Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Snow
Three weeks after Gabriel Rossi fired her, Madeline Harper stood outside a pawnshop on Washington Street holding the last valuable thing Liam had ever given her.
His watch.
It was not expensive.
The leather strap was cracked, the silver case scratched from years of use, and the engraving on the back was almost embarrassingly simple.
For all the time we get. — M
Madeline had given it to Liam on their second anniversary.
Now she needed to sell it to buy groceries.
She stood beneath the awning while freezing rain blew sideways across Dorchester, staring through the pawnshop window.
Her baby kicked.
Madeline closed her eyes.
“I know,” she whispered. “I hate this too.”
Her landlord had given her until Friday.
The hospital had called that morning regarding an unpaid prenatal bill.
Two job interviews had been canceled after prospective employers contacted St. Jude.
Someone was making sure she remained unemployed.
She no longer merely suspected Gabriel Rossi.
She knew.
Madeline slipped Liam’s watch back into her purse.
She could not do it.
Not yet.
Across the street, a black sedan sat beside the curb.
Madeline did not notice it.
But the man in the rear seat noticed everything.
Gabriel Rossi had been watching her for seventeen minutes.
He had not intended to.
He had been returning from a meeting when he recognized her leaving a discount grocery store carrying one paper bag.
Something had made him tell his driver to stop.
Now he watched the woman he had humiliated stand outside a pawnshop with one hand protecting her pregnant stomach.
“Boss?”
Gabriel’s security chief, Marco Bellini, glanced backward.
“We're going to be late.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Madeline suddenly looked toward the alley beside the pawnshop.
A homeless man had collapsed against the brick wall.
People walked past him.
Madeline did not.
She hurried across the sidewalk despite her awkward pregnant gait.
Gabriel frowned.
She crouched beside the stranger.
“Sir?”
The man did not respond.
Madeline removed her gloves and pressed trembling fingers against his neck.
Then she pulled out her phone.
Gabriel could not hear what she said, but he watched her call for help.
Five minutes later an ambulance arrived.
The paramedics lifted the man onto a stretcher.
One spoke briefly with Madeline.
Then Gabriel saw something that made him lean forward.
Madeline opened her grocery bag.
She removed the bread, soup, milk, fruit, and prenatal vitamins she had just purchased.
She put everything except the vitamins into another bag and placed it beside the homeless man on the stretcher.
The paramedic appeared to protest.
Madeline smiled.
Then she walked away carrying almost nothing.
Gabriel stared after her.
Marco had spent fifteen years beside him and knew when silence meant danger.
But this silence was different.
“Who is she?”
Gabriel's answer came slowly.
“The librarian.”
Marco turned.
“The pregnant woman you fired?”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“Follow her.”
Madeline walked six blocks.
She stopped twice because her lower back hurt.
Eventually she entered an aging brick apartment building.
Gabriel remained in the car.
“Find out everything,” he said.
Marco hesitated.
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
That evening Gabriel returned to St. Jude.
The gala decorations were gone.
The library was empty except for security and restoration workers.
He entered the archive room.
Construction had not begun.
He had postponed it without explaining why.
Something on Madeline’s old desk caught his attention.
A small framed ultrasound photograph.
Gabriel picked it up.
Twenty-two weeks.
A tiny profile.
A curved spine.
A life completely unaware of men like Gabriel Rossi.
Mr. Abernathy appeared in the doorway.
“Mr. Rossi.”
Gabriel did not turn.
“Why is this still here?”
The elderly librarian swallowed.
“Miss Harper left in distress. I boxed her personal belongings afterward.”
“Why didn't you send them?”
Mr. Abernathy looked uncomfortable.
“Your legal department instructed us not to contact her.”
Gabriel slowly lowered the photograph.
“My legal department?”
“Yes.”
Something cold moved through him.
Gabriel had never ordered anyone to interfere with Madeline’s unemployment benefits.
He had fired her.
Cruelly.
Publicly.
But the rest?
No.
“Who gave the instruction?”
“Mr. Victor Rossi.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
Victor was his uncle.
His father’s younger brother.
And the man overseeing the library acquisition.
That night, Marco arrived at Gabriel’s Beacon Hill townhouse carrying a thin folder.
Gabriel opened it.
Madeline Harper.
Thirty years old.
No criminal record.
No debt until recently.
Parents deceased.
Engaged to Liam Davis.
Deceased four months earlier.
Gabriel stopped reading.
“What did Davis do?”
“Accountant.”
“For whom?”
Marco's expression was strange.
“He worked as a forensic auditor.”
Gabriel looked up.
“Where?”
“Three companies over six years.”
Marco slid another page across the desk.
“The last was Calder Maritime.”
Gabriel became completely still.
Calder Maritime handled shipping contracts for the Rossi organization.
“What was he auditing?”
“We don't know.”
“Find out.”
“There’s more.”
Marco placed a photograph on the desk.
Liam stood outside a Boston courthouse.
Beside him was Senator Philip Montgomery.
The same senator who had watched Madeline’s firing.
Gabriel stared at the image.
“When was this?”
“Six days before Davis died.”
Gabriel felt the first unmistakable warning in his gut.
Liam’s hit-and-run had never been solved.
Gabriel stood.
“Get the police report.”
Marco remained where he was.
“Gabriel.”
“What?”
“There's something else.”
Marco placed a photocopy of a parking citation beside the photograph.
The vehicle that struck Liam had disappeared.
But a traffic camera had captured a partial plate twenty minutes before the collision.
The vehicle was registered through a shell company.
Gabriel recognized the company immediately.
His family controlled it.
For several seconds neither man spoke.
Then Gabriel looked toward the ultrasound photograph he had brought home from St. Jude.
Madeline’s child had lost a father.
And someone inside Gabriel’s organization might have killed him.
At 11:38 that night, Madeline heard knocking.
She froze.
Nobody visited her.
The knock came again.
Madeline approached cautiously and looked through the peephole.
Her blood turned cold.
Gabriel Rossi stood outside.
She opened the door only three inches, leaving the chain attached.
“What do you want?”
His eyes moved over her exhausted face.
“Did Liam Davis ever mention Calder Maritime?”
Madeline stopped breathing.
Gabriel saw it.
That was answer enough.
“Go away.”
“Madeline—”
“Don't say my name.”
She tried to close the door.
Gabriel placed his palm against it.
“I didn't come here about the library.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because someone connected to my family may have killed Liam.”
Silence.
Madeline stared at him.
Then her expression changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
She disappeared from the doorway.
Gabriel heard drawers opening.
She returned holding something small.
A brass key.
“Liam mailed this to me the morning he died.”
Gabriel stared at it.
“What does it open?”
“I don't know.”
Then Madeline said the words that changed everything.
“But the night before he died, Liam told me something.”
“What?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“He said if anything happened to him, I should never trust a Rossi.”
Gabriel’s hand slowly dropped from the door.
May you like
Madeline looked directly at him.
“And now you're standing in my hallway.”
