Chapter 2 - The Ghost of Michael Romano
The heavy pocket doors of the private study clicked shut, sealing out the hum of the estate.
Nico pulled the heavy velvet drapes across the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the rear gardens.
He did not sit down.
He walked directly to the telephone on the desk, lifted the receiver, and dialed three digits.
"Marco," Nico said into the mouthpiece.
"Lock the service gate."
"No one leaves the grounds, and no deliveries cross the perimeter until I clear it."
"Put two men on the outer lane."
He slammed the receiver down and turned around.
Claire sat on the edge of a button-tufted leather armchair, her knees pressed tightly together.
Her uniform felt heavy, suffocating, like damp canvas against her skin.
She had never been inside this room.
The study smelled of old leather bindings, Cuban tobacco, and beeswax.
Behind Nico, an oil painting of a man in his early forties dominated the wood-paneled wall.
The man had Nico's dark hair, but his eyes were lighter, almost amber, and his lips held a reckless, easy grin.
Michael Romano.
Nico's uncle.
The golden son of the family who had supposedly died during a botched warehouse hijacking when Nico was barely twenty-two.
Louise sat in the opposite wingback chair, resting both hands on the silver crook of her cane.
Her breathing was shallow and rhythmic.
"Talk to me, Grandmother," Nico said, leaning his fists on the mahogany desk.
"You told me that detective died in a car accident on the expressway."
"Anna Mercer didn't die in an accident," Louise said, her voice clear and dry.
"Her brakes were cut three hours after she met me in the basement of St. Jude's chapel."
"She gave me that recorder wrapped in a wool scarf."
"She told me that if anything happened to her, the recording had to stay hidden until Daniel Morgan's girl reached twenty-five."
Claire felt the room sway beneath her feet.
"Daniel Morgan?" she repeated, the name scraping against the back of her throat.
"My father's name was David Parker."
"He worked for an industrial supply company in upstate New York."
Louise turned her head slowly, looking at Claire with an expression that bordered on pity.
"Your mother told you that because she wanted you to finish high school without looking over your shoulder every morning."
"Your father was Detective Daniel Morgan."
"Badge four-hundred and twelve."
"He spent fourteen years in the Special Investigations Unit working narcotics and organized crime."
"He died six months before Michael did."
"No," Claire whispered, shaking her head violently.
"My father left us."
"He walked out when I was twelve years old."
"He packed two suitcases, left his wedding band on the kitchen counter, and never called."
"That is the story your mother memorized so she wouldn't cry every time you asked," Louise said.
"Daniel Morgan didn't walk away from his family."
"He was pulled out of the river behind the shipping yards with two bullet wounds in his ribs."
"The coroner listed it as an accidental drowning following an alcohol-induced fall."
"Anna Mercer spent the next eighteen months proving it was an execution."
Nico picked up the recorder from the blotter.
His thumb hovered over the playback lever.
"How does Claire connect to Michael?" he demanded, his voice thick with repressed fury.
"Michael was killed by the Marcone crew over the distribution rights at Pier Forty-Two."
"That was the official police finding."
"The police wrote what they were paid to write, Nicholas," Louise replied with cold certainty.
"Push the lever."
Nico pressed the button.
The mechanical click was followed by a burst of static that crackled through the quiet room.
Then Anna Mercer's voice returned.
The tape was marked with the faint background hum of rain hammering against a corrugated metal roof.
"Log entry twelve-C," Mercer's recorded voice said.
"Date is November fourteenth."
"Subject is Claire Morgan, age fourteen."
"The department claims Claire was recruited as an unauthorized juvenile confidential informant by her father."
"That is a lie fabricated by the Sixth Precinct to explain her presence at the loading bay."
"Claire was not an informant."
"She had followed her father's vehicle after finding a handwritten address in his notebook."
"She was hiding inside the service stairwell of the cold-storage unit at Pier Forty-Two when Michael Romano was brought in."
Claire's breath caught in her lungs like broken glass.
A cold prickle traveled up her spine, across her scalp, down into the tips of her fingers.
Pier Forty-Two.
Cold-storage unit.
The smell of rotten cabbage, wet cardboard, and diesel exhaust.
Her mind fought against the words, but something deep within her memory cracked open like an ancient scab.
She had spent twelve years telling herself that the nightmare was just a nightmare.
She had dreamed of rain on corrugated metal hundreds of times.
She had dreamed of hiding behind a green industrial trash bin, pressing her knees to her chest until her shins bruised.
She had dreamed of a loud, echoing crack that sounded like a dry branch snapping under a truck tire.
The tape continued.
"Claire saw the execution of Michael Romano," Mercer stated, her voice tight with strain.
"She did not see the shooter's face because he was wearing a heavy tactical balaclava."
"However, during the struggle, Michael tore the shooter's tactical glove."
"Claire saw the right hand."
"The shooter has a severe orthopedic deformity on the right hand."
"A double-tendon scar crossing the third and fourth knuckles, and an iron signet ring embedded into the flesh of the index finger."
"The shooter is an active-duty officer."
"I cannot file this report through regular channels."
"Internal Affairs is compromised from the command level down."
"I am hiding this tape with the only person who hates the police as much as I do right now."
"Louise Romano."
"If you are hearing this, they found me."
"Protect Daniel's daughter."
The tape ran out with a dry slap, spinning freely against the plastic spindle.
Nico stood motionless, his dark eyes wide and fixed on the portrait of Michael Romano.
His breathing was heavy, the muscles of his jaw visibly twitching.
"An officer," Nico whispered.
"A badge killed my uncle."
"And my family went to war with the Marcone family for two years because of that lie."
"Three of my cousins are in federal prison right now because of that war."
Claire pressed her face into her hands.
The room felt freezing cold.
The nightmare was not a dream.
It was real.
The wet asphalt.
The smell of diesel.
The sound of a man begging in Italian.
And the hand.
She could see it now, vivid and hideous in the dark of her memory: a pale, thick-fingered hand reaching out to pull a heavy metal fire door shut.
The jagged, puckered purple scar running across the middle knuckles.
A heavy dull ring that had bitten into the swollen knuckle of the index finger.
"I saw him," Claire whispered through her fingers.
Nico looked down at her, his expression unreadable.
"Say that again."
Claire raised her tear-stained face.
"I saw him."
"I was sitting on the concrete under the fire escape."
"He walked right past me."
"He didn't look down because he was putting his radio back on his belt."
"He had blood on the cuff of his sleeve."
"And his hand..."
She choked back a sob.
"His hand looked like it had been crushed in a vice."
Louise leaned forward, using her cane to steady herself as she stood up.
She walked over to an antique roll-top desk in the corner of the study.
From her apron pocket, she produced a small brass key.
She inserted it into a tiny drawer hidden beneath the pigeonholes.
The drawer slid open to reveal a faded manila folder tied with red string.
She placed it on Nico's desk and pulled the knot loose.
Inside was an official police document, yellowed around the borders and stamped in purple ink:
OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY — JUVENILE PROTECTIVE DETENTION WAIVER.
The name typed at the very top was:
CLAIRE EVELYN MORGAN.
Date of birth: June 12.
Father: Det. Daniel Morgan (Deceased).
Mother: Sarah Morgan.
Status: Relocated under Administrative Alias: PARKER.
Claire stared at her own childhood photograph pinned to the upper right corner.
A fourteen-year-old girl with dark circles under her eyes, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, staring into the lens with vacant terror.
"Your mother didn't want you to be a martyr, Claire," Louise said softly.
"She took the money Anna gave her and ran three hundred miles away."
"She changed your names."
"She told you your father abandoned you so you wouldn't spend your life trying to find his killers."
Claire reached out a trembling finger and touched the paper.
"Then why am I here?"
"Why did I end up in this house?"
"I applied through a domestic staffing agency in the city three weeks ago."
"I answered an online posting for an estate cook and companion."
Louise looked at Nico, and for the first time, her iron composure showed a fissure of dread.
May you like
"You didn't find this house by accident, child," Louise said.
"And neither did the man who sent you here."
