Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Locked Wing
Sebastian had not spoken to his mother in eleven years.
I learned that on the drive back to Chicago.
Her name was Isabella Lombardi. She lived in a private residence on the north side under round-the-clock care after suffering what the family described as a nervous breakdown.
Sebastian stared through the window as Gabriel explained.
"She hasn't recognized anyone consistently in years."
"Maybe because no one asked the right questions," I said.
Sebastian's eyes shifted toward me.
"You think physical therapy qualifies you for psychiatry now?"
"No. Motherhood qualifies me to recognize when a family has stopped listening to someone."
He looked away.
The remark had landed.
We reached Isabella's residence after dark.
It was not a hospital.
It was a mansion disguised as one.
The entire east wing belonged to her.
A nurse led us through quiet rooms until we reached a sunroom where an elegant woman in her late sixties sat beneath a blanket, staring at the moon.
Sebastian stopped in the doorway.
For the first time since I met him, he looked young.
Not forty-two.
Twenty-two.
"Mother."
Isabella did not move.
He wheeled closer.
"It's Sebastian."
Her eyes remained on the window.
Then I saw her fingers twitch.
He saw it too.
"Mother?"
Slowly, she turned.
Her gaze dropped to his chair.
Her face crumpled.
"I told them not to touch your back."
Sebastian froze.
Gabriel inhaled sharply.
I crouched beside her.
"Mrs. Lombardi, I'm Claire. I'm helping Sebastian with his spine."
She looked at me with sudden clarity.
"Then they will come for you too."
Sebastian leaned forward.
"Who?"
"Vittorio."
"Uncle Vittorio is dead."
Isabella laughed once.
It was a terrible sound.
"No."
Gabriel's face changed.
Sebastian gripped the wheels of his chair.
"Mother, Vittorio died twelve years ago."
"No coffin."
"There was a funeral."
"No body."
She turned toward me.
"He always liked fire. Fire eats records. Fire eats names."
The storage facility.
The hospital fire.
I felt gooseflesh rise on my arms.
Sebastian looked at Gabriel.
"Verify the grave."
Gabriel was already calling someone.
Isabella reached beneath her blanket and took Sebastian's hand.
His entire body stiffened.
"I tried to save you."
"I know."
"No, you don't."
Her voice cracked.
She looked around the room as though checking for listeners.
Then she whispered, "The blue book."
Sebastian frowned.
"What blue book?"
"Your father kept it behind Saint Michael."
A nurse entered.
Isabella immediately withdrew into silence.
Sebastian tried to question her again.
Nothing.
Back at the Winnetka mansion, we searched the private chapel.
Behind a carved statue of Saint Michael, Gabriel found a narrow compartment.
Inside was a blue leather ledger.
Sebastian opened it.
It contained payments.
Doctors.
Police.
Politicians.
Shell companies.
And one repeated name.
Dr. Malcolm Avery.
Beside several payments were initials: V.L.
Vittorio Lombardi.
Then, near the back, we found a sealed envelope addressed to Sebastian.
The handwriting belonged to his father.
Sebastian opened it with trembling hands.
My son,
If anything happens to me, do not trust Vittorio with the family or with your health. He has been moving money and men without my consent. I believe he intends to replace me. If I am wrong, burn this. If I am right, survive him.
—Father
Sebastian read the letter twice.
Then he set it down.
No explosion.
No rage.
That was worse.
"What do you want to do?" I asked.
"Kill a dead man."
"Sebastian."
He looked at me.
"I know."
The next morning, Gabriel confirmed it.
Vittorio's grave contained no human remains.
Just bricks.
Sebastian's uncle had been alive for twelve years.
Maybe longer.
And someone had burned Avery's storage unit immediately after my examination produced movement.
Someone was watching Sebastian closely enough to know.
That meant they were watching me too.
I called Oliver's school.
He had arrived safely.
I called the apartment security desk.
No unusual visitors.
Still, I could not breathe normally.
Sebastian saw it.
"I'll put protection on Oliver."
"No men with guns at his school."
"Then plainclothes."
"No one he can see."
"Agreed."
I looked at him sharply.
He was learning.
Over the next two weeks, our lives settled into a strange routine.
Sebastian trained.
Hard.
I worked with him every morning on trunk stability, muscle recruitment, sensory retraining, and supported positioning.
Progress was microscopic.
A contraction.
A tremor.
A toe movement.
Each one left him exhausted.
Each one also changed him.
The cruel impatience softened.
Not much.
But enough.
One morning, after he managed a visible contraction in his left thigh, he laughed.
It startled everyone in the room.
Sebastian Lombardi did not look like a mafia boss when he laughed.
He looked like a man who had just been returned one stolen inch of his life.
I laughed too.
Then he looked at me.
And the room became quiet in a different way.
"Don't," I said.
"I didn't do anything."
"You were about to."
"Was I?"
"Yes."
His mouth curved.
"Your diagnostic skills are improving."
I handed him a resistance band.
"Work."
He caught my wrist.
Not hard.
I stopped breathing.
"Thank you," he said.
The playfulness disappeared.
"For what?"
"For not treating me like a miracle."
I looked at his hand around my wrist.
Then at his face.
"You're not a miracle."
"I know."
"You're difficult, arrogant, impatient, and medically complicated."
"That's more familiar."
"But you're trying."
His eyes held mine.
"So are you."
I pulled my hand away.
That afternoon, Oliver visited the mansion for the first time.
I had resisted for days.
Then Sebastian sent him a telescope.
Not a toy telescope.
A professional one.
Oliver demanded to meet the "guy with the enormous windows."
Within ten minutes, my eight-year-old son had Sebastian discussing the moons of Jupiter.
Within twenty, he had Gabriel wearing a paper astronaut helmet.
Within thirty, one of the most heavily guarded houses in Illinois had crayons on a priceless Italian table.
I watched Sebastian watch Oliver.
Something in his face hurt me.
"You like kids," I said.
He glanced at me.
"I don't know any."
"You know one now."
Oliver rolled toward us on Sebastian's spare wheelchair.
"Look, Mom!"
"Oliver, absolutely not."
Sebastian said, "He asked permission."
"From you."
"It's my chair."
"You're encouraging him."
"Yes."
Oliver grinned.
For the first time in months, I saw my son breathing easily while laughing.
I had to turn away.
Sebastian noticed.
He did not say anything.
That night, after Oliver fell asleep in the guest room, Sebastian and I sat on the terrace overlooking the lake.
He wore a blanket over his legs.
"I was engaged once," he said.
I looked at him.
He had never mentioned a woman.
"What happened?"
"After the bombing, she stayed six months."
"And then?"
"My uncle told her she should have a normal life."
"Did you want her to leave?"
"No."
"Did you tell her that?"
"No."
I stared at him.
"Men are exhausting."
"So I've heard."
"Why didn't you tell her?"
"Because I was twenty-two and ashamed."
The honesty surprised me.
He looked toward the lake.
"I thought needing someone made me weak."
"And now?"
He turned toward me.
"Now I think losing someone because you're afraid to need them is weaker."
My heart beat too hard.
Before I could answer, the glass door shattered.
Sebastian grabbed my arm and pulled me down as a bullet struck the stone wall behind us.
Guards flooded the terrace.
Gabriel shouted.
I covered Sebastian instinctively.
Another shot hit the railing.
Then silence.
A sniper.
From somewhere across the lakefront road.
Gabriel dragged us inside.
Oliver.
I ran upstairs.
He was awake, terrified but unharmed.
I held him against me.
Minutes later, Sebastian entered.
His face was white with fury.
"Pack your things."
I stood.
"No."
"Claire."
"We're not running."
"You have a child."
"Exactly. And if Vittorio is watching us, moving blindly makes us more vulnerable."
He stared at me.
"You were almost shot."
"So were you."
"That is different."
"No, it isn't."
"It is to me."
The words hit harder than the gunfire.
We both heard them.
Gabriel looked away.
Sebastian did too.
On the broken terrace downstairs, investigators found the bullet embedded in stone.
Wrapped around it was a thin strip of blue paper.
May you like
One sentence had been printed on it.
Stop making him stand.
