Chapter 4 - THE BLOOD LEDGER
"Pier 42," Luca read off the scrap of yellow paper I held in my left palm. "That's the old grain terminal on the Calumet River. Viktor Bellini shut it down two years ago."
Daniel was already ejecting the magazine of his Beretta to check the rounds. "I'll call the southside crew. We can have twelve men at the terminal in twenty minutes."
"No," Luca said sharply.
Daniel paused, staring at him. "Boss, it's a trap. Viktor's men will be waiting."
"Viktor's men aren't there," Luca said, taking the micro-SD card from my fingers and slotting it into an adapter connected to his desktop monitor. "If Viktor knew Vanessa had taken Elena and Leo from their holding house, he wouldn't be waiting at an abandoned grain terminal for a ransom. He'd be tearing this city apart."
The files on the micro-SD card popped up on the screen.
There wasn't much—just three audio files and a scanned PDF of a Cook County coroner's report from three years ago.
Luca clicked the PDF first.
I leaned in, reading over his shoulder as the document loaded. It was the official autopsy report for the two unnamed bodies pulled from the Calumet Sag Channel three days after Elena's car went into the river.
At the bottom, the dental records had been manually altered. And the signature authorizing the falsified identification belonged to Dr. Arthur Harris.
My stomach dropped into my shoes.
"Dr. Harris," I breathed, my hand instinctively flying up to touch the white cloth sling wrapped around my injured arm. "The doctor who was just upstairs in the housekeeper's quarters examining my shoulder."
Luca spun around, his eyes blazing. "Is he still upstairs?"
"Mrs. Carter said he was waiting in the conservatory to give you my medical report after the guests left!"
We didn't use the stairs carefully this time.
Luca sprinted down the main hallway toward the glass-walled conservatory at the rear of the mansion, Daniel and I right on his heels.
When Luca kicked the double glass doors open, the humid air inside smelled of crushed orchids and copper.
The conservatory was empty—except for the wrought-iron patio table in the center.
Dr. Harris's black leather medical bag sat open on the glass tabletop. Beside it lay his gold stethoscope and a half-empty glass of scotch.
The French doors leading out to the back gardens were swinging open in the chilly October wind.
Daniel ran to the open doors, scanning the dark lawn with his flashlight. "Tire tracks in the gravel by the carriage house. He's gone, boss."
I walked slowly toward the open medical bag, a cold dread pooling in my belly.
"He didn't leave because you found the SD card," I said, looking down into the doctor's bag. "He left because of what I told him upstairs."
Luca turned to me instantly. "What did you tell him, Sophie?"
"When he was strapping my arm," I said, my voice trembling, "he asked me how I hurt my back. I lied, just like I lied to you at the table. I said I fell moving a small table in the upstairs guest room."
"Why would that make him run?"
"Because he didn't ask which guest room," I said, looking up into Luca's dark eyes. "He asked me if the radiator under the east window was still leaking."
Luca went dead still.
"There are six guest rooms on the second floor," I continued, my heart racing as the terrifying truth unraveled. "Only the corner room has a radiator under the east window. Dr. Harris already knew which room I was in. Because he was the one who told Vanessa to use that room to meet Keller."
Luca walked over to the glass table and picked up a prescription pad Dr. Harris had left beside his bag.
The top sheet was gone, torn off cleanly.
Luca held the pad angled toward the overhead chandelier light, examining the deep indentations left in the paper below.
He didn't even need a pencil to shade it in. The doctor had pressed hard with a ballpoint pen.
Written across the blank pad were the indentations of an address: 4402 West Fullerton. Basement Apartment.
I gasped so loudly both men whipped their heads toward me.
The color drained completely from my face. I clutched my sling against my chest, stepping backward until my heels hit a ceramic planter.
"Sophie?" Luca stepped toward me, his voice dropping its hard edge. "What is that address?"
My lips trembled so badly I could barely form the words.
"That's my apartment," I whispered.
May you like
Luca's brow furrowed. "Your apartment?"
"And I don't live alone," I choked out, tears spilling over my lashes as panic seized my throat. "My sixty-two-year-old mother is there right now. Watching my five-year-old daughter, Maya."
