Chapter 10: Church Lot

I photographed his brother's letter with my phone, front and back.

Then I slid it into its envelope, put it on the bottom shelf where I'd found it, and closed the safe.

The painting swung back into place.

My hands had stopped shaking by then, which scared me more than the shaking had.

I texted the number I never saved.

I have something. Two o'clock. St. Anthony's lot, Revere.

I didn't take a driver.

I took the train and then a cab, with the real drive taped inside my bra and the phone in my fist.

St. Anthony's was brick and tired and empty on a Thursday.

A black car was parked at the far end of the lot, under a bare maple.

Rocco stood beside it with his hands in his coat pockets.

He watched me cross the asphalt without moving.

"Alone," he said. "Good girl."

"Don't call me that."

"You used to like it."

"I was twenty-two."

I held out my phone.

On the screen was a photograph of a single ledger page, columns and initials, from the book I had opened and put back.

It was the top page of the pile, a month old, and worth nothing.

Rocco took the phone and scrolled.

"One page."

"The consigliere nearly caught me in the room. I had three minutes."

"This is nothing, Mara."

"It's what I got."

"The safe was open?"

"It was open."

"And you took one photograph." His voice stayed gentle. "Of one page."

"I told you, he almost caught me."

He gave the phone back, and I put it in my pocket.

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