Chapter 9 - THE NIGHT STERLING'S BISTRO BURNED
9
Mom wanted to leave Chicago that night.
Agent Brooks said no airplane.
No train.
No credit cards.
If Daniel was alive and someone had spent months waiting for him to return, our movements could be watched.
Vincent offered a safe house.
Mom refused.
Brooks chose one instead.
A small federal property outside the city.
Nobody connected to Kane knew the address.
Not even Salvatore.
That mattered now.
Trust had become something everybody measured.
Before we left, I asked Mom a question.
“If Daddy is alive, why didn't he come home?”
She closed her eyes.
“I don't know.”
“Doesn't he like us?”
She knelt.
“Your father loved you before he ever saw your face.”
“How?”
“He talked to my belly every night.”
“What did he say?”
Mom smiled through tears.
“He told you about baseball.”
“I don't like baseball.”
“He didn't know that.”
I thought about it.
“Maybe that's why he didn't come back.”
Mom laughed and cried at the same time.
We were preparing to leave when Agent Brooks received an emergency call.
Sterling's Bistro was on fire.
Vincent stood.
“Evidence.”
Brooks was already calling fire command.
The federal team had removed most records from the basement.
But not all.
Large filing cabinets remained.
Two servers held encrypted copies of security footage.
And the concrete safe contained physical evidence awaiting transport.
The fire started in the kitchen.
Then spread downward.
Too quickly.
Accelerant.
Arson.
Worse, five employees were inside with investigators cataloging property.
Vincent ran before Brooks could stop him.
Salvatore followed.
Mom looked at me.
Then at Brooks.
“No.”
Brooks said, “You stay here.”
For once, Mom agreed.
We watched news footage on television.
Smoke poured from the restaurant where Mom had worked eleven weeks without pay.
The sign above the entrance disappeared behind black clouds.
Firefighters broke windows.
People screamed.
Then the reporter said someone was trapped in the basement.
Mom stood.
“Who?”
Nobody knew.
A camera caught Vincent Kane pushing past the barricade.
Mom cursed.
“He's insane.”
I watched Vincent disappear into smoke.
Seven minutes later, he came out carrying Nadia.
The cleaning woman Sterling had locked downstairs.
She had returned with federal agents to identify records.
Vincent handed her to firefighters and went back inside.
Mom whispered, “Don't.”
He returned with an older dishwasher named Tomas.
Then Salvatore dragged out a federal technician.
The roof near the kitchen collapsed.
Everybody thought Vincent was still inside.
I started crying.
Mom held me.
Thirty seconds later he emerged through a side door with Agent Harris over his shoulder.
His coat was burning.
A firefighter extinguished it.
Vincent collapsed on the pavement.
He was alive.
When Mom saw him later at the hospital, she slapped him again.
He had an oxygen mask on.
“You are stupid.”
Vincent removed the mask.
“I've been told.”
“You don't run into burning buildings.”
“I wasn't planning to make it a habit.”
“You have people.”
“So did they.”
Mom stared at him.
Then hugged him.
Only for a second.
Vincent seemed more frightened by that than the fire.
The arson destroyed part of the basement.
But investigators found the ignition device.
It had been activated remotely.
Signal records led to a burner phone.
The phone was discarded near a gas station.
Camera footage showed a woman leaving it in a trash can.
Rebecca Sterling.
Mercer watched the video three times.
“She set the fire?”
Agent Brooks replied, “Looks that way.”
Mom shook her head.
“She saved Daniel.”
“Maybe she stopped saving people.”
Or maybe the fire had another purpose.
Fire investigators discovered the flames concentrated not around the remaining financial records but around one section behind the freezer.
The hidden office.
Specifically, the wall map.
Rebecca wanted the map destroyed.
Why?
Because something on it had not yet been understood.
Fortunately, Agent Brooks had photographed the entire wall.
They projected the images onto a large monitor.
Pins.
Addresses.
Codes.
Different colors.
I sat on Mom's lap.
I wasn't supposed to help.
Then I saw something.
“Those are train lines.”
Agent Brooks turned.
“What?”
I pointed to thin black marker lines connecting pins.
“It looks like my train book.”
Mom frowned.
I had a children's map of Chicago trains.
We compared it.
I was right.
The pins weren't only addresses.
They formed routes along old freight corridors.
Some no longer existed.
Vincent leaned closer.
“Anthony used warehouses near rail lines.”
Brooks began matching locations.
Three abandoned properties.
Two storage facilities.
A closed meatpacking plant.
One private medical clinic.
And a former children's hospital near Cicero.
The hospital had been closed twelve years.
Exactly when Elaine Mercer died.
Brooks searched property ownership.
Shell company.
Another shell.
Trust.
Then the final owner appeared.
Carlo Moretti.
Salvatore's supposedly dead father.
Vincent called Salvatore.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then his phone rang.
Salvatore.
Vincent answered.
“Where are you?”
A man's voice came through.
Not Salvatore's.
Older.
Calm.
“Hello, Vincent.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
I didn't know the voice.
He did.
“Carlo.”
Mom looked at him.
The dead man.
Carlo Moretti.
Alive.
“You've caused a great deal of trouble,” Carlo said.
“Where's Salvatore?”
“With me.”
“If you hurt him—”
“He is my son.”
“You stopped being his father when you let him bury you.”
Carlo sighed.
“Always dramatic.”
Vincent's hands clenched.
“What do you want?”
“The flash drive Daniel left.”
“No.”
“Then Salvatore dies.”
Vincent's expression didn't change.
But I saw his eyes.
That was the first time I understood something about dangerous people.
Sometimes fear doesn't look like shaking.
Sometimes it looks like becoming completely still.
Carlo continued.
“And bring Mia Carter.”
Mom stood.
Vincent said, “No.”
Carlo chuckled.
“You still don't understand why Daniel survived.”
“What?”
“He survived because Anthony wasn't allowed to kill him.”
“By you?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Carlo's voice lowered.
“By the only person Anthony was ever afraid of.”
The call ended.
Vincent stared at the phone.
Agent Brooks asked, “Who was Anthony afraid of?”
Vincent looked genuinely lost.
“Nobody.”
Then my mother stared at the photograph of Daniel taken eight months earlier.
She whispered:
“Maybe Anthony wasn't protecting Daniel from someone.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Maybe Daniel was protecting us from Anthony.”
She picked up Rebecca's notebook.
KEEP THE CARTER CHILD VISIBLE.
“He knew they'd watch Rory.”
Mom's voice broke.
“He stayed away because if he came home, he would lead them straight to her.”
Agent Brooks looked again at the old hospital on the map.
Then her phone rang.
Federal surveillance had caught movement there.
Two vehicles.
One belonged to Salvatore.
May you like
The other was registered to a dead man.
Daniel Carter.
