Chương 3 - THE PHOTOGRAPHERS
Rafe Costello arrived at the Bellamy at 9:34 p.m.
He did not use the front entrance.
He did not bring an army.
He came through the kitchen with rain on his shoulders and anger held so tightly inside him that the cooks stopped moving when he passed.
June saw him the moment he entered room 1108.
For one second, every question disappeared.
She crossed the room before she could think about it.
Rafe caught her by the arms.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did anyone touch you?”
“No.”
His eyes moved over her face, her shoulders, her hands, checking for injuries as if the answer from her mouth could not be trusted until his own eyes confirmed it.
Then he saw Julian Cross.
The temperature in the room changed.
Julian leaned against the desk, arms folded.
“You must be the husband.”
Rafe looked at him once.
“That must be exhausting.”
Julian blinked.
June almost laughed despite herself.
Then Rafe noticed Elena.
His expression sharpened.
“Why is she here?”
Elena stood near the window, shaking.
June stepped between them without meaning to.
“She came to warn me.”
“About what?”
June’s hand moved instinctively toward her stomach.
Rafe saw it.
He saw everything.
The change in his face was so small most people would have missed it.
June did not.
“Rafe,” she said.
He stared at her hand.
Then at her eyes.
The room disappeared for both of them.
“I was going to tell you last night,” June said.
No one moved.
Rafe’s voice came out low.
“Tell me what?”
She had imagined this moment under chandeliers, in their bedroom, perhaps by the fireplace. She had imagined tears, surprise, a smile she had not seen in too long.
Instead she was standing in a hotel room beside a frightened maid, a famous actor, three armed men, and a film projector connected to twenty years of secrets.
“Six weeks,” she whispered.
Rafe said nothing.
June’s courage faltered.
“I’m pregnant.”
His face went completely still.
The dangerous stillness people feared.
Then he stepped forward and put one hand against the side of her face.
Not dramatically.
Not like a man in a movie.
Like someone afraid that if he moved too quickly, the moment might break.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
June’s eyes burned.
“Yes.”
“The baby?”
“The doctor said everything looks good.”
Rafe closed his eyes.
Only for a second.
When he opened them, something in him had changed.
Not softened.
Focused.
“Who else knows?”
June looked toward Elena.
“The clinic. Me. Elena saw the envelope.”
Elena stepped forward.
“I didn’t mean to read it, sir. I only saw the logo. I told Mrs. Halpern because she asked why Mrs. Costello seemed upset. Then Mr. Voss called me. He said Mrs. Halpern had mentioned it.”
Rafe’s gaze narrowed.
“What exactly did Voss ask?”
“He asked if Mrs. Costello was ill. I said no. Then he asked if the clinic was an obstetrics office.”
“And you answered?”
Elena began crying again.
“I didn’t. I swear. But he already knew.”
Rafe turned to Keane.
“Where is Voss now?”
“Penn Presbyterian. Shoulder wound. Not life-threatening.”
“And he says June ordered it?”
“Claims the shooter said, ‘Mrs. Costello sends her regards.’”
Julian gave a short laugh.
“That is almost insultingly theatrical.”
Rafe looked at him.
“For once, we agree.”
June watched her husband.
“You don’t believe Gabriel?”
“I believe Gabriel said it.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
His answer came quickly.
“I do not believe you ordered anyone killed.”
Something inside June loosened.
Then tightened again.
“Did your father know my mother?”
Rafe went still.
There it was.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
June felt the floor tilt beneath her.
“You knew.”
“June—”
“You knew.”
“I knew our families crossed paths years ago.”
“And you never told me?”
“I did not know how much.”
“Did you know about October fourteenth?”
His silence was answer enough.
June stepped back.
Julian looked between them.
“I think I’m starting to understand why someone wanted us in the same room.”
Rafe ignored him.
“June, we need to leave.”
“No. We need to talk.”
“We will.”
“When?”
“When I know you’re safe.”
“You always move the conversation one emergency into the future.”
His jaw tightened.
“Tonight there is an emergency.”
“There is always an emergency with you.”
The words hit harder than she intended.
Rafe stared at her.
June lowered her voice.
“I was going to tell you we were having a baby, and now I’m finding out my dead parents may be connected to your family and your lawyer is accusing me of attempted murder. If you say we’ll talk later, I swear I will scream loud enough for the lobby to hear me.”
Julian looked away politely.
Keane suddenly found the carpet fascinating.
Rafe exhaled.
“All right.”
He removed his coat.
Then, incredibly, he sat down.
“Twenty years ago,” he said, “my father discovered someone inside Costello Maritime was moving money through charitable foundations. He thought it was a rival family. Later he suspected someone closer.”
“Gabriel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was my father involved?”
“Your father was an outside accountant on one of the foundations.”
June’s breath caught.
“He found irregularities.”
“And died.”
Rafe’s eyes held hers.
“Yes.”
“Did your father have him killed?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be?”
“Because my father spent the last year of his life trying to prove who did.”
The room went silent.
Julian straightened.
“My father accused Costello Maritime.”
Rafe looked at him.
“Your father accused the company. He may have been right about the company and wrong about the person controlling it.”
June thought of Gabriel Voss on the old film.
“What happened to Salvatore?”
Rafe’s expression closed.
“He died before he finished.”
June knew that story. Salvatore Costello had been killed in what newspapers called a mob execution when Rafe was twenty-three. Three men had been convicted. Two later died in prison.
“But you kept investigating,” she said.
Rafe did not answer.
Her heart sank.
“That’s why you knew who I was before we met.”
Silence.
“Rafe.”
“Yes.”
Julian muttered, “There it is.”
June barely heard him.
“How long?”
“I knew your name before I met you.”
“You told me we met by accident at the Franklin Institute fundraiser.”
“We did meet there by accident.”
“But you knew me.”
“I knew of you.”
“That is not better.”
“No,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”
June turned away.
Three years of marriage rearranged themselves inside her memory.
The first conversation near the dinosaur exhibit. The coffee two days later. The cautious courtship. The proposal after eight months.
Had any of it been real?
Her phone buzzed again.
This time the message contained no threat.
Just one sentence.
ASK RAFE WHY HE REALLY MARRIED YOU.
June held the phone out.
Rafe read it.
His face went cold.
“Whoever is doing this wants you to doubt me.”
“Shouldn’t I?”
He looked at her.
June hated how much pain appeared in his eyes.
She hated even more that she still cared.
Before he could answer, Keane’s radio crackled.
“Movement downstairs.”
He listened.
Then swore.
“What?” Rafe asked.
“Press.”
“How many?”
“Too many.”
Julian checked his phone.
His face changed.
“Oh, that’s bad.”
He turned the screen toward them.
A celebrity gossip account had posted a photograph taken less than three minutes earlier.
Julian Cross entering the Bellamy Hotel.
The caption read:
MOVIE KING’S SECRET MIDNIGHT MEETING — MARRIED PHILLY SOCIALITE INVOLVED?
June stared.
“That picture was taken before Rafe arrived.”
Keane nodded.
“Someone called them.”
Rafe’s eyes hardened.
“The room was never the trap.”
June understood.
“The exit is.”
Exactly.
Whoever had built this wanted a photograph of June leaving the Bellamy with Julian Cross.
A story powerful enough to humiliate Rafe publicly.
A story explosive enough to distract from everything else.
Julian walked to the window.
“Front entrance is filling.”
Keane checked another feed.
“Garage too.”
June looked at Rafe.
“What do we do?”
Everyone expected him to answer like the man Philadelphia feared.
A threat.
A command.
A call that made cameras disappear.
Instead Rafe looked at the clock.
“Nothing.”
Keane frowned.
“Boss?”
“We wait.”
“For what?” June asked.
“For whoever arranged this to get impatient.”
Rafe crossed to the room-service phone.
He picked it up.
“Yes,” he said calmly. “This is room 1108. I’d like breakfast sent at five.”
June stared at him.
Julian stared too.
Rafe continued.
“Coffee. Eggs. Toast. Enough for four.”
He hung up.
“What are you doing?” June asked.
Rafe looked toward the window, where the city glittered below them.
“Changing the ending.”
At 5:07 the next morning, June Costello walked barefoot out of the Bellamy carrying her heels in one hand.
Three cameras were already waiting.
At 5:12, Julian Cross appeared at an eleventh-floor window behind her.
By 5:20, every powerful man in Philadelphia was waiting for Rafe Costello to order someone dead.
Rafe Costello was upstairs eating eggs.
He looked at Keane and asked only one question.
“Who called the photographers?”
Keane put a printed phone record beside his plate.
Rafe read the name.
For the first time that morning, his expression changed.
The call had come from a number registered to Costello House.
Not the mansion.
The family’s private office downtown.
May you like
And the extension belonged to Gabriel Voss.
END OF CHAPTER 3
