said those exact words in the kitchen before she entered the VIP room.
Dominic could not have heard him unless someone had been listening.
His smile deepened when he saw that she understood.
"After you."
Chloe carried the risotto back into the room.
Gabriel was seated again, but the conversation had changed.
The folder about the midnight shipment was closed.
Beatrice's empty wineglass had been moved directly in front of her.
Chloe set down the risotto.
Beatrice immediately signed, "He is listening now."
Chloe almost smiled.
"A little," she signed back.
Beatrice leaned closer.
Then her expression changed.
"Tell him not to drink the wine."
Chloe's hands stopped.
Across the table, Gabriel was reaching for his own glass.
"Mr. Costello."
He looked up.
"Don't drink that."
Every man at the table froze.
Gabriel's fingers remained around the stem.
"Why?"
Chloe looked at Beatrice.
The older woman signed quickly.
"Not poison."
"Wrong glass."
"Look under the base."
Chloe translated.
Gabriel lifted the glass without drinking.
A small black mark had been drawn beneath the crystal base.
His eyes sharpened.
Dominic leaned forward.
"It's a restaurant inventory mark."
Marco, who had entered behind Chloe, answered from the doorway.
"We don't mark glassware that way."
Dominic slowly turned his head.
Marco immediately looked as if he wished he could pull the sentence back into his mouth.
Gabriel set the glass down.
"Ma, what did you see?"
Beatrice started signing.
Gabriel watched her hands for two seconds.
Then frustration crossed his face.
He looked at Chloe.
"Translate everything."
Beatrice signed, "The man with the blue pocket square switched the glasses when Gabriel went to the phone."
Chloe looked around the table.
Only one man wore a blue pocket square.
Samuel Greco sat three chairs from Gabriel.
He was bald, heavyset, and suddenly very interested in his plate.
Chloe translated word for word.
Samuel laughed too loudly.
"Mrs. Costello is mistaken."
Beatrice's hands moved faster.
"I am deaf, not blind."
Chloe translated that too.
Samuel's face darkened.
Gabriel did not look at him.
He kept his eyes on his mother.
"Why would he switch the glasses?"
Beatrice answered.
"Because the glass with the black mark was supposed to go to Dominic."
The room seemed to contract.
Chloe hesitated before translating.
Dominic's polished smile disappeared.
"What?"
Beatrice pointed to the marked glass and then to Dominic.
She signed, "I watched Samuel place it by Dominic."
"Then Dominic moved seats when Gabriel took the phone call."
"Samuel switched the glasses after that."
Gabriel looked from Samuel to Dominic.
Dominic lifted both hands.
"This is ridiculous."
Samuel stood so quickly that his chair scraped the floor.
Two of Gabriel's men moved at once.
"Sit down," Gabriel said.
Samuel sat.
Chloe noticed Beatrice staring not at Samuel, but at Dominic.
There was fear in the older woman's face now.
Not confusion.
Not age.
Fear.
Chloe signed, "What else?"
Beatrice's fingers trembled.
"The wine is not the important warning."
"The shipment is."
Chloe's pulse kicked.
Gabriel heard the word when she translated it.
"What about the shipment?"
Beatrice pointed at the closed folder.
"Do not send the trucks to Pier Twelve."
"It is a trap."
Dominic laughed once.
"How would Aunt Beatrice know anything about Pier Twelve?"
Beatrice signed before Chloe could answer.
"Because you said it in front of me yesterday."
Dominic's face went still.
"You thought I could not understand because I cannot hear."
Chloe translated.
Gabriel's gaze settled on Dominic.
Dominic recovered quickly.
"She must have read my lips wrong."
Beatrice shook her head.
Her hands became deliberate.
"You were standing in the library with Samuel."
"Samuel wrote PIER 12 on a yellow pad."
"You crossed it out and wrote MIDNIGHT."
Samuel's forehead began to shine.
Dominic's jaw tightened.
"Aunt Bea has been confused lately."
Beatrice slammed her palm on the table.
The sound made everyone flinch except her.
She signed, "I am not confused."
"People tell me I am confused when they do not like what I know."
Chloe felt the sentence in her chest.
She translated it more slowly than the others.
Gabriel looked at his mother as though someone had opened a door in a house he had lived in all his life.
"Ma, are you saying Dominic set up the shipment?"
Beatrice's answer came immediately.
"I am saying your cousin has been lying to you for months."
Dominic pushed back from the table.
"Enough."
Gabriel's voice turned quiet.
"Sit."
Dominic remained standing.
"You are going to let a tired waitress translate accusations from a woman whose doctor has documented cognitive decline?"
Chloe looked at Beatrice.
The older woman's expression hardened.
"What doctor?" Chloe asked.
Dominic looked at her.
"This does not concern you."
Beatrice touched Chloe's sleeve.
"Dr. Rinaldi."
"Dominic chose him."
"He tells Gabriel I forget things."
"I do not forget."
Chloe translated.
Gabriel's face lost color.
"Dr. Rinaldi said you refused the memory testing."
Beatrice laughed without sound.
Then she signed, "He gave the instructions verbally."
"He never provided an interpreter."
"Then he wrote that I was uncooperative."
Chloe stared at Gabriel.
The anger rising in her was no longer professional.
"That's not a valid evaluation."
Gabriel's eyes moved to her.
"You a doctor too?"
"No."
"I grew up taking my brother to appointments where people talked over him."
"You cannot evaluate a deaf person's cognition by giving spoken instructions they cannot hear."
Dominic folded his arms.
"This is getting absurd."
Chloe looked directly at him.
"No."
"What's absurd is everyone in this room deciding a woman is senile because none of you bothered to learn how she speaks."
Silence followed.
Marco visibly stopped breathing.
Gabriel's eyes turned cold.
For one frightening moment, Chloe thought she had gone too far.
Then Beatrice reached across the table and took Gabriel's hand.
He looked down.
She shaped two signs slowly enough for him to follow.
"Trust me."
Gabriel swallowed.
His fingers moved awkwardly.
He tried to answer in a sign he clearly remembered from long ago.
"Wait."
Beatrice's eyes filled with tears.
It was one word.
It was also the first time Chloe had seen Gabriel answer his mother in her own language.
Gabriel pulled out his phone.
He called someone named Matteo.
"Stop every truck going to Pier Twelve."
Dominic's head snapped toward him.
"Gabriel."
"No arguments."
Gabriel listened for three seconds.
"Move the crews to the secondary warehouse and keep them there."
He ended the call.
Dominic's voice was controlled, but his face was not.
"You are canceling a six-million-dollar transfer because of this?"
Gabriel looked at the marked wineglass.
"I'm delaying it because my mother asked me to."
Beatrice signed something small.
Chloe translated.
"She says that's a beginning."
Gabriel almost smiled.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
Matteo's voice was loud enough that Chloe could hear part of it from two steps away.
Gabriel did not move while he listened.
"Say that again."
Everyone watched him.
His face emptied of expression.
"No one enters the pier."
He ended the call.
Dominic stared at him.
"What happened?"
Gabriel looked at Beatrice first.
Then he looked at his cousin.
"Federal agents just surrounded Pier Twelve."
No one spoke.
Gabriel's gaze shifted to Chloe.
"My mother just saved twenty-three men from walking into a raid."
Beatrice was already signing again.
This time her hands were shaking.
Chloe read the sentence once.
Then she wished she had not.
Gabriel noticed her face.
"Translate."
Chloe looked at Dominic.
Dominic looked back at her with flat, unreadable eyes.
Beatrice signed the sentence again.
Chloe forced the words out.
"She says the raid is not the trap."
Gabriel stood.
"Then what is?"
Beatrice pointed toward Dominic's closed black briefcase.
May you like
"She says the real trap is inside that case."
