Chapter 2 - ROSA’S NOTEBOOK
Norah’s apartment was twelve blocks away.
Gabriel wanted to go himself.
Leo refused.
“You can barely stand.”
Gabriel gave him a look.
Leo amended:
“You can barely stand impressively.”
Norah almost smiled.
Almost.
She did not want mafia men inside her apartment.
So she went with one security driver and Benny’s old umbrella.
Gabriel remained at the diner.
Not because he trusted anyone.
Because he finished the bowl.
Every drop.
When Norah returned forty minutes later, she carried a stained leather notebook.
Dark blue cover.
Edges worn white.
A flour fingerprint remained across the back.
Gabriel recognized it immediately.
“My mother had one like that.”
Norah placed it on the table.
“Rosa gave it to me before she died.”
“Why you?”
“She practically raised me.”
Gabriel’s eyes sharpened.
“Your parents?”
“My father disappeared when I was two. My mother worked nights.”
“What happened to her?”
“Cancer.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
Something softened in his expression.
Gone quickly.
Norah opened the notebook.
First pages:
Recipes.
Tomato sauce.
Bread.
Soup.
Stracotto.
Then grocery notes.
Numbers.
Initials.
Dates.
Gabriel frowned.
“These aren’t grocery amounts.”
“I figured.”
Leo leaned over.
“Could be betting numbers.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Rosa hated gambling.”
“You haven’t seen her in twenty years.”
“Twenty-three.”
Then he looked at Norah.
“She disappeared the week after my mother’s funeral.”
“What happened to your mother?”
“House fire.”
Norah watched him carefully.
“You believe that?”
“I did.”
Past tense.
They searched for the blue page.
Nothing.
Every page beige.
Then Norah remembered.
“Wait.”
She held the notebook near the neon sign.
One page toward the middle looked slightly different.
Faint blue fibers beneath cooking stains.
Gabriel touched it.
Carefully.
A recipe on one side.
Polenta.
On the reverse:
A list of names.
PAULIE C.
LEO M.
VINCENT H.
SAM K.
R. DALCA.
Beside each:
Numbers.
Dates.
Dollar amounts.
Leo stared.
“My name.”
Gabriel looked at him.
Leo raised both hands.
“I’ve known you since we were fourteen.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t feel like you know.”
Gabriel ignored him.
Paulie C.
Paulie Caruso.
Dead two weeks.
The poisoning victim.
Gabriel’s stomach tightened.
Rosa died three years ago.
How could her notebook contain Paulie’s name?
Norah examined the ink.
“These entries aren’t all the same age.”
“What?”
“Look.”
Some faded.
Some dark.
Some almost fresh.
“Someone kept using the notebook after Rosa died.”
Gabriel’s eyes shifted toward her.
“Who had it?”
“Me.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“Think.”
Norah did.
After Rosa died, the building superintendent boxed her belongings.
Norah helped clean the apartment.
The notebook stayed in Norah’s kitchen.
Mostly inside a drawer.
Then, last year, her apartment was broken into.
Nothing valuable taken.
Police called it random.
She had forgotten.
“My apartment was searched.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“When?”
“Eleven months ago.”
“What disappeared?”
“Nothing.”
“Wrong.”
His voice changed.
“Someone may have added something.”
Norah flipped pages.
Near the back, two pages were missing.
Clean cuts.
Not torn.
Removed with a blade.
Gabriel stared.
“Someone wanted part of Rosa’s record.”
Leo pointed toward Paulie’s name.
“What do the numbers mean?”
Gabriel looked again.
Amounts.
$18,500.
$22,000.
$46,000.
Payments?
Dates stretched back nineteen years for some names.
Not Paulie.
His entry was newer.
Two years.
Then Norah found a key taped beneath the inside cover.
Tiny brass key.
Tag:
4B.
Her stomach turned.
“Rosa’s apartment.”
The building had been renovated.
Apartment 4B supposedly empty after a pipe burst.
Norah had not been inside since Rosa died.
Gabriel stood.
This time Leo did not stop him.
“Cars.”
Norah stared.
“You just ate for the first time in eight days.”
“I’m aware.”
“You should rest.”
He looked at her.
“You’re a waitress.”
“Nursing student.”
“Not my nurse.”
“Then collapse wherever you like.”
Leo made a choking sound that might have been laughter.
Gabriel almost smiled.
Then:
“You’re coming.”
Norah crossed her arms.
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“That wasn’t a request.”
“Then the answer is still no.”
Silence.
Five armed men watched.
Gabriel studied her for a long moment.
Then he changed the sentence.
“Will you come?”
Norah considered.
Rosa.
The notebook.
The hidden key.
“Yes.”
Gabriel nodded.
Progress.
They arrived at Mercer Street just after midnight.
The building superintendent still remembered Rosa.
He also remembered something else.
“Some guy came by after she died.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
“What guy?”
“Family, he said.”
“Name?”
The superintendent scratched his chin.
“Vincent.”
Gabriel went completely still.
Vincent Hayes.
May you like
His own cousin.
And one of the names on Rosa’s blue page.
