Chapter 5 - The Woman He Couldn’t Leave Behind
“Arthur!”
Maeve dropped beside him.
Carmichael scrambled toward the lake.
Caesar launched himself between them, forcing Carmichael backward without biting.
Arthur gripped Maeve’s wrist.
“Not mine.”
“What?”
“The blood.”
She stared.
Arthur pulled open his coat.
The bullet had torn across his side, reopening the earlier wound but missing his chest.
Maeve nearly hit him herself.
“You could have mentioned that before I aged twenty years.”
“Busy.”
Carmichael ran.
A shot cracked from the trees.
He fell.
Maeve spun around.
Sal emerged from the darkness, blood running down one side of his face.
“Still don’t trust me?”
Maeve stared.
“Ask tomorrow.”
They recovered the box from the shallow water.
Within an hour, Arthur’s people transported them to an isolated farmhouse outside the city.
No phones.
No visible guards.
No lights near the windows.
For the first time since the alley, Maeve had nowhere to run and nothing useful to do.
That was when the fear arrived.
Her hands would not stop shaking.
Arthur found her sitting on the kitchen floor at three in the morning.
Caesar’s head rested in her lap.
Arthur lowered himself carefully beside her.
“Can’t sleep?”
“My apartment was attacked, my boss tried to shoot me, my dead father left evidence against half the city, and I’m hiding with a crime boss.”
“Fair.”
Maeve looked at him.
“Were you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“Calm when everything is insane.”
“No.”
“What changed?”
Arthur looked toward Caesar.
“People die when I panic.”
There was no pride in the statement.
Only memory.
Maeve asked about Daniel.
Arthur resisted at first.
Then he told her.
Daniel had been everything Arthur was not: idealistic, warm, convinced that their family could become legitimate.
He adopted Caesar as a puppy and brought him everywhere.
When Daniel died, Arthur took the dog.
“I thought protecting him was the last thing I could still do for my brother.”
Maeve touched Caesar’s ear.
“And then someone chained both of you behind a diner.”
Arthur smiled faintly.
“I had a poor week.”
She laughed.
It surprised both of them.
Arthur looked at her for a long moment.
“Why did you save me?”
“You were tied to a pipe.”
“You didn’t know me.”
“That was probably helpful.”
“I told you to leave.”
“You’re extremely bossy for a hostage.”
His smile deepened.
It transformed his face.
Maeve suddenly understood why dangerous men were sometimes described as charming.
That realization was deeply inconvenient.
Arthur’s gaze dropped to her mouth.
Then he looked away.
“Maeve.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to tell me your life is dangerous.”
“It is.”
“That being near you makes me a target.”
“Yes.”
“That you’re not a good man.”
Arthur’s eyes returned to hers.
“Yes.”
Maeve considered him.
“Then become better.”
He seemed genuinely startled.
“You think it’s that simple?”
“No. I think it’s that difficult.”
Morning brought worse news.
Victor Hale had gone public.
News stations reported that Arthur Romano was wanted for questioning regarding multiple murders and financial crimes.
Hale appeared before cameras expressing “deep concern” about organized crime corrupting the city.
Maeve nearly threw a coffee mug at the television.
“He tried to murder us.”
“He’s controlling the story,” Arthur said.
“So change it.”
“With what?”
Maeve pointed toward her father’s evidence.
“That.”
Arthur shook his head.
“The records implicate people who could bury them before any investigation starts.”
“Then don’t give them to one investigator.”
Maeve stood.
“Give them to everyone.”
Arthur watched her.
“Newspapers. Federal agencies. Attorneys. Every rival politician. Every journalist who hates Hale. Make the evidence impossible to kill.”
Sal slowly smiled.
Arthur did not.
“What?”
Maeve asked.
Arthur looked almost impressed.
“You think like a criminal.”
“I worked food service for seven years. Similar skill set.”
They spent the day digitizing Patrick’s records.
But one file remained encrypted.
Daniel had added it shortly before his death.
The password hint contained two words:
THE WAITRESS.
Maeve stared.
“I wasn’t a waitress when Daniel died?”
Arthur looked at her.
“No.”
She had worked at Carmichael’s for seven years.
Daniel died eighteen months earlier.
She absolutely had been a waitress.
Arthur’s expression changed.
“You’re right.”
Maeve’s skin prickled.
“Did Daniel know me?”
Arthur opened an old photograph archive on his laptop.
They searched for nearly an hour.
Then Maeve saw herself.
In the background of a photograph taken at Carmichael’s Diner three years earlier.
Daniel sat at the counter.
Maeve was pouring his coffee.
Her mouth went dry.
“I remember him.”
Arthur turned.
“He came in every Sunday.”
“What did he order?”
“Black coffee. Apple pie. He always left twenty dollars.”
Arthur smiled painfully.
“That was Daniel.”
Maeve suddenly remembered something else.
“He gave me a book.”
Arthur’s head snapped toward her.
“What book?”
Maeve stood.
“A customer left it behind. Daniel said nobody was coming back for it and told me to keep it.”
“Where is it?”
“My apartment.”
Arthur was already reaching for his coat.
Sal blocked him.
“You can’t go back.”
Arthur looked at Maeve.
She understood.
May you like
Whatever Daniel had hidden inside that book was important enough to die for.
And it was sitting in the wreckage of her apartment.
