Chapter 4 - THE BOOK NOBODY FOUND
The book.
Carmine spent the next morning trying to determine what Emmett Fontaine could have meant.
A recipe book was the obvious answer.
That made Carmine distrust it immediately.
Nothing about the Fontaine fire was obvious.
By nine, Benny had people reviewing property records, bank accounts and old bakery photographs.
By ten, Carmine had received three calls from business partners he ignored.
At eleven, Caleb March called him directly.
Carmine stared at the number.
Benny saw the name.
“Well.”
Carmine answered.
“Caleb.”
“Carmine.”
Caleb March sounded cheerful.
Too cheerful.
“I hear you've developed an interest in old bakeries.”
Carmine glanced at Benny.
News had traveled quickly.
“That surprise you?”
“Nothing about you surprises me.”
“Then why call?”
“Professional courtesy.”
“We aren't in the same profession.”
Caleb laughed.
“Our fathers might disagree.”
Carmine said nothing.
Caleb continued.
“The Fontaine matter was settled years ago. Tragic accident. Sad family. Terrible business.”
“Rear door was chained.”
Silence.
Only half a second.
Still enough.
Then Caleb sighed.
“You've been speaking to Kessler.”
Carmine smiled faintly.
There it was.
Confirmation.
“You sound worried.”
“I sound tired.”
“Then sleep.”
“Carmine.”
The false warmth vanished from Caleb's voice.
“There are old arrangements between our families.”
“My father is dead.”
“So is mine, practically.”
Edwin March was still alive but had suffered a stroke the previous spring.
Unlike Emmett Fontaine, he remained wealthy enough to receive private medical care inside a mansion.
Caleb now controlled the March empire.
Carmine felt no sympathy.
“Old arrangements die with old men.”
“Not always.”
Caleb paused.
“Leave Nell Fontaine out of this.”
Carmine's expression changed.
“You know where she is?”
“I know where everyone is.”
The line went dead.
Benny immediately reached for his phone.
Carmine stopped him.
“She's going to her father.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
“Comforting.”
“Get two cars near the rehabilitation center. Invisible.”
Benny nodded.
“And Carmine?”
“What?”
“We need to tell her.”
“She'll refuse protection.”
“Doesn't mean we don't tell her.”
Carmine looked toward the window.
He knew.
He simply hated being reminded.
Nell's father lived at Saint Agnes Long-Term Rehabilitation Center near Audubon Park.
Carmine had never visited.
That changed at four that afternoon.
Nell was sitting beside Emmett Fontaine's bed when Carmine entered the room.
She stood immediately.
“What are you doing here?”
“Caleb called me.”
The anger left her face.
“What did he say?”
“He knows I'm looking into the fire.”
“Of course he does.”
“He mentioned you by name.”
Nell looked toward her father.
Emmett Fontaine was fifty-nine but looked much older.
His hair had gone almost completely white.
The left side of his body remained weak.
His speech, according to the medical file Benny obtained legally through Nell's emergency contacts only after she consented, had never fully returned.
But his eyes were alert.
Very alert.
They moved to Carmine.
Nell stepped protectively between them.
“You don't get to question him.”
“I didn't come to.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To tell you Caleb March knows where you are.”
“He always has.”
“And I'm asking you to stay somewhere secure for a few days.”
“No.”
“Nell.”
“No.”
Carmine exhaled.
“You're stubborn.”
“You say that like you've never met yourself.”
Emmett made a sound.
A rough breath that might have been laughter.
Carmine glanced at him.
Nell almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Emmett lifted his right hand.
One finger moved toward the drawer beside his bed.
Nell opened it.
Inside were notebooks.
Dozens of them.
Communication exercises.
Names.
Single words.
Short sentences written slowly by a damaged hand.
Nell took out the newest notebook.
Her father tapped the cover.
“What, Dad?”
He pointed at Carmine.
Then at the notebook.
Nell hesitated.
Emmett insisted.
She handed it over.
Carmine opened to the first page.
Most entries were mundane.
Breakfast good.
Left arm hurts.
Rain today.
Nell late Tuesday.
Then halfway through, something changed.
MARCH WANTED BUILDING.
Carmine looked at Emmett.
The older man's eyes remained fixed on him.
He turned the page.
I SAID NO.
Next.
HE CAME AGAIN.
Next.
NOT ABOUT LAND.
Carmine frowned.
“What did he want?”
Emmett made another sound.
His hand trembled as he pointed farther into the notebook.
Carmine turned several pages.
THE BOOK.
Nell moved closer.
“Dad, what book?”
Emmett became agitated.
His breathing quickened.
Nell touched his shoulder.
“It's okay.”
He shook his head.
Then wrote with one finger against the blanket.
Carmine watched.
F.
O.
U.
R.
Nell frowned.
“Four?”
Emmett nodded.
Then pointed at her.
“Four what?”
His frustration grew.
Carmine looked around the room.
Photographs decorated one shelf.
Nell as a child.
Emmett and his late wife.
The bakery.
Birthday cakes.
A photograph of a younger Nell standing beside four enormous wooden flour barrels.
Carmine picked it up.
“Nell.”
She followed his gaze.
Her face changed.
“The flour bins.”
Emmett immediately slapped his hand against the mattress.
Yes.
Nell took the photograph.
“We had four old cypress flour bins behind the mixing station.”
“Were they destroyed?”
“Everything was.”
Emmett groaned.
Nell looked back at him.
“You hid something in one?”
He shook his head.
Then wrote again on the blanket.
UNDER.
Carmine felt his pulse change.
“Under the fourth flour bin.”
Emmett closed his eyes.
Yes.
Nell sat down slowly.
“The building was demolished two years after the fire.”
Carmine took out his phone.
“Not completely.”
She looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“March Development never built on the exact bakery footprint.”
“What?”
Carmine had noticed it in the property plans.
The luxury hotel occupied the adjoining lots.
Where Fontaine Bakery had stood was now a landscaped courtyard containing a fountain, trees and decorative brick.
Nell stared at him.
“Why leave that area empty?”
Carmine answered quietly.
“Maybe because they searched the building and never found what they wanted.”
They went after midnight.
Nell protested.
Carmine ignored the protest.
She protested again.
He continued ignoring it.
Finally she snapped, “Do you always respond to disagreement by pretending it isn't happening?”
“Yes.”
“That was not a compliment.”
“I know.”
Benny drove.
Two additional men followed in another vehicle.
The March Hotel courtyard was closed at night, but Carmine owned enough neighboring property to know exactly where security cameras pointed.
Nell stood beneath the bare branches of an ornamental pear tree.
“It was here.”
She looked around.
“You sure?”
She walked toward the fountain.
“The front counter would have been there.”
She pointed.
“Ovens there.”
Another step.
“Mixing station.”
Carmine watched her face.
For the first time since he had known her, Nell was not invisible.
She was standing inside a memory.
“My mother painted the walls yellow.”
She smiled weakly.
“Dad hated yellow.”
“What color did he want?”
“White.”
“He was wrong.”
Nell looked at Carmine.
“You never saw it.”
“No.”
“But yellow sounds better.”
For a moment, the darkness between them softened.
Then Nell moved toward a stone planter.
“Fourth flour bin.”
She counted the old dimensions in her head.
“One.”
Step.
“Two.”
Step.
“Three.”
Then she stopped.
“Here.”
The location fell beneath the edge of the fountain basin.
Benny crouched.
“You think they buried over it?”
“Maybe.”
Carmine looked toward the maintenance gate.
“We aren't breaking a municipal sewer line tonight.”
“This is private property,” Benny said.
Carmine glanced at him.
Benny shrugged.
“Still don't want sewage.”
They found the access hatch behind the fountain.
Benny removed the bolts.
Beneath it was a narrow service cavity from the old foundation.
Nell crouched.
“There.”
A piece of original brick remained visible beneath newer concrete.
Carmine used a flashlight.
Something metallic reflected inside a gap.
Benny reached in.
Pulled.
A rusted rectangular tin emerged wrapped in layers of blackened cloth.
Nell stopped breathing.
“My mother's recipe tin.”
Her hands trembled as she touched it.
The lid resisted.
Carmine carefully worked it loose.
Inside were recipes.
Handwritten cards.
Old photographs.
Bank receipts.
And a small leather ledger protected inside a waxed canvas pouch.
Nell looked at her father’s handwriting across the cover.
FONTAINE BAKERY — PRIVATE.
Carmine opened it.
The first pages contained ordinary business records.
Flour orders.
Pecan suppliers.
Sugar costs.
Payroll.
Then the entries changed.
Names.
Dates.
Cash deliveries.
Truck numbers.
Amounts.
Carmine's face hardened.
Benny looked over his shoulder.
“What the hell?”
Nell frowned.
“What is it?”
Carmine turned the book toward her.
Fontaine Bakery had not been recording bakery transactions.
Emmett had been documenting vehicles arriving after midnight at the warehouse behind his building.
Vehicles belonging to March Development.
One entry was underlined twice.
MARCH TRUCK 81 — 2:13 A.M. — MEN UNLOADED SIX CRATES — STATE POLICE CAR PRESENT.
Another.
CALEB OFFERED $450,000 FOR BUILDING. REFUSED.
Another.
MAN FROM CITY HALL CAME. SAID STOP WRITING PLATES.
Then the final entry.
Three days before the fire.
IF SOMETHING HAPPENS, GIVE COPY TO SALVATORE ORSINI.
Nell stared at Carmine.
“Your father knew.”
Carmine looked down.
Beneath the final sentence was another line.
SALVATORE SAYS HE CAN PROTECT US.
Nell's eyes filled.
Carmine said nothing.
Because for the first time, he understood exactly why his father had been involved.
Salvatore Orsini had not taken Fontaine Bakery.
Emmett Fontaine had asked him for help.
A sound came from behind them.
Metal scraping against pavement.
Benny turned first.
The courtyard gate had closed.
Locked.
Then the fountain lights went out.
Carmine rose.
“Nell.”
She looked at him.
“Behind me.”
A man's voice came from the darkness beyond the trees.
“You should have left the book buried.”
May you like
Caleb March stepped into the courtyard.
And he was not alone.
