Chapter 2 - The Voice Beyond the Door
Josephine forgot how to move.
No one else had ever called her Josie in exactly that way.
Andrew had stretched the first syllable slightly whenever he was frightened for her.
Josie.
She had heard it after she slipped on ice during their first winter together.
After the doctor found a benign lump in her breast.
After her mother died.
Now it came from beyond a doorway where a gun had just fired.
Josephine ran.
Dante caught her around the waist before she reached the corridor.
“Let go!”
“No.”
“That’s him!”
“Maybe.”
“I know my husband’s voice.”
“You knew your husband’s face too.”
She twisted violently.
“Let me go!”
Another gunshot sounded.
The guests scattered.
Dante pulled Josephine behind a marble pillar as his guards rushed forward.
She could hear men shouting.
Footsteps.
Glass breaking.
Then silence.
Dante released her only when one of his men returned.
“Clear.”
“Marcus?”
“Alive.”
“The other man?”
The guard hesitated.
“Gone.”
Josephine shoved past Dante.
The corridor beyond the dining room ended at a service stairwell.
Marcus Bell lay against the wall holding his bleeding shoulder.
A handgun was several feet away.
Josephine barely noticed.
She searched every doorway.
“Andre—”
Dante covered her mouth before she finished the name.
His body pressed her against the wall.
She glared at him.
“Don’t advertise who you’re looking for.”
Josephine pulled his hand away.
“I heard him.”
“So did whoever is helping him.”
Marcus laughed weakly from the floor.
They both turned.
Blood spread across his white shirt.
“You’re too late,” Marcus said.
Josephine approached him.
“Where is Andrew?”
Marcus looked at her with something almost like pity.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Which Andrew you mean.”
Dante crouched beside him.
“What did you just say?”
Marcus smiled.
Then his eyes rolled back.
“Get a medic,” Dante ordered.
Josephine stared at Marcus.
“Which Andrew?”
No answer.
The next hour dissolved into police sirens, security footage and carefully constructed lies.
Dante disappeared before uniformed officers reached the dining room.
Josephine wasn’t surprised.
What surprised her was finding him waiting outside her townhouse at two in the morning.
He stood beside a black sedan.
No guards visible.
She stopped on the sidewalk.
“How do you know where I live?”
“Your address is on three charities, two property records and a zoning complaint.”
Josephine unlocked her gate.
“You could simply say you looked me up.”
“I looked you up.”
She turned.
“Why are you here?”
“Because Marcus Bell disappeared from Northwestern Memorial twelve minutes ago.”
Her hand stopped on the gate.
“What?”
“Two men dressed as orderlies moved him.”
“Is he alive?”
“He was.”
Josephine closed her eyes.
Eight months of grief had been easier than eight hours of uncertainty.
Dante watched her.
“You need to leave the house.”
“No.”
“Someone believes you know something.”
“I don’t.”
“They may not believe you.”
“That’s their problem.”
“It becomes your problem when they arrive with guns.”
Josephine unlocked the door.
“I’m tired.”
“So are assassins.”
She looked at him.
He wasn’t smiling.
Josephine hated how quickly her normal world had vanished.
Yesterday she had been arguing with an accountant about a charity budget.
Now a mafia boss was advising her about assassins.
“What exactly do you want?”
Dante stepped beneath the porch light.
“I want Andrew.”
“Why?”
“He stole from me.”
“Nine million dollars?”
“Nine million was what he wanted me to notice.”
Josephine waited.
“The real theft,” Dante said, “was information.”
“What information?”
“Names. Accounts. Judges. Police. Politicians.”
Josephine’s stomach tightened.
“You’re telling me my husband worked for you?”
“No.”
“Then how did he have access?”
“That is what I’ve been trying to understand.”
Josephine folded her arms.
“Maybe he investigated you.”
Dante’s expression almost softened.
“You want that to be true.”
“My husband was an investment consultant.”
“Your husband maintained offshore structures for men who never appear on corporate records.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
She turned toward the door.
Dante spoke behind her.
“He had another apartment.”
Josephine stopped.
“Where?”
“Gold Coast.”
She faced him again.
“Take me there.”
“No.”
“Then give me the address.”
“No.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because I need you to understand that every answer you find will create two more questions.”
“I survived burying him.”
Dante studied her carefully.
“You may discover that was the easy part.”
Josephine stepped closer.
“Take me.”
Twenty minutes later she sat beside him in the back of the sedan.
Neither spoke.
Chicago moved outside the tinted windows in streaks of white and red.
The apartment was on the twenty-third floor of a luxury building overlooking the lake.
Dante had a key.
That bothered Josephine.
“You’ve been here.”
“Yes.”
“With Andrew?”
“No.”
She entered.
Nothing prepared her for how ordinary it was.
Gray sofa.
Coffee machine.
Books.
Men’s shoes beside the door.
Then she saw the photograph on a shelf.
Her wedding photograph.
Josephine crossed the room.
Her own smiling face stared back from the frame.
Andrew stood beside her.
Someone had folded the photograph so Andrew’s face was hidden behind the cardboard backing.
Only Josephine remained visible.
She touched the glass.
“Why would he keep this?”
Dante said nothing.
Josephine searched the room.
She found shirts in Andrew’s size.
His preferred shaving cream.
A bottle of the cologne she had bought him every Christmas.
Then she opened a desk drawer.
Inside were dozens of photographs.
All of her.
Josephine entering her townhouse.
Josephine shopping.
Josephine leaving a yoga studio.
Josephine at Andrew’s grave.
Some had been taken after his death.
Her hands began shaking.
“He was watching me.”
Dante took the photographs.
His jaw tightened.
“These weren’t taken by one person.”
“How can you tell?”
“Angles. Lenses. Distance.”
Josephine stared at the images.
“Why?”
Dante opened another drawer.
Empty.
He pressed along the underside.
A hidden compartment released.
Inside sat a small digital recorder.
Josephine looked at him.
Dante pressed play.
Static.
Then Andrew’s voice.
“If you’re hearing this, something went wrong.”
Josephine grabbed the edge of the desk.
Andrew continued.
“Josie, I need you to understand one thing before anything else.”
A pause.
“I loved you.”
Tears immediately filled her eyes.
The recording crackled.
“I know what you’re going to discover. I know what it will look like.”
Josephine whispered, “Andrew.”
“And I’m sorry.”
Another pause.
Then his voice became strained.
“There are two men you cannot trust.”
Dante leaned closer to the recorder.
“The first is Marcus Bell.”
Josephine swallowed.
“The second—”
The recording stopped.
Dante pressed play again.
Nothing.
He removed the battery.
“Tampered.”
Josephine stared at him.
“Can you recover it?”
“Probably.”
She wiped her face.
“Do it.”
Dante turned the recorder over.
Something was taped beneath the battery compartment.
A key.
Small.
Brass.
Stamped with a number.
Josephine recognized it instantly.
“That’s from Union Station.”
Dante looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Andrew used to keep luggage lockers there when he traveled.”
They arrived before dawn.
Union Station was nearly empty.
Locker 317 stood at the end of a quiet row.
Josephine inserted the key.
Dante placed one hand inside his jacket.
“Stand behind me.”
“It’s my husband’s locker.”
“And possibly someone else’s trap.”
Josephine turned the key.
The door opened.
Inside was a black leather briefcase.
Nothing else.
Dante removed it.
No wires.
No visible mechanism.
He placed it on a bench.
Josephine entered the combination she and Andrew had used for their luggage.
Their wedding date.
The lock clicked.
Dante looked at her.
Josephine lifted the lid.
Inside were passports.
Cash.
A handgun.
And a stack of identity documents.
She picked up the first passport.
Andrew’s photograph.
Different name.
Adrian Mercer.
Another.
Andrew’s photograph.
Thomas Hale.
Another.
Eric Mason.
Dante swore quietly.
Josephine reached beneath them.
There was one final passport.
She opened it.
Her own photograph stared back.
But the name was not Josephine Miller.
It read:
ELENA MORETTI.
Josephine slowly turned toward Dante.
For the first time since she met him, the mafia boss looked genuinely shaken.
“That name,” he said.
Josephine could barely breathe.
“What?”
Dante reached for the passport.
“That woman died twenty-seven years ago.”
Josephine’s voice dropped.
“Who was she?”
Dante looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.
“My sister.”
Then a phone began ringing inside the briefcase.
Neither of them moved.
May you like
The screen displayed one name.
ANDREW.
