Chapter 5 - HAWTHORNE HOUSE
By noon, every news station in Chicago was showing Evelyn's face.
The image came from her employee badge.
It made her look younger and more innocent than she felt.
The headline beneath it changed depending on the channel.
MISSING WAITRESS.
KEY WITNESS.
POSSIBLE HOSTAGE.
PERSON OF INTEREST.
Lorenzo's photograph never changed.
He was always shown in a dark suit leaving a courthouse two years earlier.
The implication was simple.
Monster and victim.
Kidnapper and waitress.
Evelyn almost admired how neatly Celeste had arranged the story.
"She prepared this before dinner," Evelyn said.
Rafe stood over a table in the back room of an abandoned tailor shop, sorting maps and phones.
The bullet had missed Gilbert's lung.
A doctor had removed it before sunrise.
Gilbert was now hidden somewhere Rafe would not name.
"Prepared what?" Rafe asked.
"Everything."
Evelyn pointed at the television.
"The photo."
"The police statement."
"The language about abduction."
"The timing."
She looked at Lorenzo.
"Celeste expected you to survive the first attack."
Rafe frowned.
"That makes no sense."
"It does if the explosions were not the point."
Lorenzo watched the footage silently.
Evelyn continued.
"The north exit was meant to look like the kill zone."
"Maybe it was."
"But if Celeste truly wanted Lorenzo dead at 8:55, why tell a compromised manager to drive her away after the blast?"
Rafe's expression changed.
"She could have left before."
"Exactly."
Evelyn tapped the screen.
"She needed witnesses to see her at the dinner."
"She needed the blast."
"She needed to survive publicly."
"Then she needed a photograph of me leaving with Lorenzo."
Lorenzo finally spoke.
"You think the attack was theater."
"Not for the men who died."
Evelyn's voice sharpened.
"But yes."
"The real target is whatever comes after."
Rafe looked at the photograph of Lorenzo's mother on the clean phone.
"Hawthorne."
Evelyn nodded.
"And me."
Lorenzo turned off the television.
"Then you stay here."
"No."
"That was not a discussion."
"You do realize saying that makes me more likely to argue."
"I have noticed."
"My father left instructions for both of us."
"My mother is tied to a chair."
"Which means you are emotional."
Rafe looked between them and took one step back.
Lorenzo's voice went flat.
"Careful."
"Why?"
Evelyn stood.
"Because nobody tells Lorenzo Moretti he is emotional?"
"Your fiancee tried to kill you."
"Your mother has been kidnapped."
"Two of your security chiefs are missing."
"Half the city thinks you abducted me."
"If there were ever a time for someone else to check your thinking, this is it."
Rafe lowered his eyes to hide a reaction.
Lorenzo noticed.
"Say it."
Rafe looked up.
"She is right."
Lorenzo stared at him.
"I preferred you when you were quiet."
"That was before the explosions."
They went to Hawthorne House at three in the afternoon.
Not because Celeste told them to.
Because Evelyn's father had.
The difference mattered.
Hawthorne stood behind iron gates north of the city, a gray stone mansion hidden by bare trees and old money.
It had not been occupied in years, but someone maintained the grounds.
The snow along the drive had been plowed.
Fresh tire tracks curved toward the rear entrance.
Rafe stopped the car half a mile away.
Lorenzo studied the property through binoculars.
"Two guards at the east wing."
"One vehicle behind the carriage house," Rafe said.
Evelyn looked at the old photograph from Father Tomas.
"The red bicycle was in an orchard."
Lorenzo pointed west.
"There."
A row of dead apple trees followed the slope toward a frozen creek.
They approached on foot through the orchard.
Evelyn's shoes sank into wet snow.
She had changed out of her restaurant uniform at the safehouse, but the borrowed boots were a size too large.
Lorenzo noticed her stumbling.
"Stay in my tracks."
"I know how snow works."
"Apparently not in those boots."
She stepped into his footprint anyway.
The service road appeared behind a crumbling stone wall.
Lorenzo stopped near a rusted gate.
For one second, he looked sixteen.
Not younger in the face.
Younger in the eyes.
"Daniel cut this chain with bolt cutters."
Evelyn touched the gate.
"He brought you here?"
"He brought me out."
"My father thought freedom was teaching a mob boss's son how to sneak away?"
"Your father thought rules were often written by people who benefited from them."
Evelyn smiled despite herself.
"That sounds more familiar."
They entered through a basement door hidden behind ivy.
Rafe disabled an old alarm panel.
Inside, dust covered the floor.
The house smelled cold and unused.
Lorenzo led them through a wine cellar, then up a narrow staircase.
"The room with no windows," Evelyn whispered.
"My mother had a panic room."
"Where?"
"Second floor."
They climbed.
The main hall was lined with sheet-covered furniture and dark portraits.
A photograph of Lorenzo as a boy rested on a console table.
Beside him stood a beautiful dark-haired woman Evelyn recognized as his mother.
Another man had been cut from the picture.
"Your father?"
Lorenzo did not stop.
"My uncle."
The panic room was behind a bookcase in the library.
The steel door stood open.
Inside was a chair.
Rope lay on the floor.
No woman.
No Celeste.
Rafe checked the adjoining rooms.
"Empty."
Evelyn stepped into the panic room.
Stone walls.
No windows.
Exactly as Daniel's letter described.
"This is it."
Lorenzo looked at the floor.
Black and white marble tiles formed a chessboard pattern.
"He said do not open the floor until both of us are here."
Evelyn knelt.
Some tiles were scratched.
Not random scratches.
Letters.
E.
L.
She looked up.
"Our initials."
Lorenzo crouched beside her.
The E was carved into a white tile.
The L into a black tile three squares away.
Evelyn pressed hers.
Nothing happened.
Lorenzo pressed his.
Nothing.
"Together," she said.
They pressed at the same time.
A click sounded beneath the floor.
A narrow panel rose beside the wall.
Rafe exhaled.
"Your father built puzzles."
"My father could not assemble a bookshelf without swearing."
"Apparently he had priorities."
Beneath the panel was a steel case.
Two locks.
One required a key.
The other required a four-digit code.
Evelyn used the brass key from the blue box.
It turned.
Lorenzo stared at the number pad.
"The red bicycle."
"A year?"
"No."
He frowned.
"It had a number on the frame."
"Daniel told me to remember it."
"What number?"
"2714."
He entered it.
The case opened.
Inside were four cassette tapes, a stack of photographs, and a leather-bound ledger wrapped in plastic.
No money.
No weapons.
Just paper.
The kind of paper men killed for.
Lorenzo reached for the ledger.
Evelyn caught his wrist.
"Wait."
A single black thread stretched from the cover to the back of the case.
Rafe leaned closer.
"Trigger."
"Could be an alarm."
"Could be worse."
Lorenzo withdrew his hand.
Rafe cut the thread carefully.
Nothing happened.
Then a red light began blinking beneath the case.
"That was not an alarm," Rafe said.
A metallic clunk sounded behind the wall.
Evelyn's stomach dropped.
"What did we trigger?"
Rafe grabbed the ledger.
"We are leaving."
The panic room door slammed shut.
Locks engaged.
The ceiling vents opened.
A chemical smell entered the room.
Evelyn covered her mouth.
"Gas."
Rafe fired at the lock.
The bullet flattened against steel.
Lorenzo pulled the chair beneath a ceiling vent and tore at the grate.
"How long?" Evelyn asked.
Rafe's voice was already rough.
"Not long."
Evelyn looked around.
Her father had designed this room to require both of them.
He would not build a trap that killed them for obeying him.
Unless someone had changed it.
"The floor."
Lorenzo looked at her.
"What?"
"If someone modified the case, they expected us to use the door."
"My father said every cage has a maintenance door."
Evelyn dropped to her knees and searched the tile seams.
"Your service road."
"The bicycle."
"He taught you the same lesson twice."
Lorenzo understood.
He began pressing tiles along the wall.
Rafe kicked at the baseboard.
Evelyn's vision blurred.
The gas smelled sweet.
Her arms felt heavy.
She found a tile with a tiny carved bicycle wheel in one corner.
"Here."
Lorenzo pressed it.
Nothing.
"Together again."
Evelyn searched.
Three tiles away was a tiny crown over the letter E.
Her childhood mark.
She pressed it as Lorenzo pressed the bicycle.
A section of wall opened six inches.
Cold air rushed in.
Rafe forced the panel wider.
Behind it was a narrow service tunnel.
They crawled inside as the panic room filled with gas.
The panel closed behind them.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Evelyn heard Lorenzo breathing ahead of her.
Rafe's hand touched her ankle behind.
They crawled for almost fifty feet before the tunnel ended at a wooden hatch.
Lorenzo pushed it open.
They emerged inside a linen closet on the first floor.
Evelyn collapsed against the wall.
Her head spun.
Lorenzo crouched beside her.
"Look at me."
"I am fine."
"That is not what I asked."
She looked.
His face was closer than she expected.
For the first time, fear showed in him.
Not fear for himself.
For her.
The realization disturbed her.
Rafe opened the ledger.
"We have a problem."
Evelyn sat up.
Every page was blank.
Lorenzo's expression hardened.
"Decoy."
"No," Evelyn said.
She touched the paper.
Faint pressure marks ran across it.
"Something was written here."
"Removed?"
"Maybe invisible ink."
A floorboard creaked outside the closet.
All three went still.
A woman's voice came from the hallway.
"Lorenzo?"
Lorenzo's face changed.
"Mother."
He opened the closet door.
Isabella Moretti stood ten feet away.
She was not tied.
She was not injured.
She wore a dark wool coat and held a pistol with both hands.
The gun was pointed directly at Evelyn.
May you like
"Get away from my son," she said.
