Four in the Morning

Chapter 01 - Four in the Morning

Rain had turned the front steps of the Chicago police precinct black and shining.

Gabriel Rossi came through the glass doors at 4:07 a.m. without an umbrella, without a lawyer, and without the hurried look of a man who had been dragged from bed. His black suit was dry beneath a long coat, his dark hair still combed back, his face composed enough to make two patrol officers stop talking when they saw him.

The desk sergeant looked up from a paper cup of coffee.

“She gave us your name.”

Gabriel’s eyes moved past him toward the holding area.

He had employed Norah Hayes for six years.

In all that time, she had never called him after ten at night. She had never missed a morning meeting. She had never used his first name unless no one else was in the room. She knew which contracts he would reject before he opened them, which clients lied when they touched their watches, and exactly how long to let silence sit before a nervous man filled it with something useful.

She was, Gabriel had once told his brother, the only person in the company who understood the difference between urgency and panic.

Tonight, apparently, she had found both.

“What is she charged with?” he asked.

The sergeant glanced down.

“Aggravated assault. Possible weapons charge pending.”

Gabriel’s expression did not change.

“That doesn’t sound like Miss Hayes.”

“That’s what the arresting officer said.”

The lock buzzed.

Norah stepped out.

For one small second, Gabriel forgot the sergeant was standing beside him.

Her dark brown hair had come loose from its usual careful knot. A bruise darkened the left side of her face. Her glasses were bent slightly at one hinge. She wore the same black blazer and white blouse she had worn to work the day before, except now the blouse was stained near the cuff.

Her right hand was bandaged.

Blood had seeped through.

She stopped when she saw him.

Not relieved.

Ashamed.

“Norah.”

Her throat moved before she answered.

“Mr. Rossi.”

“You look terrible.”

“I’m aware.”

The sergeant coughed into his fist, perhaps to hide a smile. Gabriel signed what had to be signed, made one phone call to a judge who owed his family a favor and another to an attorney who knew better than to ask questions before sunrise.

Twenty-two minutes later, Norah walked beside him into the rain.

She did not thank him.

That bothered him more than it should have.

Inside the black SUV, the city passed in smeared ribbons of red and white. Gabriel sat across from her in the rear cabin while his driver moved through empty streets.

Norah kept both hands folded in her lap.

Her injured one trembled.

Gabriel removed his jacket and set it beside her.

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m cold.”

“You’re lying.”

She glanced at him.

Only briefly.

Then she lifted the jacket and placed it around her shoulders.

It looked too large on her. The sight produced an unexpected irritation in him—not at her, but at whoever had put that bruise on her cheek.

He leaned forward.

“Are you going to tell me why I’m buying you out of a cage at four in the morning?”

“I didn’t ask you to buy me out.”

“You gave them my name.”

“They wouldn’t let me leave a message for anyone else.”

“That is not an answer.”

Norah looked through the rain-streaked window.

Gabriel waited.

He had built half his adult life by being willing to wait longer than the person across from him.

At last, she said, “A man followed me from the train.”

“Name.”

“I don’t know.”

“Description.”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed.

“No?”

“I mean I’m not giving you one.”

The driver’s shoulders stiffened in the front seat.

Few people said no to Gabriel Rossi twice.

Norah did it every Thursday when she removed unnecessary meetings from his calendar.

Tonight, it sounded different.

“Why?”

“Because this doesn’t concern you.”

“You were arrested.”

“Yes.”

“You gave them my name.”

“I had no one else.”

The sentence landed more heavily than she seemed to intend.

Gabriel looked down at her bandaged hand.

“What happened?”

Norah pressed her lips together.

He reached across the space between them.

She flinched.

It was almost nothing. A pull of the shoulder, a tightening of breath.

But Gabriel saw it.

He stopped before touching her.

Something inside him went very still.

“Norah.”

She looked embarrassed now.

That made it worse.

Slowly, Gabriel turned his palm upward and waited.

She studied it, then gave him her injured hand.

He held it carefully beneath the wrist.

The bandage had been wrapped badly. The knuckles were swollen. Two fingernails were split.

“You hit him.”

“With a tire iron.”

Gabriel raised his eyes.

“Why?”

Norah stared at their hands.

“When he grabbed me, he said something.”

The rain drummed harder against the roof.

“What did he say?”

She did not answer.

Gabriel’s thumb moved once, not quite touching the edge of the bandage.

“Norah.”

Her voice was barely above the engine.

“He said taking Rossi’s little secretary would be a nice bonus.”

The driver looked into the mirror.

Gabriel did not move.

“Bonus for what?”

“That’s why I didn’t want to call you.”

“Bonus for what?”

Norah pulled her hand from his.

Then she reached inside her blouse and removed a narrow chain from beneath the collar.

A tiny brass key hung from it.

Gabriel recognized the shape instantly.

It belonged to a private safe-deposit system used by a bank his father had controlled twenty years earlier.

No one outside the Rossi family should have possessed one.

“Where did you get that?”

Norah closed her fist around it.

“My father gave it to me the night he died.”

Gabriel stared at her.

Norah Hayes had told him years ago that her father had died in a highway accident.

“What was your father’s name?”

She hesitated too long.

The car seemed to shrink around them.

Finally, she said, “Daniel Hayes.”

Gabriel’s face lost what little warmth it had possessed.

Daniel Hayes had not died in a highway accident.

Daniel Hayes had disappeared after stealing three million dollars from Gabriel’s father.

And seventeen years ago, Gabriel had been ordered to find him.

Norah watched recognition enter his eyes.

She whispered, “You knew him.”

Gabriel reached for his phone.

But before he could make the call, Norah said the one thing that made him stop.

“My father left a message with your name in it.”

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And Gabriel suddenly understood that the attack outside the train station had not begun tonight.

It had begun seventeen years ago.