Chapter 8 - The Red Ink
By four o'clock Wednesday morning, the rain had returned, beating a relentless cadence against the skylights of the Greenwich compound.
The house was quiet. Danny and his team were gone, their three black SUVs having cleared the front gate twenty minutes prior without headlights.
Inside the small study, a fire burned low in the red-brick hearth. Alice sat at the large mahogany desk, the small black ledger open before her under the yellow light of a brass desk lamp.
Maya lay curled on the rug by the fire, while Nero stood watch by the curtained window, his nose occasionally twitching at the scent of wet pine blowing through the sill draft.
Stefano sat in the leather chair across from her, his robe pulled tight, a glass of warm water in his hand.
"Entry forty-six," Alice said, pointing her pen at a line of tight red script. "That’s not an inventory list. That’s a longitude coordinate for a deep-water berth five miles off Block Island."
Stefano leaned forward, his eyes tracking her finger. "My uncle owned three trawlers out of Montauk. He used them for offshore transfers when the Coast Guard was active in the bay."
"He wasn't transferring fish," Alice said, turning the page carefully. "Look at the vessel registry number. USCG-7704. That’s a decommissioned cutter bought by a private holding company in Delaware three years ago."
She looked up, meeting his eyes across the desk.
"My father's name is on the bill of sale," Alice said softly.
Stefano went silent. He set his water glass down on the blotter. "Richard Vance bought a Coast Guard cutter?"
"He didn't buy it for himself," Alice realized, her eyes moving rapidly across the page as pieces of a ten-year-old puzzle began to lock into place. "He bought it using the foundation's funds. Your uncle was setting up a secondary shipping route that didn't go through the Providence docks at all. A route that didn't involve the Russians."
"That’s why they wanted the ledger," Stefano said, his voice dropping into a dark whisper. "They didn't want to control the docks. They wanted to find the cutter."
"It’s anchored off Block Island," Alice said. "It has twenty tons of medical-grade surgical gear and pharmaceutical precursors in the hold. Material your uncle hid during the federal audit in twenty-eighteen."
Stefano stood up slowly, using the edge of the desk for support. He walked around to her side of the table, leaning over her shoulder to look down at the yellowed paper.
His closeness was sudden, warm, smelling faintly of clean soap and cedar smoke. Alice didn't pull away. She kept her fingers flat on the page, her breath steady.
"You have your father's mind," Stefano said softly, his voice near her ear. "He could find a penny in a coal seam at midnight."
"My father died in a grey concrete room with two guards outside the door," Alice said without looking up. "Because he thought men like your uncle were his friends."
"My uncle wasn't a friend to anyone," Stefano said. "Including me."
He reached down, his fingers brushing hers as he gently pulled the ledger toward himself.
"Your father left you this," Stefano said, pulling a small silver key from the back pocket of the leather cover—a key so tiny it had been hidden beneath the binding cloth.
Alice stared at the key. "What is it?"
"Safety deposit box," Stefano said. "First National of Boston. Account four-eight-eight. He set it up the week before he was arrested."
"How do you know that?" Alice asked, looking up at him.
"Because I signed as the second witness," Stefano said quietly. "Your father knew he was going down, Alexandra. He came to me in Providence. He said, 'If anything happens to me, don't let my girl go back to the docks. Give her the key when she's ready.'"
Alice felt a sudden, sharp tightness in her throat. For five years, she had believed her father had abandoned her—that he had died without a thought for the daughter he had left behind in a tiny apartment in South Boston.
"Why didn't you give it to me before?" she asked, her voice barely audible over the sound of the rain.
"Because you weren't ready," Stefano said softly, his dark hazel eyes fixed on hers. "You were still running. You were hiding behind a nurse's badge and a dead woman's name."
He set the silver key in the palm of her hand and closed her fingers over it.
"Now you're not running anymore," Stefano whispered.
May you like
Before Alice could answer, Nero let out a sharp, low growl from the window.
The mastiff’s ears pinned back flat against his head. Outside, through the heavy downpour, the faint sound of iron gates being forced open echoed through the dark pine trees.
