Chapter 5 - WHAT THE BULLET MISSED
The bullet hit the wall beside the departure board and sent plaster into the cold air. Roman dropped behind a concrete bench, pulling Father Angelo down with him. Nathan had already grabbed Serena by the back of her coat and pushed her behind a steel support.
A second shot struck the ticket-window frame.
"Don't run toward the parking lot," Nathan warned. "That's where they expect us to go."
Roman heard the metallic slam of a service door. He could not see the shooter from his position, and for once he did not pretend certainty. He called emergency services and gave the dispatcher the terminal address, the number of people inside, and the fact that shots had been fired. Then he put the phone on speaker so everyone could hear that help was coming.
"The lower stairs lead to the old maintenance exit," Father Angelo said. "I used to bring food to the shelter they ran here."
Nathan looked at him. "Can you walk?"
"At my age, with enough complaining."
They moved in short intervals while the wind rattled loose boards overhead. Serena kept one hand against the priest's back. Nathan guided them toward the stairs. Roman stayed last, resisting the impulse to chase the person who had tried to kill them. His father had taught him that failing to answer an attack immediately invited another. But there were three unarmed people in front of him, and none needed a demonstration of courage.
At the foot of the stairs Father Angelo slipped. His knee struck the floor hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. Serena knelt beside him, and Nathan returned to help. Roman heard a footstep above the stairwell and raised his eyes.
A figure appeared behind frosted glass. A narrow rectangle of light from a phone illuminated a familiar profile.
Elias.
Roman froze. He had known his cousin since childhood. Elias had carried him on his shoulders at a neighborhood festival, taught him to drive, and stood beside him at Vittorio's grave. The shape of his face was as recognizable as Roman's own hand.
The figure looked down toward the stairs, then disappeared.
Roman could not tell whether Elias held the weapon. He did know his cousin had been there when someone shot at them, despite claiming earlier he was meeting a port manager in Providence.
By the time police arrived, the attacker was gone. An officer found cartridge casings near the office window and documented the damage. Roman gave his name, answered basic questions, and asked for counsel before discussing the wider criminal disputes. He did not order Luca to move the casings or erase footage. That old instinct rose quickly and left him ashamed.
Nathan refused transport to the hospital despite a cut across his forearm from flying glass. Serena insisted until he agreed to let a paramedic examine him. Father Angelo had bruised his knee, but no one had been shot.
"Why did you call the police?" Nathan asked as the ambulance lights painted the wall blue.
"Because someone tried to murder us."
"You used to solve that yourself."
Roman looked at the shattered terminal. "It hasn't worked very well."
At the police station, a detective named Olivia Keene interviewed Serena and Nathan separately. Nathan supplied copies of documents he'd brought to the meeting. Roman saw him hesitate over the names and recognized a fear he had often exploited in others: the fear that honesty would put someone you loved in danger.
On the drive home, Luca asked what he'd seen through the stairwell glass.
"Elias," Roman answered.
Luca's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Then we know."
"We know he was there. We don't know whether he fired. Tell Mara what I saw, exactly."
"Are you protecting him?"
Roman watched snow gather on the windshield. "I protected him for years by refusing to look. I won't protect him now by saying more than I know."
Meanwhile Clara sat at Rose's kitchen table with Naomi Chen. A photographer's contact sheet lay between them. Naomi had arranged for a specialist to recover data from Tomas's old recorder, and the specialist found three intact messages. Most were shopping reminders, descriptions of Ellie's birthday plans, and a half-finished list of repairs around the apartment. Then the final recording changed tone.
"If something happens to me," Tomas's voice said, "check the place where she measured the sun. I don't have enough time to explain, Clara. I love you. I love our girl. Please don't let them tell her I went away willingly."
Clara had to leave the room after hearing the last sentence. When she returned, Naomi had stopped the recording.
"Where she measured the sun," Naomi repeated. "Does that mean anything?"
Clara closed her eyes. Ellie had once been obsessed with how far shadows stretched across the yard. Tomas painted numbers on the red shed wall so she could measure the afternoon sun with a ruler. Their daughter called it her sunshine wall. After the accident Clara hadn't been able to look at it.
"The shed," she whispered.
"We can ask investigators to examine it," Naomi said.
"The property was sold."
"Then we seek permission from its owner. We don't trespass, and we document what we find."
Clara nodded. She appreciated that Naomi spoke about proof as though it could belong to someone other than the powerful families fighting over it.
That evening Ellie asked why her mother had been crying. Clara sat beside her on the sofa.
"I heard Daddy's voice on an old recording," she said. "It reminded me how much I miss him."
Ellie turned Miss Clementine faceup. "Do you want to hear something he used to sing?"
"Always."
Ellie hummed a little tune with no consistent rhythm. It was the sound Tomas made while tying his shoes. Clara began to cry again, but this time she laughed as well. She had feared that telling Ellie about the investigation would burden her. Instead she realized that children already lived with the losses adults kept quiet about.
"You can ask me questions about Daddy," she said. "Even questions I don't know how to answer."
Ellie thought for a moment. "Was he a brave person?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes he was frightened."
"Can people be both?"
"Most of the people worth remembering are."
Roman spent the next morning with Mara, reviewing what he knew about his father's final week. Vittorio had planned a meeting with a federal investigator. Roman remembered being angry about it, convinced his father was surrendering the family. The night before the bombing, they'd argued. Vittorio told him a man could spend a lifetime building walls and discover too late that he had built a prison around his own children.
Roman had never understood the warning. He wondered now whether his father had been trying to end the very trade that made the family rich.
Mara interrupted his thoughts. "There's a complication. The state and federal prosecutors will want to examine your involvement in the warehouse operations, too."
"They should."
"You might lose your freedom."
"I know."
"Don't say that casually. Look at me and understand it."
Roman met her eyes. He had sent men to collect illegal payments. He had signed transactions he knew concealed criminal profit. He had tolerated violence while persuading himself his own restrictions made him better than the men he opposed. Finding a murderer would not erase those decisions.
"I understand," he said.
Mara nodded once. "Then I'll arrange an initial meeting with prosecutors. It will be difficult."
"Good."
"Difficulty is not redemption, Roman. It's just difficulty. What you do with it matters."
That afternoon, Detective Keene called. The police had recovered a security image showing Elias entering the ferry terminal thirty minutes before the shooting. He was accompanied by Beatrice Hale. She was alive, unrestrained in the photograph, and walking under her own power. But the image also showed a man behind them whose hand rested firmly on Beatrice's shoulder.
The man was Marco Valente.
Serena's father.
Roman looked at the three faces and felt an old certainty collapse. He had believed the two families were enemies separated by blood and history. The photograph showed men who could stand together when it suited them, even if their children were still being taught to hate.
His phone rang again before he could call Serena. Clara was on the line.
"Naomi says the new owner will let investigators examine our old shed tomorrow," she said. "I haven't told Ellie why. But she remembered something about the sunshine wall."
"You don't have to tell me," Roman said. "Give the information directly to your lawyer."
"I'm calling because I need you to hear this. Ellie said Daddy used to tell her that the number seven wasn't the last number on the wall."
Roman sat up. "What did he mean?"
"She said he had painted an eight underneath a loose board. He told her it was for an extra day when the sun came back."
Seven raven keys. One door. The outside auditor's key. And a hidden eighth mark.
Clara's voice tightened. "Roman, what if Tomas left something behind that the people who killed him have been searching for ever since?"
May you like
He looked again at the photograph of Elias and Marco.
"Then," Roman said, "tomorrow may be the first time they realize they aren't the only people who know where to look."
