CHAPTER 6 DECLAN #2
Her eyes widened a fraction. Then she turned and left me there with rain on the glass and my heart acting like it had never been trained.
The basement laundry room had one working bulb, two broken dryers, and a floor drain. Tenants avoided it after midnight because the machines ate quarters.
Tonight, Mason Pike sat in a metal chair near the drain with his wrists bound behind him.
He had come through the service hall in a fake courier jacket with a blank badge and a key ring full of other people's doors.
Blood from his split lip had dried at the corner of his mouth.
Finn stood behind him. Aidan stayed upstairs with Nora.
The fire-escape man was in another room with Eamon's cousin, still praying and giving us less.
Mason looked at me and tried to find the version of himself that had climbed into a woman's home for money. He failed fast.
"I want a lawyer," he said.
"Then you picked the wrong building."
Finn's mouth twitched. I took off my stained cuff link, set it on top of a dead dryer, and rolled my sleeve once. Mason watched the movement like the room had lost heat.
"You came for a passcode," I said. "You had photos of Nora Brooks's kitchen and front hall. You had East River authorization that failed. You have one chance to tell me who sent you before Gabriel Stone decides I asked too politely."
Mason worked his tongue over his lip. "I don't know Stone business."
"You know Harrow Lane. You know Patrick Vale. You know East River Records. You know the woman upstairs because someone gave you her kitchen. Start there."
"Vale didn't call me."
"I didn't ask who didn't."
His eyes flicked to Finn. Then back to me. Fear made him stupid for one second and honest in the next.
"A woman," he said. "Dark hair. Mercer party type. She gave the packet to Cal. Cal drove. I was door. Wes was window."
"Name."
"I didn't get one."
Finn moved behind him. Mason flinched before he was touched.
"Rina," Mason spat. "Maybe Rina. I heard Cal say Miss Voss once. That's all."
A new name. I let it sit without showing him it mattered.
"What did Rina Voss want?"
"An envelope. Anything with East River on it. Anything from Brooks. She said the younger girl would know the phrase if we brought the right paper back."
The room tightened around my lungs.
"The younger girl," I said.
Mason heard the change and started sweating harder. "That's what she said. I didn't know there was a girl there tonight. We were told the place would be empty."
"It was empty because we moved her first."
"Then we didn't touch her."
The words came too fast. He thought they helped him. They did not. I stepped in until my shadow covered his knees.
"You climbed toward her kitchen window with her father's papers in your pocket plan. Do not ask me to grade restraint."
Mason's breath hitched. Finn looked away, giving me the privacy of not being witnessed too closely. Good man.
"What phrase?" I asked.
"I don't know."
I bent and gripped the back of his chair. The metal creaked under my hands. "Mason."
He jerked against the ties. "I don't know the phrase. I swear. Cal said it was something the dead guy used with his daughters. Some question from the hospital. Rina said Isabella Brooks had the files, but Nora had the answer. That's all I heard."
The name in his mouth hit wrong. Nora did not belong there. Neither did Isabella. Neither did dead guy.
I released the chair before I broke it over him.
"Who has the next appointment at East River?"
"Vale's people. Morning. Seven-thirty. But Cal said if we got the phrase tonight, Miss Voss had someone who could open a private slot."
"When?"
Mason shut his eyes.
Finn stepped closer.
"When?" I asked again.
"Tonight," Mason said. "Before close, if she could make the call. If not, first thing. I swear that's all."
My phone buzzed. Cormac.
I answered without taking my eyes off Mason. "Talk."
"East River just received a private retrieval request from a consulting attorney attached to Harrow Lane Risk," Cormac said. His voice had lost its dry edge. "For Box 14C. Fifteen minutes ago."
Rainwater dripped from a pipe overhead and struck the floor between my shoes.
"Can they open without the passcode?"
"They can get a supervisor to examine the authorization. They cannot release the box without the passcode unless the supervisor is bought, threatened, or stupid. I dislike relying on strangers being principled after dinner."
"How long?"
"East River closes in forty minutes. Maeve is calling someone on their board. Gabriel wants Nora moved to the safehouse before you chase the box."
Gabriel was right. That did not matter as much as it should have.
"Declan," Cormac said. "Gabriel's instruction is clear."
"Gabriel's instruction leaves out the passcode."
"Nora may not know it."
"Mercer's people think she does. Thomas Brooks thought she did. That is two more votes than we have."
Silence traveled over the line. Cormac understood contracts. He also understood when a promise was about to become a blade.
"Do not make this your call because you want her near you," he said quietly.
The words struck clean. For a moment, the basement smelled too strongly of rust and detergent and old water. I could have denied it. I could have told him this was tactical, which it was. I could have said Nora's presence increased our chance of securing Box 14C, which it did.
Under that, my blood had a simpler answer: I wanted her where my hands could reach.
"I won't make it without asking her," I said.
Cormac exhaled once. "That is a dangerous improvement."
"Tell Gabriel I am bringing the problem upstairs."
"He will hate that."
"He hired me for the ugly calls."
I ended the call and looked back at Mason. "Finn, get him to The Black Harp. Separate from Cal and Wes. Nobody touches his mouth until Cormac is done with him."
Mason sagged like gratitude had knees. He was an idiot. I was not sparing him. I was saving the useful parts for later.
By the time I reached the sidewalk, the rain had gone thin and needling.
The SUV idled at the curb with Aidan in front and Eamon near the rear door.
Nora sat inside under the interior light, clear folder on her lap, phone in one hand.
She had not been crying. Her eyes were too bright, but dry.
That steadied me and wrecked me at the same time.
I opened the rear door and leaned one hand on the roof instead of climbing in.
"Names," she said.
"Mason Pike. Cal Greer. Wes, last name coming. The packet came through a woman named Rina Voss, tied to Mercer donor circles or Harrow Lane's cleaner side. Patrick Vale's firm supplied the authorization."
Nora listened without interrupting. Her fingers tightened around the phone with each name.
"What did they want?"
"Anything from your father with East River on it. The phrase for Box 14C. They believed Isabella had the files but you had the answer."
Her face changed. A small, stunned hurt opened there before she locked it down. "Those exact words?"
"Near enough to make me believe them."
"You promised exact."
There was my girl, standing inside the fear with a blade in her voice. My girl. The words hit so hard I had to grip the roof tighter.
"Mason said Rina told them Isabella Brooks had the files, but Nora had the answer. He also said the phrase came from something your father used with his daughters. Something from the hospital."
The color left her face again.
"Nora."
She blinked, once. "Dad asked me something the night before he died. I thought it was the medication talking."
Aidan went still in the front seat.
I kept my voice low. "What did he ask?"
Her lips moved, but no sound came. The memory had her by the throat. I hated memory then. I hated anything that could touch her where I could not shoot it.
"East River has a private retrieval request in progress," I said. "We have less than forty minutes before closing. Gabriel wants you at the safehouse while I handle it."
"And you?"
"I think Thomas Brooks left the answer with you for a reason."
The air inside the SUV shifted. Aidan stared through the windshield like a man pretending not to hear history bend behind him.
Nora's eyes came back to mine. "Are you asking me or telling me?"
"I am asking," I said. "Safehouse now, and I go to East River without you.
Or you come with me in the vest, stay in the car until I clear the building, and use the answer only if we need it.
I will not hand you to that place. I will stand between you and every person there.
But it is your father's box. Your choice. "
Nora stared at me for a long second. The rain tapped on the roof above us, quick and nervous. Then she looked past me to the crooked front door of her building, to Mrs. Alvarez's shadow behind the lobby glass, to the black Stone cars pinning her street in place.
When she looked back, the fear had not left her. It had learned how to stand.
"East River," she said. "Tonight."
My chest hurt.
I nodded once and stepped into the SUV beside her. "Aidan, move. Two-car shield. Tell Gabriel she chose the box. Tell him I gave her the choice."
The engine pulled us from the curb. Nora sat beside me, close enough that her sleeve brushed mine with every turn. She did not move away.
Half a block later, her voice came small and clear through the dark.
"He asked me who signed the transfer."
My hand tightened on my knee.
Ahead of us, the city opened toward Queens and East River Records, where Mercer already had men reaching for a dead man's secret.