Everyone Had a Key but Me novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Five Men and an Empty Chair

The key was on my pillow when I came out of the shower.

Gabe had put it on a folded white handkerchief in the corner suite of his family's hotel, where I used to book other people's rooms.

There was no note.

I had told him in the car from the airport that I wouldn't sleep in the penthouse.

"The locks were changed this afternoon," he'd said. "Only one key opens that door now, and it's mine."

He had not said a second one was being cut.

I picked it up.

It was heavy, new, and warm from the radiator.

I held it for a long moment, and then I laid it back on the handkerchief and turned off the lamp.

At seven the next morning, Gabe was standing in the corridor in a clean black shirt, as if he'd been there since dawn.

His eyes went past me to the nightstand.

"You left it."

"It's a good key," I said. "It isn't mine yet."

"When will it be?"

"When I can walk through that door without anyone opening it for me."

He took a breath and nodded.

Then he walked in, picked it up off the handkerchief, and put it in his pocket.

"I'll keep it for you," he said.

The Table sat in the back room of the old Santangelo bakery on Mulberry Street, where it had sat for sixty years.

The room smelled of flour and cigar.

Five men sat around a scarred oak table, and none of them stood when I came in.

Bruno stood.

He crossed the floor in his camel coat and kissed my cheek.

"Welcome home," he said warmly. "Nobody in this room wanted you to go."

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