Chapter 1 - THE KEY IN ARTHUR'S POCKET
Arthur reached into his pocket.
Norah tightened both hands around the back of the chair.
Every instinct in her body screamed that she had been right.
The softness was gone.
The drunk man who had begged to stay had disappeared.
Arthur Costello was calculating again.
Then his hand came out.
No gun.
No knife.
A brass key.
Old.
Scratched.
A strip of white tape had been wrapped around the top.
One word was written across it.
CALLOWAY.
Norah stopped breathing.
Arthur placed the key on her desk.
“What is that?”
His eyes remained on her.
“You tell me.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“It was in Victor Rizzo’s pocket.”
The man Arthur had killed.
Norah backed away.
“I don’t know anyone named Victor.”
“You knew his handwriting?”
“No.”
“He knew your name.”
Her stomach tightened.
Arthur pulled out something else.
A folded photograph.
He opened it.
Three men stood in front of a shipping office beside Lake Michigan.
The picture had faded around the edges.
Arthur’s father, Salvatore Costello, stood in the center.
Victor Rizzo stood beside him.
And the third man—
Norah grabbed the desk before her knees failed.
“My father.”
Arthur nodded.
Norah had only six photographs of Daniel Calloway.
In all of them, he was thinner.
Older.
Usually tired.
But she knew his face.
“What was he doing with your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re speaking very freely for somebody who was terrified of me five minutes ago.”
“My father is in that picture.”
The fear did not disappear.
It simply stopped being the largest thing in the room.
Arthur seemed to understand.
He sat again.
“Victor gave me the photograph before he died.”
Norah stared.
“You said you killed him because he was stealing from the ports.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And before I pulled the trigger, he said I was executing the wrong thief.”
The room went silent except for the boiler.
Norah whispered:
“What does that have to do with my father?”
Arthur looked toward the brass key.
“Victor said Daniel Calloway found the first set of books twenty-two years ago.”
“Books?”
“Accounts.”
“Of what?”
Arthur’s jaw tightened.
“Money disappearing from Costello shipping companies.”
Norah laughed once.
“My father was a high-school accounting teacher.”
“Before that.”
She stopped.
Arthur continued.
“He worked for my father.”
No.
Daniel Calloway hated men like the Costellos.
At least that was what Norah remembered.
He used to turn off crime stories on television and mutter that men who built wealth on fear eventually made everyone around them pay.
Maybe he had known that firsthand.
Arthur pushed the key toward her.
“Victor told me one more thing.”
“What?”
“That if he died tonight, I should find the Calloway girl in my basement.”
Norah felt the blood leave her face.
Arthur had not stumbled to her room because he was drunk.
He had come looking for her.
May you like
Then he said:
“Victor knew exactly where you slept.”
