Chapter 11: The Steel Case

Alessio's POV

I left her asleep at two in the morning because Rocco was standing at my door, and Rocco never stands at my door.

"Boss," he said in the hall. "I need to show you something."

I pulled on trousers and followed him down to the security room.

The monitors glowed in the dark.

"I put a man on her the first night," Rocco said. "You told me to."

"I know."

"I'm telling you what he saw."

He ran the footage.

It was the basement lab, Monday night, her first night in my house.

Lenora sat alone at the steel bench with the case open in front of her.

She lifted out an amber vial and held it up to the lamp.

She looked at it for a long time.

Then she put both hands over her face, and her shoulders shook.

After a minute she locked the case again and carried it upstairs against her chest.

"Every night since," Rocco said. "She sleeps with it under the bed."

"She's a scientist. Those are her samples."

"She wouldn't open it for me at the gate. She said 'That one stays with me.'"

"People keep things."

"She also knew the label on Schultz's vial before she was told what it was."

I said nothing.

I had seen that too.

I had seen her go white, and I had told myself it was fear.

"I'm not asking you to doubt her," Rocco said. "I'm asking whether you've asked her about it."

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