Chapter 15: The Box

Francesca was through the gate before anyone else moved.

"Stop," she said.

The man with the shaved head didn't stop.

He had a mason's chisel jammed into the hole behind the plaque, and he was leaning on it with all his weight.

Something steel groaned inside the granite.

"That man isn't a mason," Francesca said, loud enough to carry down the slope. "He works for Ottavio Abate. Ask him his name."

The older one set down his trowel.

"He came with the van this morning," he said slowly. "Said he was sent by the family."

"Which family?"

The mason didn't answer.

Feet were coming up behind her now.

The port captain reached the gate first, out of breath, with his hat still in his hand.

Two more captains crowded in behind him.

Then Michael.

The man with the shaved head pulled the chisel out of the wall and turned around.

He looked past all of them, out through the gate, to the elders' chairs.

Ottavio rose from his seat with both hands on his cane.

"He's helping," Ottavio said. "Those plaques are heavy."

"The plaque is on the sandbags," the port captain said. "He's not helping with the plaque."

The old man walked into the crypt and stood in front of the hole in the wall.

"Step back from Benedetto's wall, son."

The man with the shaved head hesitated.

Michael took one step toward him.

The man stepped back.

Francesca looked into the hole.

A small steel door was set flush into the granite, the size of a hardcover book.

Its face was gouged where the chisel had been at it.

In the middle was a brass lock.

She took her father's key out of her pocket.

Every captain in the crypt watched her do it.

She put it in the lock.

It turned on the first try, smooth.

The door swung open.

Inside was a black leather ledger, worn soft at the corners.

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