Chapter 5 - The Woman In White Gloves.
The darkness lasted less than five seconds.
It felt much longer.
Claire heard Dante move before emergency lights flickered on along the baseboards.
One moment he was near the door.
The next he was between her and the hallway.
His body had changed with the room.
Shoulders squared.
Head slightly lowered.
Every trace of conversation gone.
"Stay behind me," he said.
Claire's heart hammered.
"Where's Matteo?"
"Rosa's room is on the secure side of the hall."
"That doesn't answer me."
A voice came through Dante's phone.
"Boss, backup generator is running."
Dante pressed the speaker icon.
"Matteo."
"Secure with Rosa," a man replied.
Claire exhaled.
Dante looked back at her.
"Now stay here."
"You said the house was secure."
"It is."
"The lights just went out."
"A transformer blew two blocks over."
"You know that already?"
"Because we monitor the grid feed."
Claire stared at him.
"Of course you monitor the grid feed."
"Most people would find that reassuring right now."
"Most people aren't in a safe house because their ex-boyfriend may have helped sabotage a restaurant wall."
That silenced them both.
A minute later, the main power returned.
No intruder appeared.
No alarm sounded.
But the moment left Claire with an uncomfortable truth.
Even a harmless blackout could turn Dante into someone built for emergencies.
She was not sure whether that made her feel safer or more afraid.
By morning, the house smelled like coffee and toasted bread.
Claire came downstairs slowly.
Her back had stiffened overnight.
Rosa took one look at her and pointed toward a chair.
"Sit."
Claire sat.
Dante entered from the study carrying a folder.
"You listen to her," Claire said.
"Everyone listens to Rosa."
"Smartest thing you've said."
Rosa placed eggs in front of Claire.
"Eat before you fight."
"We're not fighting."
Dante sat across from her.
"We are usually fighting."
Claire looked at Rosa.
"See?"
Rosa walked away without sympathy.
Dante opened the folder.
"We found the company behind Lakeshore Asset Recovery."
Claire stopped reaching for her coffee.
"Who?"
"A series of shell companies."
"That's not a who."
"The final beneficial owner is a woman named Evelyn Cross."
Claire waited.
"Should I know her?"
"Probably not."
"Do you?"
Dante's eyes hardened.
"I knew her husband."
Past tense.
Claire noticed.
"Knew?"
"Victor Cross died three years ago."
"How?"
"Heart attack."
She watched his face.
"Was it really a heart attack?"
Dante almost smiled.
"Yes."
"I had to ask."
"Apparently."
He slid a photograph across the table.
Evelyn Cross looked to be in her late forties.
Blonde hair cut to her jaw.
Pearl earrings.
Cream coat.
White leather gloves.
She looked more like the chair of a museum board than a predatory lender.
"She runs debt?" Claire asked.
"She runs several businesses."
"Legal ones?"
"Some."
"And the others?"
"Designed to look legal until someone stops paying."
Claire stared at the photograph.
"Why would Michael borrow from her?"
"That is what we need to learn."
"We?"
Dante leaned back.
"You wanted to be involved."
"I wanted not to be lied to."
"Those goals overlap."
Before Claire could respond, Matteo entered carrying a bowl of cereal.
He took the chair beside her.
"Are you leaving today?"
Claire glanced at Dante.
"That was the plan."
Matteo looked at his father.
"Is it safe?"
Dante's eyes moved to Claire.
"Not yet."
Matteo nodded as if this settled the matter.
Claire did not.
"I need clothes."
"Rosa can get whatever you need."
"I need to go to work."
Dante's expression said no before his mouth did.
Claire held up a hand.
"Do not."
"The restaurant is closed today."
That caught her off guard.
"Why?"
"Police inspection."
"Actual police?"
"Yes, Claire."
"You sounded offended."
"I'm learning to expect the question."
Matteo ate cereal and watched them.
"You argue like Aunt Sofia and Uncle Ben."
Dante looked at his son.
"Eat."
Matteo smiled into his bowl.
Later that morning, Claire stood in the library while Dante's security chief, Adrian Cole, projected security footage onto a wall-mounted screen.
Adrian was in his late thirties, clean-cut, calm, and one of the few men around Dante who did not seem impressed by Dante.
Claire liked him for that.
"Michael enters Aurelio's at 7:12," Adrian said.
The footage showed Michael using the service door.
"He leaves at 7:31."
Another camera captured him walking into the alley.
"The panel fails at 8:04."
Claire frowned.
"So he wasn't there when it happened."
"Correct."
"Did he touch the panel?"
"The camera covering that section was offline for nineteen minutes."
"Convenient."
Adrian nodded.
"Very."
Dante stood near the window.
"Who disabled it?"
"Login came from the manager's office."
Claire turned.
"Marcus?"
"The floor manager?" Adrian asked.
"He's the only one who uses that computer during service."
"The account belongs to general management."
Claire thought back.
Marcus telling her table seven needed water.
Marcus passing near the private booth moments before the glass fell.
A small detail surfaced.
"He changed my section."
Dante looked at her.
"What?"
"I wasn't supposed to be near your booth."
She remembered the printed assignment sheet.
"I had tables one through six."
"But you were at seven."
"Marcus told me table seven needed water."
Adrian made a note.
"Could be normal."
"It wasn't."
Claire's pulse quickened.
"Sophie was assigned seven through twelve."
"Where was Sophie?"
"Carrying champagne near your booth."
Dante's face went still.
"Who sent her there?"
Claire shook her head.
"I don't know."
Adrian rewound the footage.
They watched Marcus cross the dining room.
He spoke to Sophie.
Then Claire.
Then disappeared through the service corridor.
"Find him," Dante said.
Adrian hesitated.
"He's not answering."
"Address?"
"Empty."
Claire looked at the screen.
"Empty as in he left?"
"Empty as in the lease ended three weeks ago."
Her stomach sank.
"He was planning to disappear."
"Looks that way," Adrian said.
Claire thought of the card at her apartment.
"What if Michael was there to meet Marcus?"
Dante's gaze sharpened.
"Possible."
"You keep saying that."
"Because we still have missing pieces."
Claire walked closer to the screen.
"Show me Michael entering again."
Adrian replayed the frame.
Michael moved through the service doorway with his head down.
Claire watched his hands.
"Stop."
The image froze.
Michael held a white envelope.
There was a dark circular seal on the flap.
Claire stepped closer.
"Can you enlarge that?"
Adrian zoomed in.
The image pixelated.
Still, the mark was visible.
A black circle with a thin silver cross through the center.
Dante swore quietly.
Claire turned toward him.
"What is it?"
He did not answer fast enough.
"Dante."
"Evelyn Cross uses that seal."
Claire looked back at the frozen screen.
Michael had carried an envelope from the woman who held the forged debt.
"So he worked for her."
"Or owed her."
"Same difference if she was telling him what to do."
Dante's phone rang.
He answered.
"Yes."
He listened.
His face became colder with every second.
"Send it."
He ended the call.
"What happened?" Claire asked.
Dante's phone buzzed with an incoming image.
He opened it and turned the screen toward her.
A photograph showed Marcus sitting in an airport terminal.
O'Hare.
Timestamped twenty minutes earlier.
Across from him sat a blonde woman in a cream coat.
White gloves covered her hands.
Evelyn Cross.
Claire stared at the image.
"Where are they going?"
Dante enlarged the boarding gate sign behind them.
Flight 417.
New York.
Departure in thirty-five minutes.
Dante looked at Adrian.
"Call the airport detail."
Claire grabbed Dante's arm.
"No."
He looked down at her hand.
Then at her face.
"What?"
"If Evelyn thinks nobody knows about her, let her think that."
Adrian's eyebrows lifted.
Dante studied Claire.
"You want to let them leave."
"I want them comfortable."
Claire looked at the photograph again.
"Comfortable people make mistakes."
For the first time, Dante looked at her not as someone who needed protection, but as someone standing beside him at the edge of the problem.
"All right," he said.
Adrian looked surprised.
"Boss?"
"Track them."
Dante's eyes remained on Claire.
"Do not touch them."
Claire should have felt relieved.
Instead, she noticed something reflected in the dark window behind him.
Before Claire could say anything, Adrian pulled up the street cameras from neighboring properties.
One camera belonged to a townhouse two doors down.
Another belonged to a florist on the corner.
Neither showed a cream-coated woman.
Claire felt foolish for exactly three seconds.
Then she remembered the looping feed and stopped apologizing to herself.
Fear did not become irrational merely because somebody else had learned how to manipulate evidence.
Dante noticed the change in her face.
"What?"
"I'm done assuming the camera is more trustworthy than my own eyes."
Adrian nodded slowly.
"That's reasonable."
Dante looked at him.
"You encourage her too much."
"She keeps being right."
Claire folded her arms.
"I like him."
"I am reconsidering his employment."
The dry exchange lasted only a moment, but it gave Claire something she had been missing since Aurelio's.
A sense that fear did not have to own every second of the day.
Then Adrian enlarged a frame from the florist camera.
A cream-colored sleeve appeared at the far edge for less than a second.
Not enough for a face.
Enough to prove Claire had not imagined everything.
Dante stared at the blurred edge of fabric.
"She wanted you to see her."
Claire looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because people who control fear like to remind you they can reach the edge of your safe place."
Claire looked through the window again.
"Then she picked the wrong person."
Dante's eyebrows lifted.
"You're not afraid?"
"I'm terrified."
Claire turned back toward him.
"I just don't want her making decisions for me because of it."
For a second, Dante looked as if he wanted to remember the sentence.
Then Claire saw movement reflected in the dark glass.
A figure standing across the street outside the gate.
Cream coat.
White gloves.
May you like
Claire turned fast.
The sidewalk was empty.
