Chapter 6 - THE LEDGER BENEATH THE FLOOR
They opened Thomas Vale's grave at 10:43 p.m.
Norah stood beneath a black umbrella while Victor and Declan worked in silence.
Gabriel remained beside her.
He had refused the umbrella.
Rain darkened his hair and the shoulders of his coat.
He looked pale beneath the cemetery lamps.
Norah knew his wound was hurting him.
He would rather bleed than admit it.
She understood that kind of stubbornness because she had inherited a version of it.
The first strike of the shovel against the coffin made her flinch.
Gabriel noticed.
"We can stop."
Norah shook her head.
"No."
"They may already have your mother at the pier."
"That is exactly why we cannot stop."
Victor cleared the last layer of soil.
The coffin had weathered but remained intact.
He looked up at Norah.
"You don't have to watch."
"Open it."
The lid rose with a wet groan.
Time collapsed.
For one horrible second, Norah was twenty-two again.
Her mother was gripping her hand inside a funeral chapel.
People were saying words she could not hear.
Her father's face looked too still.
The world had become a room she wanted to escape and could not.
Gabriel's hand touched the small of her back.
Not possessive.
Not demanding.
Simply there.
Norah breathed.
Victor reached inside the coffin carefully.
The calculator rested where her mother had placed it near Thomas's right hand.
Black plastic.
Worn keys.
The broken solar strip exactly as Norah remembered.
Victor placed it in a sealed evidence bag.
Norah almost laughed at the absurdity of using an evidence bag during grave robbery.
Then she saw the back panel.
A screw was missing.
"Open it."
Victor removed the remaining screws.
The battery compartment held no batteries.
Inside was a tiny brass key.
And beneath it, folded into plastic, a strip of paper.
Norah took the paper.
Her father's handwriting covered one side.
Only four words.
NORA KNOWS THE FIRST NUMBER.
Gabriel looked at her.
"Nora?"
"He called me Nora when I was little."
"What's the first number?"
Norah had no idea.
Then she turned the strip over.
A sequence had been written on the back.
14 - 7 - 3 - 11 - 2.
She stared.
"Fourteen."
Declan climbed out of the grave.
"The markup."
"Maybe."
Norah touched the first number.
Fourteen had followed them everywhere.
Invoices.
Payments.
Threats.
It could not be coincidence.
"What happens if we take the key to Pier Nine?" Victor asked.
Gabriel looked toward the cemetery road.
"We find out who wants it."
Declan shook his head.
"Or we die."
"Also informative."
"You always this cheerful after being shot?"
"Only around you."
Norah folded the paper.
"We have seventy-one minutes until midnight."
"Your mother first," Gabriel said.
They returned the coffin lid and covered the grave as carefully as time allowed.
Norah promised her father silently that she would come back.
Then they drove toward the river.
Pier Nine appeared through rain and industrial haze like the skeleton of a dead city.
Cranes stood motionless against the clouds.
Broken windows stared across the water.
One warehouse still had power.
A row of lights burned along its roof.
"Too bright," Victor said.
"They want us to see it."
Gabriel sat in the back with Norah.
Declan drove.
Victor checked weapons.
"Main gate has six men," Victor said.
"Two visible cameras."
Declan glanced at the mirror.
"There will be more inside."
"River side?"
"Three vehicles."
"Maintenance tunnel?"
Victor shook his head.
"Collapsed entrance."
Norah looked at the warehouse.
"What if we do exactly what they asked?"
Three men turned toward her.
"No," Gabriel said.
"You haven't heard the plan."
"Still no."
"They want me alive."
"That is not comforting."
"It is useful."
She held up the brass key.
"They believe I can open the ledger."
Declan understood first.
"You walk in with the key."
"Yes."
Gabriel's expression became dangerous.
"No."
Norah turned to him.
"If we attack from outside, my mother becomes a shield."
"If you walk inside, you become one too."
"Then you need to make sure I am not alone for long."
He stared at her.
"You are not trained for this."
"Neither was my father."
The words silenced him.
Norah lowered her voice.
"He tried to stop this eleven years ago."
"And they killed him."
"Which is why I know what happens if nobody finishes it."
Gabriel looked away toward the warehouse.
Norah saw the conflict in him.
He did not like relying on people he could not control.
He liked even less the idea of using her as bait.
But he also understood leverage.
Finally, he took a small transmitter from Victor.
"In your collar."
Norah let him clip it inside her coat.
His fingers brushed the side of her neck.
The contact was brief.
Still, her breathing changed.
Gabriel noticed.
His eyes lifted to hers.
Neither of them said anything about it.
"If you hear me say red ledger," Norah said, "it means my mother is not in the room."
Victor nodded.
"If you say blue ledger?"
"She's there."
Gabriel checked the transmitter.
"If you say nothing for more than sixty seconds, we come in."
"Even if that gets me shot?"
"Especially then."
At 11:58 p.m., Norah walked through the main gate alone.
A man in a dark raincoat searched her.
He found no weapon.
He did not find the transmitter.
"Key."
She held up the brass key.
He did not take it.
"Walk."
Inside the warehouse, the concrete floor was cleaner than the exterior suggested.
Fresh electrical cables ran along the walls.
Security cameras tracked her movement.
At the center of the building stood a steel office structure with no windows.
The man led her inside.
Her mother sat in a chair under a fluorescent light.
Her wrists were tied.
A bruise darkened one cheek.
Norah's vision narrowed.
"Mom."
Margaret Vale lifted her head.
"I told you not to come."
Norah forced herself not to run to her.
"Blue ledger," she said.
The guard frowned.
"What?"
"My father called it that."
The lie came easily.
Somewhere outside, Gabriel now knew her mother was alive.
A door opened behind Norah.
Declan's dead soldier Rory Finch could not have entered.
Cal Mercer could not have entered.
Thomas Vale could not have entered.
The man who stepped into the room was alive.
And Norah knew him.
Luca Ferraro wore a charcoal suit beneath a raincoat.
Silver hair perfectly combed.
No weapon visible.
He looked exactly as he had the one time she met him in Gabriel's office.
Calm.
Courteous.
Almost paternal.
"Miss Vale."
Norah's pulse hammered.
"Luca."
He looked at her mother.
"I apologize for the roughness."
"Untie her."
"Soon."
"Gabriel trusted you."
Something passed through Luca's eyes.
"Gabriel trusts too few people."
"Apparently still too many."
Luca almost smiled.
"You sound like your father."
Norah's hands went cold.
"You knew him."
"Briefly."
"Did you kill him?"
Her mother's breath caught.
Luca's expression remained composed.
"No."
Norah believed nothing.
"Did you order it?"
"No."
"Then why am I here?"
Luca looked at the brass key.
"Because Thomas left something unfinished."
He gestured toward another door.
"Bring the key."
Norah did not move.
"My mother comes with me."
"No."
"Then the key stays in my hand."
Luca studied her.
"You think stubbornness is leverage."
"Tonight it is."
He nodded to the guard.
Margaret's restraints were cut.
Norah went to her immediately.
Her mother grabbed her arms.
"You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you."
Luca opened the second door.
A narrow staircase descended beneath the warehouse.
They went down two levels.
The air became colder.
At the bottom was an old concrete records room.
Shelves had been removed.
The floor was bare except for a steel plate bolted into the center.
Luca pointed to a lock set into the plate.
"Your father installed that."
Norah stared.
"Why?"
"Because he was very afraid of someone."
"Who?"
Luca looked at her.
"The same person I am."
For the first time, Norah heard fear beneath his calm.
It changed everything.
"You're not the one behind this."
Luca's eyes sharpened.
"Open it."
Norah inserted the brass key.
It turned once.
Nothing happened.
A small numeric pad lit beside the lock.
Five spaces appeared.
Norah remembered the paper.
14 - 7 - 3 - 11 - 2.
NORA KNOWS THE FIRST NUMBER.
She entered fourteen.
The pad flashed red.
Luca's patience vanished.
"Think."
Norah looked at her mother.
Margaret was staring at the keypad.
"Mom?"
Her mother whispered.
"Your birthday."
"What?"
"Your father used to ask you a question every birthday."
Norah remembered.
How many candles should you really have?
It had been a private joke because Thomas always added one extra candle for luck.
Her seventh birthday had eight.
Her fourteenth had fifteen.
The first number was not fourteen.
It was fifteen.
Norah entered 15 - 7 - 3 - 11 - 2.
The keypad turned green.
Steel locks released beneath their feet.
The floor plate lifted slowly.
Inside was not a paper ledger.
It was a black metal case.
Luca exhaled.
Norah reached down.
"Don't," he said.
She stopped.
He stepped forward and lifted the case himself.
A gunshot exploded upstairs.
Then another.
Luca's face changed.
Gabriel had come in.
The guard drew his weapon.
Norah shoved her mother behind the steel plate.
Luca grabbed the case.
"Move."
"You're not taking that."
He turned toward her.
For the first time, the kind old counselor disappeared completely.
"Miss Vale, if I wanted you dead, you would never have reached this room."
A burst of gunfire echoed down the stairs.
Luca leaned close.
"If Gabriel takes this ledger before he knows the truth, he will kill the wrong man."
"Who is the right man?"
Luca's eyes moved toward the staircase.
"Ask him why his father ordered your father followed the week before he died."
Norah froze.
The lights went out.
In the darkness, someone screamed.
May you like
Then the metal case disappeared from Luca's hands.
THE FOURTEEN PERCENT LEDGER
