Chapter 9: The Warehouse and What Was Inside It
Gabriel called at nine forty-three.
Sofia answered.
Nora watched her face.
"Are you hurt?" Sofia said immediately.
Whatever the answer was, her shoulders dropped.
"Come home," she said.
"Both of you."
She ended the call and looked at Nora.
"They found Marco at the warehouse.
He didn't run.
He was waiting." She paused.
"Gabriel says there's someone you need to hear something from."
Forty minutes later, two cars pulled into the driveway.
Gabriel came in first.
Behind him, a man Nora didn't recognize — fifties, heavyset, wearing the gray coat.
She recognized the coat.
He stopped when he saw her.
His face did something complicated.
"That's her," he said to Gabriel.
"That's the girl from the restaurant."
"I know," Gabriel said.
"Sit down."
The man's name was Dominic.
He had worked for Marco for three years.
He had been the one in the service hallway.
He had passed the name to Rick.
He had believed, he said, that he was delivering a message about a table reservation.
He had not known what was in the bottle.
He had not known about Sofia.
"Then why did you run?" Nora asked.
He looked at her.
"When Rick got taken, I ran because I knew how it looked.
I knew I'd been in that hallway.
I knew my name was going to come up." He spread his hands.
"I went to the warehouse because that's where Marco told me to go if anything ever went wrong.
I thought he'd explain.
I thought there'd be a reason."
"Was there?" Gabriel said.
Dominic looked at the table.
"He told me the truth when I got there.
What was in the bottle.
What it was supposed to do.
What the lipstick was for." He stopped.
"I have a daughter.
She's eight.
I kept thinking about her the whole drive over."
"And?" Gabriel said.
Dominic reached into his coat.
He placed a phone on the table.
A small black recorder.
And a folded piece of paper.
"I've been recording Marco for six months," he said.
"He didn't know.
I started when I realized the money he was moving wasn't his.
I didn't know whose it was.
I didn't know it was yours." He looked at Gabriel.
"But I knew something was wrong and I wanted — I wanted something in my hand.
In case."
Gabriel picked up the recorder.
"Six months," he said.
"Yes."
"Does it have last night?"
"It has the night before last night.
When Marco called the man who supplied the dr*g.
When he described what he needed and why." Dominic's voice was flat.
"It has Marco saying your name.
It has him saying Sofia's name.
It has him explaining that if the glass was found afterward, the lipstick would point to her."
The kitchen was absolutely still.
Sofia stood up from the table and walked out of the room.
Her footsteps went down the hallway.
A door closed quietly.
Gabriel set the recorder down.
He looked at Dominic for a long moment.
"Where is Marco now?" Nora asked.
"Outside," Gabriel said.
"In the car."
"What happens to him?"
Gabriel looked at her.
Then at the recorder.
Then at the piece of paper, which he unfolded slowly.
It was a list of names and numbers — the deal Marco had mentioned on the phone.
The two-week arrangement.
The other party.
"This goes to the federal prosecutor's office," Gabriel said.
"Today."
Dominic blinked.
"You're going to—"
"Marco tried to kjll me and frame my sister for it.
He stole from me for eighteen months.
He involved a bartender who is now in a hospital being treated for a panic-induced cardiac event." Gabriel refolded the paper.
"The people I know can make a man disappear.
That's true.
But disappearing Marco doesn't undo the accounts.
It doesn't explain the money to the people whose names are on this list.
It doesn't protect Sofia from questions later." He paused.
"The prosecutor's office handles this.
Cleanly.
Publicly.
With evidence."
Dominic stared at him.
"You're serious."
"I'm tired," Gabriel said.
"There's a difference."
He stood.
He looked at Nora.
"Thank you," he said.
"For the second time."
Nora looked at the recorder on the table.
At the folded paper.
At the gray coat hanging over the back of Dominic's chair.
"You should check on your sister," she said.
He nodded.
He went down the hallway.
Nora sat alone at the kitchen table for a moment.
The coffee was cold.
The toast plate had been cleared.
Through the window, the tree in the backyard was moving slightly in a wind she couldn't hear from inside.
She thought about her father making coffee at six in the morning.
The television on.
The recliner.
May you like
She thought about a glass catching the light at exactly the right angle.
She thought about how much depends, sometimes, on a single person paying attention.
