CHAPTER 12
NORA
By morning, I am a thief, a liar, and possibly unstable.
The unstable part receives the most attention.
Edward’s statement appears in two financial industry newsletters before nine. By ten, a local business site has published a photograph from my firm biography beside the headline:
FORENSIC ACCOUNTANT MISSING AFTER CLIENT DATA brEACH
Missing is an interesting word for someone being publicly accused by the people who supposedly want to find her.
I read the article at Rafe’s kitchen table.
The writer cites an unnamed source who describes me as “increasingly fixated” on the Halpern investigation and “under significant personal stress.”
There is no mention of Aurelia’s missing money.
No mention of the men who tried to run me over.
No mention of the dead intruder whose photograph is sealed in an evidence envelope beside my laptop.
The story has been constructed before the facts have time to arrive.
I know this method.
A mistake can be corrected. A woman’s credibility, once translated into emotional instability, becomes a question no evidence completely answers.
Rafe enters carrying a plate.
Eggs, toast, and sliced apple.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You ate nine cashews yesterday.”
“Ten.”
“That changes nothing.”
“It changes the number.”
He places the plate beside the laptop.
I push the article toward him. “This is what Pryce wanted.”
Rafe reads the headline and the first two paragraphs.
“I can have it removed.”
“How?”
He does not answer.
“That means no.”
“The publisher has vulnerabilities.”
“Everyone has vulnerabilities to you.”
“Yes.”
“At least you’re consistent.”
He turns the laptop back.
“You need to eat before making decisions.”
“You need to stop connecting food with permission to think.”
“I am connecting food with your hands shaking.”
I look down.
My fingers are trembling against the edge of the computer.
I place them in my lap.
Rafe does not look victorious. He moves the plate closer, then steps away.
I eat half the toast because refusing it would require more energy than accepting.
The security system displays a message from Nico.
No one entered my apartment overnight. Two men watched the building from separate vehicles. One left at dawn; the other remains.
Rafe shows me the message before responding.
The gesture is deliberate.
“What do you think?” he asks.
Another deliberate gesture.
“We need to know who the second man reports to.”
“Yes.”
“But no confrontation near residents.”
“Agreed.”
“Nico follows if the man moves.”
“Yes.”
I wait.
Rafe enters the instruction exactly as discussed.
It should not feel intimate to watch a dangerous man ask instead of decide.
That is a low standard.
My phone—one of his phones, technically—vibrates with a secure message from Mina.
Your licensing board received a complaint. Pryce says you falsified an audit trail. Your personal accounts may be frozen pending review.
A second message follows.
Your father called the office. He is worried.
The toast becomes dry in my mouth.
I set it down.
Rafe reads my face before I turn the screen toward him.
“Call him,” he says.
“You said calls can be traced.”
“I can arrange one through a third party.”
“How quickly?”
“Twenty minutes.”
I look at the time.
My father wakes before six and eats breakfast at the same diner three times a week. It is nearly eleven. He has probably called my mobile, the office, Mina, and every hospital he could find without admitting he is frightened.
“He cannot know what is happening.”
“He will know you are lying.”
“I know.”
“You dislike lying to him.”
The observation is too personal.
I almost tell Rafe not to use what he knows.
Then I remember the unanswered calls on my broken phone.
“Arrange it.”
He makes two calls from the other side of the kitchen. I hear only short instructions: a number, a time, a request to place an ordinary landline call to my father’s phone and then bridge us through.
No code names. No explanations.
When the phone rings, Rafe places it on the table and walks toward the hall.
“Stay,” I say.
He stops.
I do not know why I asked.
Perhaps because if something happens during the call, he is the only person nearby who understands the entire threat.
Perhaps because lying to my father feels less lonely with someone present who already knows the truth.
Rafe remains near the doorway, far enough that I can pretend he is not listening.
I answer.
“Hello?”
“Nora?”
My father’s voice breaks on my name.
I close my eyes.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Where are you?”
“Working.”
“Do not do that.”
The sharpness surprises me.
“Do what?”
“Use your office voice. You sound like you’re explaining a tax bill.”
I look at the table.
Rafe looks away.
“I’m safe,” I say.
“That is not a location.”
“I’m handling something confidential.”
“Your boss says you stole information.”
“He is wrong.”
“I know he is wrong.”
The certainty hurts more than suspicion would.
“How?”
“Because you once returned eleven dollars to a grocery store after they gave you the wrong change.”
“I was fourteen.”
“You were irritating.”
A small laugh escapes me and turns into something else before I can stop it.
My father becomes quiet.
“Nora.”
“I’m okay.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Scraped knee.”
“What else?”
“Bruised ribs.”
“Did someone do that to you?”
I look at Rafe.
He watches my face now.
“It was an accident.”
The word is not exactly false. Rafe hit me to move me out of a vehicle’s path.
“What kind of accident?”
“I can’t explain yet.”
“Are the police involved?”
“Not safely.”
Silence.
My father has never liked silence. He fills every room with radio, conversation, or the sound of a cabinet closing harder than necessary. When he goes quiet, the absence has weight.
“Are you alone?” he asks.
“No.”
“Who is with you?”
I should say a colleague.
I should say security.
Instead, I say, “A man named Rafe.”
Rafe’s eyes settle on mine.
“Is Rafe the reason you’re hurt?”
“No.”
“Is he the reason you’re safe?”
The question catches me.
“Yes.”
The answer does too.
My father exhales slowly. “Does he have a last name?”
“Bellandi.”
Another silence.
He knows enough local news to recognize it.
“Nora Elise.”
“I know.”
“You clearly do not.”
The use of my middle name should make me feel sixteen. Instead, it makes me want to sit on the kitchen floor and let someone older decide the next hour.
I grip the phone.
“I need you to stay with Aunt Marie for a few days.”
“What?”
“Please.”
“Is someone coming here?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That is not the phrase you use when you want me calm.”
Rafe moves closer to the table but does not speak.
“I need to know you’re not alone,” I say.
“I have neighbors.”
“You complain about all of them.”
“They remain nearby despite their flaws.”
“Dad.”
He hears what I cannot keep out of my voice.
“All right,” he says. “I’ll call Marie.”
“Now.”
“Nora.”
“Now.”
“I will call her when we hang up.”
“And you do not tell the office where you’re going.”
“I understand.”
“Do not post anything. Do not answer unknown numbers. If someone asks about me—”
“I raised an accountant, not an idiot.”
The sentence is imperfect and familiar and so completely him that my eyes fill before I can look away.
“I love you,” I say.
“I love you too.”
“Even when I’m irritating?”
“Especially then. It proves continuity.”
He hangs up before I can.
The phone remains against my ear.
Rafe waits.
I place it on the table carefully, as though the wrong movement might call my father back into danger.
“He will go?” Rafe asks.
“Yes.”
“You believe him.”
“He lies badly.”
“So do you.”
I look up.
Rafe’s face does not contain accusation.
He heard every omission and let me make them.
“Thank you for arranging the call.”
“You should not have needed me to.”
The answer is not an apology, but it carries the shape of one.
I pick up the toast again.
It is cold.
I eat it anyway.
Later, Mina sends copies of the complaint filed with my licensing board. The documents claim I altered access logs after developing a personal fixation on Aurelia’s ownership structure.
The supporting attachments are good.
Not perfect.
One of the internal messages attributed to me uses a date format I never use. Another refers to Edward as “Mr. Pryce.” I have called him Edward in every written communication since my second year at the firm.
Small mistakes.
The kind people dismiss until enough of them point in the same direction.
I begin a rebuttal file.
Rafe stays near the security monitors, speaking occasionally with Nico and saying nothing about my work. He has learned that watching me work and interrupting me are separate choices.
At three, a financial reporter requests comment.
At four, my personal checking account becomes inaccessible.
At four fifteen, my credit card declines a grocery delivery that Rafe did not know I ordered.
The refusal message appears in large red letters.
My money exists. I can see the balance. I cannot reach it.
The loss is temporary, procedural, and humiliating.
Rafe notices the screen.
“What do you need?”
“Nothing.”
“Nora.”
“I do not need you to pay for groceries.”
“I did not ask whether you needed money.”
“What did you ask?”
“What you need.”
The distinction irritates me because it is good.
I close the delivery page.
“I need access to my own life.”
He stands on the other side of the table, unable to provide that without becoming another person controlling it.
Neither of us speaks.
My secure phone vibrates.
Mina.
I answer immediately.
“Did you find another log?”
Her breathing is too loud.
“Nora, there’s someone in my apartment.”
I stand so quickly the chair falls behind me.
“Where are you?”
“Stairwell. One floor down.”
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t know.”
Rafe is already reaching for his weapon.
“Mina, leave the building.”
“I can’t. He’s in the hall between me and the exit.”
“Go down to the garage.”
“The door is locked.”
Rafe holds out his hand for the phone.
I do not give it to him.
“Tell me the building address,” he says.
Mina hears him. “No.”
“Mina,” I say, “give him the address.”
A sound passes through the call.
A door opening.
Mina whispers, “He found the stairwell.”