Chapter 3 - THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS
I slept for forty-three minutes.
At 2:18 a.m., I gave up pretending.
Marisol's apartment was small enough that I could hear the refrigerator turn on from her couch.
She lived in Washington Heights with two roommates, a cat named Sinatra, and approximately forty plants that somehow survived despite the fact that Marisol regularly forgot to water them.
She sat across from me in dinosaur pajamas while we studied the bank transfer.
“Thirty thousand dollars,” she whispered.
“I can read.”
“I’m emphasizing.”
“Quietly emphasize.”
She lowered her voice.
“Your broke loser boyfriend received thirty thousand dollars from the Moretti organization.”
“Company.”
“Same difference.”
“No, probably a very important legal difference.”
Marisol stared at me.
“Claire, a terrifying man with bodyguards spent half the night watching your abusive boyfriend, and now you have evidence your boyfriend was paid by his company.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”
“It is bad.”
I rubbed my forehead.
Tommy worked irregular construction jobs.
At least, that's what he'd told me.
Sometimes demolition.
Sometimes deliveries.
Sometimes warehouse work.
He disappeared for days, returned with cash, lost most of it gambling, then complained that my diner tips were insufficient.
I had believed he was irresponsible.
The alternative was worse.
“What project?” I whispered.
Marisol turned the document over.
Blank.
“How did it get into your wallet?”
“I don't know.”
“Could Moretti's driver have put it there?”
“He had my wallet.”
She gave me a look.
“Exactly.”
I pulled Adrian's business card from my pocket.
His number stared back at me.
Marisol pointed at it.
“Call Batman.”
“He is not Batman.”
“Fine. Extremely expensive Italian-American Batman.”
“At two-thirty in the morning?”
“He looked like the kind of person who's awake at two-thirty.”
Unfortunately, so did Tommy.
My stomach tightened.
I checked the window for the fourth time.
“You can't go back to him,” Marisol said.
“I know.”
“You always say that.”
The words hurt because they were true.
I looked at her.
“This time I know.”
Something in my face must have convinced her.
Marisol moved beside me and squeezed my hand.
At eight the next morning, I called the number.
Adrian answered personally.
“Claire.”
No hello.
“You knew I'd call?”
“I hoped.”
“What is Thomas Rourke to you?”
Silence.
Then—
“Where are you?”
“Answer me.”
“I'll answer you somewhere safe.”
“I'm not going anywhere with you.”
“Then choose the location.”
That surprised me.
“Public place?”
“Very.”
“Police station.”
Another pause.
“All right.”
That surprised me even more.
We met outside Midtown South Precinct.
Adrian arrived alone.
At least apparently.
He wore a dark overcoat and no tie. Morning traffic rushed behind him.
I held up the transfer.
“You paid Tommy thirty thousand dollars.”
“Not exactly.”
“Your name is on it.”
“My authorization code is.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone inside one of my companies used my credentials.”
“Why?”
“That's what I've been trying to determine.”
“And Tommy?”
“Worked on a demolition crew six months ago.”
My heart began beating faster.
“Where?”
“West Forty-Seventh Street.”
I knew the address.
Everyone in my neighborhood did.
A tenement building had partially collapsed during overnight demolition.
One worker died.
Three families were hospitalized.
The newspapers called it a structural accident.
Tommy had told me he had been in Queens that week.
Adrian watched my face.
“He never told you.”
“No.”
“One contractor claimed Thomas witnessed safety violations before the collapse.”
“Then why pay him?”
“We didn't.”
“Someone did.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Adrian looked toward the precinct.
“My cousin.”
I said nothing.
“Vincent Moretti manages several construction subsidiaries. Six months ago, I started finding irregular payments.”
“To Tommy?”
“To inspectors. Union representatives. Contractors. People who became suddenly unwilling to speak.”
Cold moved through me.
“Bribes.”
“Possibly.”
“You're telling me your own company is corrupt?”
“I'm telling you somebody inside it may be.”
I laughed once.
“You expect me to believe the mafia boss is shocked by corruption?”
For the first time, Adrian looked irritated.
“People call me many things.”
“Are they wrong?”
His jaw tightened.
“Some aren't.”
There was no denial.
Strangely, that made me trust him more.
A little.
“I inherited businesses from men who solved everything with fear,” he said. “I've spent eleven years trying to make most of them legitimate.”
“Most?”
He met my eyes.
“I won't insult you by pretending my world is clean.”
At least he knew what honesty sounded like.
“What does Tommy know?”
“That is the problem.”
“What?”
“We don't know.”
A black SUV slowed across the street.
Adrian noticed immediately.
His posture changed.
“Walk inside.”
“Why?”
“Claire.”
The SUV accelerated.
A rear window lowered.
Adrian grabbed my shoulders and shoved me behind a concrete planter.
Glass exploded from the precinct entrance.
People screamed.
The SUV disappeared into traffic.
For several seconds, I couldn't hear properly.
Then Adrian's hand was on the back of my head.
“Are you hit?”
“What—”
“Claire. Look at me.”
I did.
His face was inches from mine.
For the first time, Adrian Moretti looked frightened.
Not for himself.
For me.
Officers burst from the building.
Adrian stepped away immediately and raised his hands.
Someone shouted for us to get down.
Twenty minutes later, we were sitting in an interview room.
The detective asking questions clearly knew Adrian.
He did not like him.
“You think this was related to Moretti business?” Detective Harris asked me.
“I've known him approximately twelve hours.”
Harris glanced through the glass.
Adrian sat outside with an attorney who had materialized astonishingly fast.
“You should stay away from him.”
“Was that professional advice?”
“Personal.”
“Are you saying he's dangerous?”
Harris hesitated.
“I’m saying dangerous things happen near powerful men.”
I looked at the broken front window.
Dangerous things had happened near Tommy too.
The difference was nobody warned me about men like Tommy.
They looked ordinary.
That afternoon, police escorted me to my apartment.
Tommy was gone.
So were my laptop, grandmother's necklace, sixty dollars from a jar above the fridge, and the envelope containing every important document I owned.
My birth certificate.
Social Security card.
My mother's death certificate.
Everything.
On the kitchen table was a message written on the back of an electricity bill.
You should've kept your mouth shut.
Underneath it was something far stranger.
A photograph.
My mother, twenty years younger.
Standing beside a smiling man outside a construction site.
I recognized him from television.
Adrian's late father.
Salvatore Moretti.
And beside them stood a third person.
Vincent Moretti.
On the back, in my mother's handwriting, were six words.
If anything happens, find Adrian.
I stared at the photograph until the room seemed to tilt.
Then someone knocked.
Three slow taps.
I grabbed a kitchen knife.
“Claire?”
Adrian.
I opened the door.
He saw the knife.
“Good.”
“Don't sound impressed.”
He glanced at the destroyed apartment.
His expression changed.
“Tommy?”
“Probably.”
I handed him the photograph.
For the first time since meeting him, Adrian Moretti lost control of his face.
He went completely pale.
“Where did you get this?”
“My mother.”
He stared at her.
“You knew her.”
It wasn't a question.
Adrian looked up.
“Yes.”
My breath caught.
“How?”
May you like
His answer changed everything.
“Claire, your mother didn't die in a car accident.”
