Chapter 2 - The Photograph Under Her Mattress
The elevator ride was silent.
Masimo stood beside Cora with his hands in his pockets, staring at the illuminated floor numbers.
Giani had tried to follow them.
Cora had looked at him once.
He had stopped.
Now the doors opened to the lobby.
Cora walked straight past security.
Masimo followed.
"You're aware," he said, "that if anyone sees the head of Orsini Harbor Group following his secretary into an apartment, tomorrow's gossip column will need no other story."
"Good."
"Good?"
"Maybe then people will stop asking why you never date."
"I don't."
"Exactly."
They stepped into the waiting car.
Masimo sat beside her.
"You really intend to take me to your apartment?"
"Yes."
"For a photograph?"
"For proof."
He leaned back.
"You could have shown it to me in the office."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know who in the office is watching."
That answer erased his amusement.
Masimo looked at her seriously.
"Who do you suspect?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out."
When they arrived at her building, Masimo stepped onto the sidewalk and looked up.
It was a narrow brick apartment block with chipped paint around the entrance and a broken light above the door.
"You're living here?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"No."
He looked at her.
"I live with my brother."
They climbed four flights.
Cora unlocked the door.
"Milo?"
The apartment was quiet.
"He went to school."
Masimo entered.
He stopped.
The place was painfully small.
A narrow kitchen.
One sofa.
A table for two.
A bedroom with a faded curtain dividing it from the living area.
A second tiny room at the end of the hall.
Cora walked into her bedroom.
"Wait here."
Masimo leaned against the door.
She removed the mattress.
Underneath was a plastic envelope.
She pulled it out.
Then she handed him the photograph.
He looked at it.
His face drained of color.
There was his father's black sedan.
There was the Arbor Street diner.
And beside the car stood a man with a scar over his left eyebrow.
Masimo had never met him.
But he knew the face.
His father had kept one photograph of his younger brother in an old desk drawer.
Matteo Orsini.
His father's brother.
Declared dead after a fire in Sicily twenty-two years earlier.
Masimo looked at Cora.
"Where did you get this?"
"My father took it."
"Why?"
"He worked at the diner."
"And?"
"He saw your uncle that night."
Masimo studied the photograph again.
"That doesn't prove anything."
"Look behind the car."
He zoomed the image with his phone.
There was a cardboard box.
A shipping label.
The company code.
ORH-17.
The same internal code used by Orsini Harbor Group.
Masimo's jaw tightened.
"That's impossible."
"No."
She took another photograph.
"This was taken three minutes later."
It showed the same car.
But this time someone was carrying a metal case into the diner.
Masimo stared.
"Your father?"
"No."
"Then who?"
Cora pointed.
"Your uncle."
Masimo looked closer.
"What happened to your father?"
"Five years ago?"
"Yes."
"He was inside when the diner burned."
Masimo went still.
"Did he die immediately?"
"No."
Cora looked down.
"He called me."
Masimo waited.
"He said there was a man in the diner who kept asking about a shipment."
"What shipment?"
"My father didn't know."
"Then?"
"He heard a crash. Then the line went dead."
Masimo stared at the photograph.
"What did the police say?"
"Electrical fire."
"You didn't believe them."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because my father had no reason to die that way."
Cora's voice softened.
"Neither did your uncle."
Masimo looked at her.
"What are you saying?"
"I think your uncle staged his own death."
"And then?"
"He used the Orsini company to move something through Arbor Street."
"What?"
"I don't know."
"Who does?"
"My father."
Masimo frowned.
"He's dead."
"His notebooks survived."
She pulled out a small black ledger.
"My father left this."
Masimo opened it.
Most pages contained dates and numbers.
Then he reached a page dated five years earlier.
Arbor.
ORH-17.
M.O.
Two signatures.
One he recognized.
The second he did not.
Masimo's heart beat faster.
"Who is M.O.?"
"That's what I spent two years trying to discover."
He turned the page.
A sentence was written in red ink.
Do not trust the man with the silver ring.
Masimo looked at his own hand.
He wore a silver ring.
Cora's eyes widened.
"No."
He took it off.
"This belonged to my father."
Her face went pale.
He turned the ring over.
Inside was a tiny engraving.
M.O.
Cora stepped backward.
"Your father said his initials were E.O."
"His full name was Enzo Matteo Orsini."
She stared.
"Then M.O."
"My middle name."
Masimo's voice was quiet.
"Someone made it look like this belonged to me."
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Both turned.
"Milo?"
No answer.
Cora grabbed the ledger.
Masimo stepped toward the bedroom door.
Another sound.
A soft metallic click.
Someone was inside the apartment.
Masimo moved without thinking.
He pulled Cora behind him.
The bedroom door opened.
A man rushed in.
Masimo hit him once.
Hard.
The man crashed into the wall.
Cora screamed.
The attacker reached for a knife.
Masimo grabbed his wrist.
They struggled.
Cora saw the man's face.
She froze.
"I know him."
Masimo stopped.
"Who?"
"He worked at the company."
The man broke free and ran.
Masimo chased him into the hallway.
The stairs slammed.
By the time he reached the street, the man was gone.
He returned upstairs.
Cora stood at the doorway.
"What did he want?"
Masimo looked at the ledger.
"I think he wanted this."
The apartment suddenly felt much smaller.
Cora closed the door.
"Then you believe me."
"I believe you're in danger."
She folded her arms.
"That's not the same thing."
He looked at her.
"No."
"It isn't."
A silence passed.
Then Masimo said,
"Date me."
She blinked.
"Seriously?"
"Very."
"Why?"
"Because if someone is trying to kill you, I need to know where you are."
"That is the worst romantic line I've ever heard."
"I can do worse."
She stared at him.
Then, unexpectedly, she smiled.
"Fine."
Masimo raised an eyebrow.
"Fine?"
"One date."
"When?"
"Tonight."
"Where?"
Cora picked up the ledger.
"Somewhere public."
"Why public?"
"Because you have enemies."
He smiled.
"So do you."
"No."
She looked at him.
"I have you."
The smile disappeared from his face.
Neither of them noticed the tiny red light blinking from the building across the street.
Someone had photographed them leaving together.
May you like
And the photograph was already on its way to a man who had not been seen in twenty-two years.
Matteo Orsini.
