Everyone Had a Key but Me novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: I Won't Need It

I opened the door on the chain.

Bruno stood on the landing in his camel coat, rain on his shoulders and a bottle of red held up like a peace offering.

"I'm so sorry about the hour. I wanted to get here before the Table gets its hands on this."

His eyes went past me to Gabe, and the smile didn't move.

"There he is."

"Bruno." Gabe's voice was flat.

I slid off the chain.

Bruno came in with his hat in his hand and looked around the little room, at the slanted ceiling and the sofa with Gabe's coat on it.

"Cozy," he said warmly. "Claire, I owe you an apology. Allegra's been sick with shame. She's staying with a friend. She hasn't stopped crying since Bellini's."

I said nothing.

"She wasn't herself." He set the wine on my counter. "She wants to make it right. And so do I."

Then he reached into his coat.

The brass key lay in his palm, bright and freshly cut.

"She had a copy cut for you. Same as hers. She said if you're going to be family, you should come and go like family."

I looked at it.

For three years, I would have given anything for that sentence.

I looked at Gabe.

He was watching Bruno's hand, not my face, and his eyes had narrowed.

"Take it," Bruno said gently. "Let yourself in when you come home. Nobody will question you."

Nobody will question you.

I thought of the man at the gate with his phone.

I thought of a bracelet hitting a marble table.

"I won't need it," I said.

Bruno's smile held for exactly one breath too long.

"Claire, it's an olive branch."

"Then it can stay on the branch."

Gabe moved.

He took the key out of Bruno's fingers, quick and easy, and put it in his own pocket.

"I'll hold it," he said.

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