Chapter 3 - THE BLUE DRAWING
“Ordered her killed?”
The helicopter cabin suddenly felt too small.
Octavio remained perfectly still.
That scared me more than yelling would have.
“You said threats.”
“I said what I knew when I landed.”
“And now?”
“Now I know the tracker came from my security division.”
I stared at him.
“You put trackers on people?”
“Not that kind.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means whoever installed it had access to equipment purchased under my name.”
The distinction did not comfort me.
“Who has access?”
“Twelve people.”
“That’s not a small number.”
“In my world, it is.”
There it was again.
His world.
A world Isabella had spent years trying to escape.
“Maybe this is exactly why she ran.”
Octavio looked at me.
“You think I don’t know that?”
The answer surprised me.
“I’ve spent most of her adult life confusing protection with permission.”
His jaw flexed.
“I discovered the difference too late.”
For one moment he was not the feared Octavio Conti.
He was simply an older brother realizing fear could resemble love to the person doing the protecting and resemble prison to everybody else.
The helicopter descended onto a private landing pad above a downtown tower.
“No entourage,” I said as the door opened.
Octavio glanced at me.
“What?”
“If we’re going to my apartment, you don’t send six men crashing through the lobby.”
“There was a sniper on your roof.”
“Two.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
He considered it.
“Three.”
I blinked.
“Was that negotiation?”
“Do not become emotional about it.”
Despite everything, I nearly smiled.
Twenty minutes later, three men waited outside while Octavio and I entered my apartment.
The place had been searched.
Not robbed.
Searched.
Drawers open.
Cushions moved.
My art supplies scattered.
Nothing expensive appeared missing.
I walked toward the bookshelf.
“My sketchbook.”
Gone.
Octavio stopped behind me.
“You’re sure?”
“I keep it right there.”
A square of clean dust marked the place.
Someone had taken one object.
Exactly one.
My father’s sketchbook.
I turned.
“They knew.”
“Apparently.”
“But Isabella wrote that message before she left.”
“Which means she knew they were looking for it.”
My anger found a new target.
“Your sister could have told me.”
“She may have been trying to keep you uninvolved.”
“That worked beautifully.”
Octavio scanned the room clockwise.
I noticed because, of course, he did exactly what I had accused him of doing.
Then his eyes stopped on the kitchen.
“What?”
“Blue.”
On my table sat an empty ceramic mug filled with pencils.
Every pencil was there except one.
The dark blue charcoal.
I crossed the room.
Isabella had used it three nights earlier.
Then I noticed faint marks on the white paper covering my drafting board.
“She pressed too hard.”
Octavio came closer.
“What are you doing?”
“Quiet.”
I took a stick of soft charcoal and rubbed it gently sideways across the paper.
Indented writing slowly appeared.
Octavio watched without speaking.
Four words emerged.
MRS. CONTI’S CEDAR CHEST.
Beneath them:
BLUE BRACELET OPENS IT.
I looked at the sapphire bracelet in Octavio’s hand.
“Well.”
He examined the broken clasp.
On the inside was a tiny silver projection I had always assumed was decorative.
“A key.”
“Apparently your mother had strange taste in jewelry.”
“My mother had reasons for everything.”
“You say that about women in your family a lot.”
Something flickered across his face.
“Maybe I should have listened more often.”
We returned to the Conti house just before eleven.
I had visited dozens of times.
Tonight it felt entirely different.
Security everywhere.
Men checking windows.
Locked interior doors.
No music.
No New Year’s celebration.
Just tension.
Octavio led me upstairs toward a wing I had never entered.
“Your mother’s room?”
“Was.”
He stopped outside a carved walnut door.
“She died eleven years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
His hand paused on the handle.
“So am I.”
Inside, the room had been preserved without becoming a shrine.
Books.
Perfume bottles.
A framed photograph of Isabella laughing on a sailboat.
A silver-backed hairbrush.
And beneath the window, a cedar chest.
Octavio inserted the bracelet’s hidden projection.
Click.
The lock opened.
Inside were folded dresses and letters tied with ribbon.
Nothing sinister.
I almost laughed with relief.
Then I found the photograph.
It was beneath a navy coat.
Three men stood outside an industrial building.
One was Enzo Conti.
I recognized him from family portraits.
The second was younger but unmistakable.
Cesare Valenti.
Octavio’s godfather.
The man who sat at the right side of Octavio’s dining table every Sunday.
The third man made the room tilt.
My father.
Much younger.
Smiling.
Alive.
Wearing a Conti Industries badge.
I sat down hard.
“No.”
Octavio said nothing.
“He told me he worked independently.”
“He did eventually.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since the first night Isabella brought you home.”
I looked up.
Three years.
Every dinner.
Every conversation.
Every time I had complained that my father’s accident ruined my mother financially.
Octavio had known.
“You let me sit at your table for three years and never told me.”
“I made a promise.”
“To whom?”
“Your mother.”
I stared.
“My mother knows you?”
“Knew my father.”
That answer hurt worse.
I turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting.
My father’s.
I would know it anywhere.
If anything happens, Enzo has the ledger.
Underneath, written later in a different ink:
O.C. must never see it.
I slowly raised my eyes.
Octavio had read it too.
The room went completely silent.
“O.C.”
I stood.
“Octavio Conti.”
He didn’t move.
“My father was hiding something from you.”
“Apparently.”
“Something important enough to mention what happens if he dies.”
“Yes.”
“And he died.”
“Yes.”
My hands began shaking.
Octavio took one step toward me.
I backed away.
“Don’t.”
He stopped immediately.
That mattered.
Not enough.
But it mattered.
“Did you know my father was going to die?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
“I expect nothing from you.”
His voice was quiet.
“I’m telling you what I know.”
Before I could answer, I noticed something protruding from the photograph.
A corner of paper had been taped behind it.
I pulled it free.
An old train ticket.
Chicago Union Station.
December 31.
Fifteen years earlier.
The night before my father died.
Someone had written a time across the front.
11:40 P.M.
And beneath it, another name.
CESARE.
I looked toward Octavio.
The blood had drained from his face.
“What?”
He took the ticket from me.
“My father told me Michael died before he could meet anyone.”
My throat tightened.
“This says he had a meeting with Cesare.”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Fifteen years ago tonight.”
Downstairs, a clock began chiming eleven.
One.
Two.
Three.
Octavio stared at the ticket.
Then he whispered something I almost didn’t hear.
May you like
“Cesare told us he had never met your father.”
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