Chapter 15 - Beatrice Disappears
"Beatrice!"
Chloe reached into the darkness.
Her fingers found empty air.
Gabriel shouted.
"Ma!"
Rocco's flashlight snapped on.
The beam cut across the ring.
Vincent was still beside the ropes.
Gabriel was three steps from Chloe.
Matteo stood near the front door.
Beatrice was gone.
The locker room door swung slowly on its hinges.
Gabriel ran toward it.
Chloe followed.
The room beyond contained rusted lockers, broken benches, and an open rear exit.
Cold air moved through it.
Gabriel reached the alley first.
Tire marks cut across wet pavement.
No vehicle remained.
He looked left.
Then right.
Nothing.
"How?"
His voice cracked with rage.
Rocco examined the back door.
"Someone was already inside."
Gabriel turned on Vincent.
"You brought us here."
Vincent lifted both hands.
"I didn't know."
Gabriel crossed the alley in two steps and struck him.
Vincent stumbled into the brick wall.
"Gabriel!" Chloe shouted.
He grabbed Vincent's coat.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know."
"You chose this place."
"Because I thought Luca didn't know about it."
Gabriel hit the wall beside Vincent's head.
"He called you here."
"He called after we arrived."
"And somehow he already had someone inside."
Vincent's voice rose.
"Because he has followed me for years."
"Then you should have known."
The accusation silenced him.
Chloe moved between them.
"This is wasting time."
Gabriel looked at her.
His face was almost unrecognizable with panic.
"He took my mother."
"Then find her."
"I am trying."
"No."
Chloe pointed at Vincent.
"You're trying to punish the nearest person because you are scared."
Gabriel went still.
The truth hurt him.
Good.
Chloe continued.
"Beatrice has spent years trying to make you understand her."
"Think like her now."
Gabriel stared.
"What would she do if someone grabbed her?"
He looked toward the alley.
Rocco answered first.
"Leave a trail."
Chloe nodded.
They searched the locker room again.
Nothing on the bench.
Nothing beneath the lockers.
Then Chloe saw a pearl near the drain.
Beatrice's earring.
She picked it up.
The metal post was bent deliberately.
Beatrice had removed it herself.
"She left this."
Gabriel took it.
"Meaning what?"
Chloe studied the earring.
The post was bent into a right angle.
Beatrice had used her jewelry as keys before.
She was telling them to look for a lock.
Rocco searched the nearby lockers.
Most hung open.
One was closed.
Locker 14.
Chloe remembered the date Beatrice lost her hearing.
September fourteenth.
"Fourteen."
Gabriel looked at her.
"What?"
"0914 unlocked Leo's phone."
She pointed.
Rocco forced the old locker open.
Inside was a small mirror.
Nothing else.
Gabriel stared at it.
"A mirror?"
Chloe picked it up.
A word had been written across the glass in lipstick.
BACKWARD.
Vincent leaned closer.
"What does that mean?"
Chloe thought of ASL.
A video could reverse signs if filmed from a mirrored camera.
Or Beatrice might deliberately sign with her nondominant hand.
"If they send us video, don't read her hands normally."
Gabriel looked at her.
"She planned for that in seconds?"
Chloe looked at the bent earring, locker number, and mirror.
"Your mother has had fourteen years to learn how to communicate around people who ignore her."
Gabriel's face twisted with pain.
He nodded.
"Right."
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
Gabriel answered on video.
The screen showed Beatrice sitting in a chair against a gray wall.
She was not bound.
That was almost worse.
Luca stood behind her.
His hand rested on the back of the chair.
"Gabriel."
Gabriel stepped closer to the screen.
"If you touch her-"
Luca cut him off.
"I have never needed to touch her."
Beatrice's face hardened.
Luca smiled.
"That has always been the beauty of your family."
"You hurt each other for me."
Gabriel's grip tightened around the phone.
"What do you want?"
"The original ledger."
"We don't have it."
"You have the woman who knows where it is."
Luca bent slightly toward Beatrice.
"Or you did."
Beatrice raised her hands.
She began signing.
Chloe moved close to the phone.
At first, the signs looked wrong.
Then she remembered the mirror.
Backward.
Beatrice was signing with her left hand instead of her right.
And some motions were reversed.
Luca did not notice.
He had never learned enough to notice anything.
Chloe mentally mirrored the movements.
Not warehouse.
Hotel.
Old clock.
Red carpet.
Water under street.
Chloe's mind raced.
Gabriel looked at her face.
He understood she was receiving something important.
He did not interrupt.
Luca continued speaking.
"You will bring me the ledger by six tonight."
"Where?"
"I'll tell you at five."
"How do I know she is safe?"
Beatrice rolled her eyes so dramatically Chloe almost laughed.
Luca saw it.
"Your mother remains difficult."
Gabriel's voice became cold.
"That's because she's smarter than you."
Beatrice smiled.
Luca's face hardened.
For once, Gabriel had given her the dignity of being dangerous.
Beatrice signed again.
Chloe mirrored it mentally.
Third floor.
Room behind laundry.
Train every eight minutes.
Chloe's pulse jumped.
A hotel above an underground train line.
Old clock.
Red carpet.
Water under street.
She knew one place.
The Saint Agnes Hotel.
Built above an old subway tunnel near the river.
Its lobby had a huge brass clock.
Its hallways were famous for red carpet.
Chloe said nothing.
Luca leaned toward the camera.
"And Gabriel?"
"Yes?"
"No police."
Gabriel laughed without humor.
"You think I call police?"
Luca smiled.
"No."
"That's one of the reasons this has been so easy."
The video ended.
The sentence stayed in the room.
Rocco looked at Gabriel.
"He's right."
Gabriel turned.
"Careful."
"No."
Rocco stepped closer.
"For years, Luca counted on you handling everything inside the family."
"No police."
"No outside accountants."
"No interpreters."
"No questions."
Vincent looked at the ground.
Rocco continued.
"The Costello rule protected him."
Gabriel's expression went cold.
"Then it ends."
He took out his phone.
Vincent stared.
"Who are you calling?"
"Someone Luca won't expect."
Rocco's eyebrows lifted.
"Nina?"
"No."
Gabriel dialed.
A man answered.
Gabriel spoke clearly.
"Detective Hale."
Chloe looked at him in surprise.
Gabriel continued.
"My mother has been taken."
"And I have evidence that may connect the people holding her to two deaths."
Vincent went pale.
"Gabriel."
Gabriel held up one hand.
"No more family rule."
He listened to Hale.
Then he gave the boxing club address.
When the call ended, Chloe told them what Beatrice had signed.
"Saint Agnes Hotel."
Rocco nodded immediately.
"Old clock."
Vincent looked impressed despite himself.
"How did she know you'd understand?"
Chloe looked at the mirror.
"Because she finally has someone who watches her hands."
Gabriel absorbed that.
Then he looked at Chloe.
"Teach me the signs she used."
"Now?"
"Now."
"We need to move."
"Teach me while we move."
Chloe stared at him.
There was no pride in his face now.
Only urgency.
She showed him hotel.
Then third floor.
Then danger.
He repeated each one until she nodded.
They reached the cars.
Before Chloe opened the door, her phone vibrated.
A text from an unknown number.
Not a video.
A photograph.
Beatrice stood beside Luca in what looked like a service hallway.
Behind her was a painted number.
3.
Beneath the photo was a message.
BRING CHLOE BENNETT TOO.
Gabriel read it over her shoulder.
His face changed.
A second message arrived.
THE LEDGER ISN'T THE ONLY THING LEO LEFT HER.
Chloe stared at the screen.
Then she remembered the one object from Leo's belongings that had never been in her apartment.
Their mother's old safety deposit box.
May you like
And for the first time since the nightmare began, Chloe understood exactly what Luca believed she had.
