Chapter 3: The Name on the Blanket
Roman walked to the east corridor himself.
He had passed that door hundreds of times.
White-painted wood, no different from the others.
A small keypad lock he had assumed Celeste used for files, documents, things he had never thought to ask about.
He pressed his palm flat against it now.
"It's keyed to her code," Marco said from behind him.
"We'd need to override."
"Do it."
Marco produced a small device, pressed it to the keypad, and thirty seconds later the lock released with a soft click.
Roman pushed the door open.
The smell reached him first.
Something clean and faint — soap, new cotton, the particular stillness of a room that had been prepared and then left untouched.
He stepped inside.
The photograph had not done it justice.
The walls were pale yellow, yes, but Celeste had painted small white flowers along the baseboard by hand.
He could see the brushstrokes.
Uneven in places.
She had done it herself, on her knees, seven months pregnant, in a room she had never shown him.
The crib stood in the corner, fully assembled.
A mobile hung above it — small silver stars on thin wire.
Roman crossed to the shelf.
Eight children's books, spines outward.
A small white lamp.
A baby monitor, still in its box.
He picked up the folded blanket.
The letter E.
He stood there holding it for a long moment.
"E," he said.
Marco was quiet.
"She named her." Roman's voice came out differently than he intended.
"She already named her."
"Boss." Marco's tone shifted — careful, deliberate.
"There's something else."
Roman turned.
Marco was holding a second item.
An envelope, unsealed, that had been tucked beneath the blanket's edge.
Roman had not seen it until Marco lifted it free.
Roman set the blanket down and took the envelope.
Inside was a single folded page.
Not a letter.
A document.
Printed, formal, with a law firm's header across the top.
He read the first paragraph.
Then he read it again.
"This is a custody filing," he said.
"Filed six weeks ago," Marco said.
"Before she left."
Roman looked up.
"She was planning this."
"She was protecting herself," Marco said carefully.
"There's a difference."
Roman's jaw tightened.
He looked back at the document.
His name appeared three times in the first page alone, each time in a context that made the room feel smaller.
He reached the bottom of the page.
A second signature appeared beneath Celeste's.
Not a lawyer's.
A witness.
Someone he knew.
Someone who sat across from him at his own table twice a month and called him by his first name and had never once given him reason to look twice.
His financial director.
Vincent Caruso.
Roman set the document down on the shelf beside the lamp.
"Vincent," he said.
Marco said nothing.
"How long has he known where she is?"
"I don't know yet."
Roman looked at the mobile above the crib.
The silver stars turned slowly in the air from the door opening.
"Find out," he said.
"Tonight."
He walked back to the door.
Stopped with his hand on the frame.
"And Marco."
"Yes."
"Don't tell anyone else what's in that envelope."
He left the nursery without looking back.
But at the end of the corridor, before he turned toward his study, he stopped walking for three full seconds.
His hand pressed once against the wall.
Then he kept moving.
That night, Marco returned at eleven with a name and an address.
Vincent Caruso had visited a building in Lincoln Square four times in the past six weeks.
Always on foot.
Always in the evening.
Always alone.
The building had six apartments.
One of them had been rented two months ago under a name Roman didn't recognize.
May you like
But the lease guarantor was Rebecca Marín.
Celeste's sister.
