Chapter 2 - The Suit He Never Came to Collect
Caroline did not sleep.
Dante took her to a penthouse overlooking the Chicago River and informed her she would remain there until his men found Greg Holloway.
Caroline informed him that he had confused a tailor with a hostage.
Dante informed her that if she wanted to call the police, he would personally hand her the phone.
She did.
The detective who answered listened politely until Caroline mentioned that the missing man worked for Marston Development.
His tone changed.
He asked her to come downtown in the morning.
Then he told her not to return to her shop alone.
When Caroline hung up, Dante stood near the windows with his sleeves rolled to his forearms.
“You knew they’d say that.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because two police officers who investigated Rourke last year are currently working traffic.”
Caroline stared at him.
“You really do make everything worse.”
“I’ve been told.”
The apartment did not look like a criminal’s lair.
That irritated her.
There were books.
Actual books.
Architecture. History. Biographies.
A black grand piano near the windows.
She pointed at it.
“You play?”
“No.”
“Then why own it?”
“My mother did.”
The answer came quietly enough to stop her next insult.
Dante walked toward the kitchen.
“You should eat.”
“I just watched my date get kidnapped indirectly because of me.”
“You didn’t watch it.”
“That is your contribution?”
“No. My contribution is making sure he comes back.”
He poured water.
Caroline leaned against the counter.
“Who is Vincent Rourke?”
“A man who thinks everything has a price.”
“That sounds familiar.”
Dante’s gaze lifted.
“I think some things have consequences.”
“That is not better.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
For the next hour, Dante told her what he knew.
Rourke had spent twenty years transforming dirty money into clean buildings.
Parking garages.
Restaurants.
Construction firms.
Security companies.
Marston Development was one of several legitimate corporations connected to him.
Greg had been hired there nine months earlier.
As far as Dante’s people could determine, Greg was exactly what he appeared to be: an accountant with a clean record, a condo in Lincoln Park, a mother in Wisconsin and a dangerous devotion to fantasy football.
“So you ruined the first date I’ve had in eight months for a man who is probably innocent.”
“Yes.”
“You sound proud.”
“I’m not.”
“You bought a three-hundred-dollar bottle of wine.”
“It was four hundred.”
Caroline threw a napkin at him.
He caught it without blinking.
“Why were you jealous?”
The question escaped before she could stop it.
Dante became very still.
Caroline immediately wished she could pull the words back.
He set the napkin on the counter.
“You noticed.”
“You broke industrial fiberglass.”
“It was weakened.”
“It was new.”
“Manufacturing defect.”
“Dante.”
His name changed something between them.
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he said, “Because I wanted to ask you to dinner.”
Caroline blinked.
That was somehow more unsettling than if he had threatened Greg.
“You could have asked.”
“I know.”
“Normal men do that.”
“I’ve never claimed to be normal.”
“No. You’ve done an excellent job establishing the opposite.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
Caroline hated that she noticed.
His phone rang before either could say more.
Dante answered.
His face changed almost immediately.
“Where?”
He listened.
“I’m coming.”
He ended the call.
“They found Greg?”
“His car.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Caroline grabbed her coat.
Dante blocked the door.
“You’re staying here.”
“I am absolutely not.”
“It wasn’t a request.”
“Then you can absolutely move.”
“Caroline.”
“You said this happened because of me.”
“I said nothing of the kind.”
“Greg was with me. Rourke’s people saw him with me. I’m coming.”
Dante stared at her.
She stared back.
Finally he looked toward one of his men.
“Marcus.”
A tall Black man in a dark suit stepped forward.
“Boss.”
“If she gets more than six feet away from you—”
“I can hear you,” Caroline said.
Dante ignored her.
“—bring her back.”
Marcus looked at Caroline.
Then at Dante.
“Physically?”
“If necessary.”
Caroline pointed at him.
“Touch me and I’ll hem every pair of trousers you own to capri length.”
Marcus considered this.
“I’ll keep six feet.”
The abandoned sedan was found beneath an unfinished apartment building on the South Side.
Greg’s glasses lay on the concrete.
There was blood beside the driver’s door.
Caroline’s knees almost gave out.
Dante caught her elbow.
“Not enough blood.”
“What?”
“Caroline. Look at me.”
She did.
“It looks worse than it is.”
“How could you possibly know?”
“Because if they wanted him dead, we would have found him.”
She hated the comfort in that sentence.
She hated needing it.
Marcus found Greg’s phone crushed beneath the front tire.
Another man discovered a security camera whose wire had been cut.
Dante paced once around the car.
Then crouched beside the blood.
“Two vehicles,” he said.
Marcus nodded.
“Looks like.”
“Professional?”
“Enough.”
Caroline folded her arms around herself.
“Why take him alive?”
Dante stood.
“To ask questions.”
“What questions?”
“Probably the same ones they wanted answered at your shop.”
“My grandfather.”
“Yes.”
A phone rang.
Not Dante’s.
Greg’s crushed phone.
Everyone froze.
Marcus stared at the impossible screen.
The glass was shattered, but the device vibrated weakly beneath the tire.
Dante pulled it free.
Unknown number.
He answered without speaking.
A man’s voice came through loud enough for Caroline to hear.
“Mr. Baker.”
Dante’s face became unreadable.
“Rourke.”
Caroline’s pulse jumped.
“Put the tailor on.”
Dante said nothing.
Rourke laughed.
“She’s there. You’ve always had a weakness for predictable behavior.”
Dante handed Caroline the phone.
She took it carefully.
“Where is Greg?”
“Alive.”
“If you hurt him—”
“You’re not in a position to threaten me, Ms. Jones.”
“I’ve been told that before. It hasn’t improved my personality.”
A pause.
Then Rourke chuckled.
“I understand what Baker sees in you.”
Dante’s jaw flexed.
“What do you want?”
“Something Arthur Jones kept that did not belong to him.”
“My grandfather is dead.”
“Yes. Inconvenient.”
“What did he have?”
“A book.”
“What book?”
“If Baker tells you he doesn’t know, he’s lying.”
Caroline looked at Dante.
His expression didn’t change.
Rourke continued.
“Your grandfather made suits for men who did not trust banks, telephones or wives. He heard things. He wrote things down.”
“That sounds like bad tailoring.”
“It was exceptionally dangerous tailoring.”
“What does that have to do with Greg?”
“He works for one of my companies. Recently he accessed records he shouldn’t have.”
Caroline’s heart sank.
“Why?”
“Ask him when you get him back.”
“You said he was alive.”
“For now.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Find Arthur’s book.”
“And then?”
“I return your accountant.”
“He’s not my accountant.”
Beside her, Dante looked almost offended by the correction.
Rourke laughed again.
“Tomorrow. Midnight.”
The call ended.
Caroline handed the phone back.
Dante crushed the remaining plastic in his palm.
She stared at his hand.
“You have a problem with breaking things.”
“Apparently.”
“Do you know what book he means?”
“I know rumors.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Dante glanced at Marcus.
“Give us a minute.”
Everyone stepped away.
Caroline waited.
Dante looked toward the unfinished skyline.
“My father believed Arthur kept a ledger.”
“Of what?”
“Payments. Favors. Judges. Police. Contractors. Politicians. Men who disappeared.”
“And your father?”
“He would be in it.”
She swallowed.
“Doing what?”
“Things you don’t want me to describe.”
The honesty surprised her.
“Was your father like you?”
Dante’s face hardened.
“No.”
“Better?”
“Worse.”
The answer carried weight.
“My father built half of what I inherited by making people afraid to say no.”
“And you?”
“I learned fear is expensive.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“I’m trying to build something that survives without needing as much of it.”
As much.
Not none.
Caroline appreciated the distinction even if she disliked it.
“Why did my grandfather call you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“He said one sentence. ‘If they ever come for the books, protect Caroline.’ Then he hung up.”
“Did you speak again?”
“No.”
“He died three weeks later.”
“Yes.”
“Natural causes.”
Dante looked at her.
Caroline’s chest tightened.
“What?”
“I don’t know that anymore.”
The concrete garage suddenly felt colder.
“You think somebody killed him?”
“I think Rourke is kidnapping people five years later over something Arthur possessed. I think we should question everything.”
Caroline looked down at Greg’s glasses.
“I need to go back to my shop.”
Dante nodded.
This time he did not argue.
They entered Jones Custom Tailoring shortly after midnight.
Marcus checked the basement.
Another man checked the roof.
Caroline turned on every light.
Then she stood in the middle of the shop.
“Grandpa hated banks,” she said.
Dante looked at her.
“He kept cash inside coffee cans.”
“Useful.”
“He also didn’t trust safes.”
“Less useful.”
“He said safes told thieves exactly where valuable things were.”
Caroline walked toward the back fitting room.
Her grandfather had designed the shop himself.
Every inch mattered.
Storage compartments were built beneath benches.
Pattern drawers extended deeper than they appeared.
She opened cabinets, tapped walls, checked the base of the cutting tables.
Dante searched silently beside her.
At two in the morning, Caroline found nothing.
At two-fifteen, she cursed her grandfather.
At two-thirty, Dante placed coffee beside her without asking.
At two-forty, Caroline noticed something.
The old fitting platform.
Her grandfather had built it thirty years earlier.
She remembered standing on it as a child while he pinned the hem of her first school-uniform skirt.
One oak board was slightly narrower than the others.
“Dante.”
He turned.
Caroline knelt.
A seam ran along the edge.
She used a screwdriver from the workbench.
The board lifted.
Underneath was dust.
A silver key.
And an envelope.
CAROLINE.
Her hands began to shake.
Dante crouched beside her.
“Open it.”
She did.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
Her grandfather’s handwriting filled six lines.
Caro,
If you found this, I failed to keep an old promise buried.
Do not trust the man who asks for the book.
Do not trust anyone simply because he knew me.
The key will show you what I could not tell your father.
And if Michael Baker’s son is standing beside you, ask him what happened on November 17, 1998.
Love always,
Grandpa.
Caroline reread the date.
Then she slowly turned toward Dante.
He was no longer looking at the letter.
He was staring at the floor.
“What happened on November 17, 1998?”
Dante did not answer.
“Dante.”
His face looked different.
Not powerful.
Not jealous.
Not dangerous.
For one terrible moment, he looked like a boy remembering something he had spent his entire adult life trying to forget.
“That was the night my mother died.”
A gunshot shattered the front window.
Dante hit Caroline hard enough to send both of them behind the fitting platform.
Glass rained across the hardwood.
Marcus shouted.
Two more shots tore into the mirrors.
Dante covered Caroline with his body.
She felt him jerk.
Then warm blood touched her hand.
“Dante?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Stay down.”
His men returned fire toward the street.
Tires screamed.
Then silence.
Marcus shouted that the car was gone.
Dante rolled away.
Blood soaked the left sleeve of his white shirt.
Caroline grabbed him.
“Sit.”
“It grazed me.”
“Sit down.”
He actually obeyed.
She cut his sleeve with tailoring shears.
The bullet had carved a line across his upper arm.
Not deep.
Ugly enough.
Caroline pressed a clean cloth against it.
Dante watched her.
“You’re angry.”
“My window is gone.”
“At me?”
“Mostly.”
“Fair.”
“And Greg is kidnapped.”
“Yes.”
“My dead grandfather is apparently involved in a twenty-eight-year-old criminal secret.”
“Yes.”
“And somebody just shot at me.”
“At us.”
Caroline pressed harder.
Dante winced.
“That was for correcting me.”
For the first time, he laughed.
Not a smile.
A laugh.
Low, surprised and brief.
Caroline looked at him.
It was a mistake.
His face was too close.
His shirt was open at the collar.
A line of blood crossed his skin.
His eyes were no longer flat.
They were fixed entirely on her.
The room seemed to narrow.
“You should stop looking at me like that,” she whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like you broke the tape on purpose.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth.
“I didn’t.”
“No?”
“No.”
His voice lowered.
“I wanted to break Greg Holloway.”
Caroline’s eyes widened.
Dante added, “The tape was cheaper.”
She almost laughed.
Almost.
Then Marcus returned holding something wrapped in a plastic evidence bag.
“Found this outside.”
Inside was a single black button.
Caroline knew it immediately.
Hand-covered silk.
Custom.
She took it.
“This came from a tuxedo.”
Dante stared at the button.
“You know whose?”
Caroline turned it over.
A tiny white stitch marked the underside.
Her grandfather had taught her to mark every custom piece that way.
She went to the old client drawers.
Found the card.
Read the name.
And felt the blood leave her face.
The customer was Adrian Vale.
May you like
Dante’s closest adviser.
The man who had stood at Dante Baker’s right hand for seventeen years.
