CHAPTER TWELVE
GABE
The sedan behind us has followed for eleven minutes.
Mina notices at minute nine.
“Blue Acura,” she says, looking into the side mirror without turning her head. “Two cars back.”
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“Since the medical examiner’s office.”
“Is there a reason we are still driving toward my home?”
“We aren’t.”
She looks through the windshield. “The funeral home is east.”
“Correct.”
“We are driving east.”
“For another block.”
I tell the driver to turn into the wholesale flower district. Felix’s vehicle continues straight, creating the appearance of a two-car detail that does not change route. The Acura follows Felix.
Our driver cuts behind a refrigerated florist truck, exits through the opposite loading lane, and turns west without the tail seeing us.
Mina watches the maneuver. “That was irritatingly competent.”
“Thank you.”
“It was not a compliment.”
“Still accurate.”
She settles back, but her right hand stays on the door handle.
We are leaving Anika’s office after submitting Paolo’s watch for formal examination. The crystal was broken after the internal mechanism stopped. The hands were set manually. The parking-deck timeline is false.
The Acura belongs to a leasing company used by one of Ruggiero’s contractors. That may mean Ruggiero ordered the tail. It may mean someone wants me to find his name.
I send Felix the plate.
“You were going to tell me about the fire,” Mina says.
“I did.”
“You gave me a silent video and half an account history.”
“Paolo received Bianca’s call at eight twenty. She said she found three duplicate repatriation loads with the same receiving number. He told her to leave the building. She refused.”
Mina looks out the window. “That sounds like her.”
“Why?”
“She believed retreat made bad people overconfident.”
“It also made her dead.”
The sentence is out before I can choose another.
Mina turns toward me.
“Yes,” she says. “It did.”
No anger. Worse.
“That was—”
“True?”
“Cruel.”
“Both can happen.”
The car passes beneath the rail viaduct. Shadows move across her face.
“Paolo blamed himself,” I say. “He thought if he had called me first, or gone alone, or told her to wait instead of leave—he had options for every version of the night.”
“And you?”
“I had one.”
“Which?”
“I told him not to go.”
She waits.
“There had been threats at the port. I believed the call was a trap. I delayed him twenty-two minutes while I arranged men.”
“You went anyway.”
“Late.”
“You think the delay killed her.”
I look at the wet streets, the pedestrians under umbrellas, the distance between green lights.
“It may have.”
“And Paolo?”
“Last week he wanted authorization to seize the old mortuary accounts and detain Sal’s former broker. I told him to wait until we had proof. He went alone Thursday night.”
The pattern does not require her to name it.
Twice I chose restraint. Twice someone died before I arrived.
“So now you make decisions early,” she says.
“Yes.”
“For everyone.”
“When necessary.”
“And you define necessary.”
“Usually.”
“That isn’t protection, Gabe. It’s superstition with a security budget.”
I turn to her.
She does not soften it.
I should object. Instead, I remember changing her lock while she was still in her wedding dress.
My phone rings. Felix.
“Acura abandoned outside the east freight yard,” he says. “Driver exited through a pedestrian tunnel. Left foot limp.”
“Shooter?”
“Build is close. Cameras lose him under the rail line.”
“Prints?”
“Clean. One thing in the trunk.”
He sends a photograph.
A funeral transfer pouch, folded. Vassallo & Daughters inventory stamp on the handle.
Mina sees it on my screen.
“That model is old,” she says. “We stopped using those after the fire.”
“Could Sal have taken one?”
“Anyone cleaning the damaged wing could have.”
“Who handled cleanup?”
“Victor arranged the contractor.”
Neither of us speaks for the next block.
The driver takes us to a small apartment Corso Maritime keeps above a customs-law office. It is clean, furnished, and not known to the current security teams. We wait there while Felix clears the funeral home route.
Mina walks to the kitchen, opens a cabinet, and finds one box of crackers with an expiration date six months away.
“Your safe house has optimistic food.”
“It isn’t a safe house.”
“What is it?”
“An apartment.”
“With no personal objects and three locks.”
“Lawyers use it.”
“That explains the absence of joy.”
She opens the crackers and offers me one.
I take it.
There is no reason the moment should matter. Two people standing in a borrowed kitchen, eating dry crackers while a vehicle is searched. But the room does not ask us to be a crime boss and a funeral director. It does not contain Paolo or Bianca or a contract.
Mina leans against the counter. “The kiss was a mistake.”
“Yes.”
Her eyebrows lift.
“You said it first.”
“I expected an argument.”
“Would you like one?”
“Not if you schedule it.”
I take another cracker.
“It won’t happen again,” she says.
“All right.”
“You are doing that deliberately.”
“What?”
“Agreeing.”
The apartment buzzer interrupts us.
I reach for my weapon. Mina reaches for the intercom.
“Wait.”
“It is my intercom.”
“This is not your building.”
“Then your lawyers need better boundaries.”
The camera shows Jo standing downstairs with a paper bag and an expression that could open most locks.
Mina presses the release.
“Safe location,” I say.
“Jo followed Felix.”
“Then it is no longer safe.”
“It never contained joy. It will survive.”
Jo enters carrying sandwiches and a pair of flat black shoes. She places both in front of Mina.
“You left in broken heels,” she says.
“Gabe noticed.”
Jo looks at me. “Of course he did.”
The tone contains an entire conversation they had without me.
We eat around the small kitchen island. Jo describes the afternoon service schedule, the plumber’s estimate, and a family that wants to place an urn inside a motorcycle helmet.
“Can they?” I ask.
“Legally, yes,” Mina says. “Visually, we are negotiating.”
“The helmet is orange,” Jo adds.
“Safety first,” I say.
Mina looks at me, and the laugh comes fully this time. It changes her face in a way I am not prepared to want repeated.
Jo notices both of us noticing. She finishes her sandwich faster.
“Felix says the funeral home is clear,” she says. “I am leaving before the air becomes complicated.”
After she goes, Mina puts on the flat shoes. They are old, softened at the heel, and practical.
“Your aunt knew where we were,” I say.
“Felix knew.”
“He was told to keep the location restricted.”
“Jo does not acknowledge your organizational chart.”
“Neither do you.”
“Family resemblance.”
I look at the closed door. “Sal left you with people who stayed.”
Her expression loses the laugh. “That does not reduce what he did.”
“No.”
“You keep offering accurate answers today.”
“You said you preferred them.”
“I do. I’m deciding whether preference was a mistake.”
She picks up the empty sandwich wrappers. This time, she puts the plate in the dishwasher.
I do not mention it.
“You prefer coercion?”
“I prefer honesty.”
“So do I.”
“You have my father’s voice on a file you refuse to play.”
There is no clean response.
Mina sees it.
The trust that almost formed in the kitchen does not vanish. It changes shape, becoming cautious and specific.
We wait another forty minutes for Felix’s clearance.
Mina uses the time to call the funeral home. She does not ask whether security is ready. She asks whether Mrs. DeLellis chose the mahogany urn or the walnut, whether the afternoon staff ate, and whether Jo remembered to confirm the organist.
“Mahogany,” Jo says through the speaker. “Everyone ate except me, which is a hostile rumor. Organist confirmed. Also, the plumber says the upstairs toilet is not designed for armed men.”
Mina looks at me. “Did one of your men break the toilet?”
“I have no information.”
“That is different from no.”
I call the team lead. One guard leaned against the old tank while checking the window and cracked the mounting bolt.
“Repair it today,” I say. “Use a contractor Jo approves.”
“And pay the rush fee,” Mina adds.
“Pay the rush fee.”
Jo makes a satisfied sound. “Marriage is improving response times.”
She hangs up.
Mina opens the apartment refrigerator and finds bottled water, mustard, and six individual cups of plain yogurt.
“Lawyers live like this?”
“They expense food.”
She checks the dates, chooses water, and sits on the floor beside the balcony door where the building across the street cannot see her.
I sit against the opposite wall.
“You do not have to stay there,” she says.
“It has the cleanest line to both doors.”
“Of course.”
“Where would you sit?”
She looks around. “At the table.”
“Visible from the south windows.”
“Most of my life is visible to windows.”
“That does not make it safe.”
“Safety is not the only reason people choose a chair.”
I know that. I do not live as if I know it.
I move to the table.
Mina watches, surprised, then joins me. The two chairs are too close because the table belongs in a larger room. Our knees touch.
Neither of us moves.
“What does your life look like when no one is trying to kill you?” I ask.
“People are always dying. That was not the question you meant.”
“No.”
“Gym twice a week. Late groceries. Sunday dinner with Jo if services allow. I restore old photographs badly. I read mysteries and complain when the author misunderstands embalming.”
“Do you date?”
“That question arrived wearing body armor.”
“You asked whether Paolo and Bianca were together.”
“They are dead. Their privacy is administratively limited.”
“Mina.”
She looks at our knees. “Sometimes. Not recently.”
“Why?”
“Because men hear funeral director and spend dinner deciding whether I am fascinating or damaged. Both become tiring before dessert.”
“I did not think either.”
“You thought collateral.”
“Yes.”
“Strangely refreshing.”
“And now?”
Her gaze lifts. The answer almost reaches the room.
Then my phone vibrates with Felix’s clearance, and whatever she might have said returns to private custody.
My phone vibrates with Felix’s clearance.
I put the cracker box back in the cabinet.
“We can go home,” I say.
Mina’s gaze stays on me.
“My home,” she answers.
“Yes.”
This time, the agreement costs enough to be honest.