Six Months Too Late
Chapter 12 - Six Months Too Late
Norah left the office alone.
Nobody stopped her.
Perhaps Gabriel had finally learned that protection offered without permission could become another kind of cage.
She walked four blocks in the cold morning until she found a diner open beneath the train tracks. She ordered coffee she did not want and sat in a booth beside a window trembling each time a train passed overhead.
Six months.
She tried to decide what the number meant.
Six months to forgive a father who had abandoned her.
Six months to ask seventeen years of questions.
Six months to punish him by staying away.
Six months to discover whether love could survive the truth.
A shadow appeared beside the booth.
Gabriel.
Norah closed her eyes.
“I thought you were learning.”
“I am.”
“You followed me.”
“I walked behind you at a distance.”
“That is following.”
“Yes.”
He sat across from her only after she did not tell him to leave.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Norah said, “What did your father die of?”
“I watched him die of a heart attack.”
She looked up.
“You watched him?”
“In his bedroom.”
“Then how can he be alive?”
Gabriel folded his hands.
“The man I saw was on a ventilator. His face was swollen from medication. I stayed less than a minute.”
“You didn’t check?”
“I was his son, not his coroner.”
There was bitterness in it.
Gabriel looked through the window.
“My father had suffered a stroke two months earlier. Isabella handled his care because I refused to visit.”
“Why?”
“The last time I saw him conscious, he told me Samuel Bell died because I was too weak to inspire loyalty.”
Norah swallowed.
“So you left.”
“Yes.”
“And now you don’t know who died in that room.”
“No.”
She stirred her coffee.
“Families are exhausting.”
“That may be the first thing we agree on completely.”
A reluctant smile reached her mouth.
It disappeared.
“My father is dying.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what I am supposed to feel.”
“You don’t owe anyone the correct emotion.”
She looked at him.
The sentence was so unlike the Gabriel she had known at work that it almost hurt.
“You’re getting better at this.”
“At what?”
“Not telling me what to do.”
“I dislike it.”
“I can tell.”
His mouth moved slightly.
Then Norah’s phone buzzed.
A text.
Unknown number.
A photograph of Daniel seated in a chair.
Behind him, a window overlooked water.
Below it:
COME WITHOUT ROSSI. YOUR FATHER WANTS TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH.
An address followed.
Norah turned the screen toward Gabriel.
He read it.
“You are not going alone.”
“There it is.”
“Norah.”
“I know.”
She stared at the photograph.
“Can you trace it?”
“Probably.”
“I want to go.”
Gabriel was silent.
“I need to see him.”
“I know.”
“And if your people surround the building, whoever has him may panic.”
“I know.”
“Then what?”
Gabriel pulled a small object from his pocket and placed it on the table.
A coin-sized emergency beacon.
“You go in.”
Norah looked at him.
“I wait far enough away that no one sees me.”
“You hate this plan.”
“Deeply.”
“And you’ll let me choose it?”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
For the first time, Norah reached across the table on purpose.
She placed her fingers over his hand.
“Thank you.”
Gabriel looked down at them.
Neither moved.
The moment lasted only a few seconds.
It was enough.
The address led to a house on Lake Michigan north of the city.
Not a warehouse.
Not a criminal hideout.
A cedar-sided home surrounded by bare trees.
Norah entered alone.
Daniel sat in the living room.
No ropes.
No guards.
No Isabella.
No Marco.
Just her father beside a fireplace, thinner than he had looked through the federal glass.
“Nori.”
She closed the door behind her.
“Are you being held here?”
“No.”
“Then why the photograph?”
“To make sure you came.”
Anger rose instantly.
“So another trick.”
“Yes.”
He did not defend it.
Norah remained standing.
“Cancer?”
“Pancreatic.”
“How long?”
“Maybe less than six months now.”
She looked away.
He coughed into a handkerchief.
She saw blood.
Something inside her broke despite everything.
Daniel noticed.
“I don’t deserve your pity.”
“Good, because this isn’t pity.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded.
“That makes sense.”
Norah sat across from him.
“Tell me why you accused Gabriel of Victor’s murder when your ledger says Ezra did it.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Because I needed pressure.”
“You lied to federal investigators?”
“I gave them evidence of the call and let them draw conclusions.”
“That is a very accountant way to describe lying.”
A small smile.
She did not return it.
“Why pressure Gabriel?”
“To force open Rossi Holdings.”
“Why?”
“Because Vittorio is alive.”
Norah leaned forward.
“You knew?”
“For nine years.”
“And Gabriel didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Vittorio wanted him watched, not warned.”
Norah’s stomach tightened.
“Who was watching him?”
Daniel looked at her.
“You.”
She recoiled.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“Then stop saying it like I helped.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Who else?”
“Isabella. Marco. Ezra sometimes, for his own reasons. Me.”
Norah shook her head.
“This family has spent twenty years standing behind curtains watching one another.”
Daniel coughed again.
Then he reached beneath the chair and lifted a small metal case.
Inside was a voice recorder.
“The night Sofia Bell died, she recorded more than Marco discussing the bomb.”
Norah stared.
“What else?”
“Vittorio telling Elena that if Gabriel survived, they would use the bombing to bind him closer to the family.”
Norah felt sick.
“His own father knew?”
“He knew there was a plan. He claims he never approved the bomb itself.”
“But he was willing to use it.”
“Yes.”
“And Elena?”
“She learned too late.”
Daniel looked toward the fire.
“She told me to recover the tape before Marco did.”
“You followed Sofia.”
“Yes.”
His voice changed.
“She was frightened. I told her I only wanted the recorder. She ran.”
Norah said nothing.
“A car hit her. I could have called an ambulance immediately.”
“But you took the tape.”
“Yes.”
“How long did you wait?”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“Seven minutes.”
Norah looked at him.
Seven minutes.
A human life reduced to seven minutes of cowardice.
“Was she alive?”
“Yes.”
The word came out broken.
Norah stood.
Daniel did not ask her to stay.
At the door, she turned.
“Why give me the recorder now?”
“Because I don’t want to die as the man who kept it.”
“That doesn’t make you the man who saved her.”
“I know.”
She picked up the metal case.
Then headlights swept across the windows.
Several vehicles.
Daniel stood too quickly and nearly fell.
“No.”
“What?”
“I didn’t call anyone.”
Norah pressed the emergency beacon in her pocket.
Outside, doors slammed.
A woman’s voice called through a loudspeaker.
“Daniel, send Norah out.”
Isabella.
Daniel looked toward the back door.
Norah grabbed his arm.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Then move.”
They made it three steps before a second voice came from the hallway behind them.
Gabriel’s.
“Don’t.”
Norah spun.
He stood there unarmed.
She stared.
“How did you get inside?”
“Kitchen.”
“I told you to wait.”
“I did.”
“For how long?”
“Long enough to see Marco arrive.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“Marco?”
Gabriel looked toward the front windows.
“Isabella didn’t come alone.”
Then a gunshot shattered the glass.
Daniel collapsed.
Norah screamed his name.
May you like
But when she knelt beside him, the blood was not coming from her father.
It was spreading across Gabriel’s white shirt.
