Harbor Vale
Chapter 07 - Harbor Vale
Darkness changed people.
Some panicked. Some shouted. Some became smaller versions of themselves.
Alfred became still.
So did Lev.
Mina, whose first instinct was to count exits, gripped the edge of the table and forced herself to breathe through the sharp rise of nausea and fear.
“Back room,” Alfred said.
“No,” Mina whispered. “The microfilm.”
“Lev has it.”
She had not seen him move.
Agnes descended the stairs with a flashlight in one hand and a metal soup ladle in the other.
“What is that for?” Mina asked.
“Faith is useful,” Agnes said. “So is reach.”
Despite the fear clawing through her, Mina almost smiled.
Voices sounded above them. Low. Male. Not rushing. That frightened her more. Men who barged in were amateurs. Men who entered calmly believed time belonged to them.
Alfred looked toward the stairs.
“Mina, you go with Agnes.”
“No.”
His eyes cut to hers.
The old Alfred would have ordered.
This one swallowed the command. She saw it cost him.
“Please,” he said.
That word, in his mouth, undid something.
Agnes took Mina’s arm.
“This is not a debate hall.”
They moved through a narrow basement door into a pantry that smelled of flour and old canned tomatoes. The wall at the back opened into a service corridor Agnes claimed had been used during Prohibition, because apparently every building in Boston kept a criminal past tucked somewhere under the plumbing.
Behind them, footsteps crossed the basement.
Then Carlo’s voice floated down.
“Alfred.”
Mina froze.
Alfred answered from the dark.
“Wrong church.”
Carlo laughed softly.
“You always did think jokes made you look less like your father.”
Agnes pushed Mina forward through the hidden corridor.
Mina moved because the child inside her needed movement more than pride.
At the corridor’s end, they emerged behind the kitchen of a neighboring parish hall. Lev met them there, breath controlled, coat damp from rain. He carried the microfilm inside a waterproof pouch.
“Where is Alfred?” Mina demanded.
“Buying us time.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one I have.”
A muffled pop sounded from the church.
Not a gunshot, Mina told herself.
Please not a gunshot.
Lev’s face did not change, but his hand tightened.
Then Alfred appeared through the corridor door.
Alive.
Blood at his temple.
Mina moved before she could stop herself.
“What happened?”
“Carlo never could hit straight in the dark.”
“That is not funny.”
“No,” he said, looking at her hand on his sleeve. “It isn’t.”
For a moment, they simply stood there.
No penthouse. No office. No organization.
Just a man with blood on his face and a woman who had nearly left the state with his child.
Then Alfred turned to Lev.
“Take us to the laundry.”
Mina blinked.
“The what?”
“My grandfather’s old laundry.”
“Of course your family has an old laundry.”
“It’s clean now.”
“That word concerns me in this context.”
Alfred almost smiled.
Almost.
The laundry stood in South Boston between a closed bakery and a wholesale seafood office. Its front windows were papered over, but the rear entrance opened to a hidden garage. Inside, industrial washers sat silent along the walls like enormous sleeping animals.
Lucia was already there.
Mina stopped when she saw her.
Lucia looked at Alfred’s bleeding temple, then at Mina.
“I see subtlety failed.”
“Carlo found the church,” Alfred said.
Lucia’s face tightened.
“Then someone told him.”
Everyone looked at Lev.
Lev did not flinch.
“I told no one.”
Agnes stepped from behind Mina and glared at Lucia.
“Before you accuse the loyal dog, inspect the woman who still thinks she controls the leash.”
Lucia’s eyes flashed.
“Do not speak to me like—”
“Like what? A woman who forgot that survival is not the same thing as wisdom?”
Silence.
Alfred looked at his mother.
“Carlo knew too much.”
Lucia turned away.
That was when Mina saw it.
Not guilt.
Fear.
Lucia Costello was afraid.
“Lucia,” Mina said softly. “Who is Harbor Vale?”
Lucia closed her eyes.
The whole laundry seemed to hold its breath.
When she opened them, she looked suddenly older.
“Harbor Vale was not a company,” she said.
Alfred stepped closer.
“What was it?”
“A ward at St. Brigid’s,” Lucia said. “Where women connected to men like your father went when they were inconveniently pregnant.”
Mina felt the blood leave her hands.
Alfred’s voice roughened.
“What women?”
Lucia looked at Mina.
“Your father found records. Names. Children. Payments. He tried to give them to me.”
Mina’s mouth went dry.
“My father died of a heart attack.”
“No,” Lucia said quietly.
May you like
The word landed like a door locking.
“No, he didn’t.”
