Everyone Had a Key but Me novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Five Keys

Claire's POV

Gabe came back at dusk with rain in his hair and nothing in his hands.

"He took them," he said at the door. "Every piece. He says three weeks, and he'll work from the left half of her face first."

"You carried them yourself?"

"Under my coat. I didn't set them down once."

I let him in.

He didn't sit.

He stood in the middle of my little room with a folded sheet of paper and the bright brass key on top of it.

"I need to tell you something, and I need you not to speak until I've finished."

"That isn't a promise I make."

"Then interrupt me when it matters."

He unfolded the paper.

It was a list in Dario's blocky handwriting, six lines long.

"Since the new door system went in last spring, six keys have opened my penthouse. The lock company logs every cut, separately from the building. Dario got the manufacturer's record this afternoon. It's the only copy Bruno's firm can't edit."

"Six."

"Mine." He touched the first line. "Allegra's, the one my mother gave her. My housekeeper's, who came to me through Bruno. The doorman's spare, in the drawer at the lobby desk. The night supervisor's, who Bruno's firm hired. And this one."

He lifted the brass key.

"The sixth was cut on the Tuesday before Bellini's. It was logged to nobody."

I looked at the key.

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