Chapter 9 - The Woman in the Archive Room
The Boston Public Library did not look like a battlefield.
It looked like marble staircases, green lamps, and tourists whispering beneath painted ceilings. It smelled faintly of paper, raincoats, and old heating systems. Paige had always loved places like this. Libraries had rules that made sense. Books lived where they were supposed to live. Records kept their dates. Nobody broke a man’s hand for touching the wrong shelf.
Still, Roman’s security team entered as if they were walking into hostile territory.
Paige wore jeans, a black sweater, and a wool coat borrowed from Luca’s sister. Roman walked beside her in a dark overcoat, his presence drawing glances even from people who had no idea who he was. Some men carried danger loudly. Roman carried it like a tailored garment.
They met the archive clerk in a basement room lined with microfilm cabinets.
Her name was Marion Bell, and she looked at Roman over half-moon glasses with absolutely no fear.
“No weapons near the scanners,” she said.
Luca blinked.
Roman’s mouth twitched. “Of course.”
Marion turned to Paige. “You’re the one who called about retrieval logs.”
“Yes. I’m looking for access records tied to this article.”
Paige slid the photocopy across the desk.
Marion studied the code, typed into a terminal that looked old enough to vote, and frowned.
“This file was accessed three times in the last month.”
Roman leaned forward. “By whom?”
“I can’t release patron names without a subpoena.”
Roman looked at her.
Marion looked back.
Paige stepped in quickly. “We’re not asking for names. Just whether the access came from public terminals or institutional credentials.”
Marion considered that. “Institutional.”
“Which institution?”
Another pause.
Then Marion sighed. “Suffolk County Probate Archive.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
Paige turned to him. “Why would probate pull an article about your family’s death?”
Roman was already reaching for his phone. “Because my father’s sealed estate records are stored there.”
Marion looked between them. “If you’re digging into sealed records, be careful. People seal things for two reasons. Privacy or poison.”
Paige liked her instantly.
At Suffolk Probate, they hit a wall.
A polite wall in a gray suit.
The clerk informed them that Anthony Gallow’s supplemental estate filings had been sealed by court order five years earlier. Only authorized family counsel could request review.
“Declan,” Paige said.
Roman’s jaw worked. “He’s been inside the file.”
“Or someone using his credentials.”
They returned to Gallow Tower with more questions than answers. By the time they reached Paige’s temporary Beacon Hill apartment that evening, the rain had turned to sleet. Roman insisted on walking her inside himself.
The garden unit was small but beautiful, with exposed brick, warm lamps, and a narrow window looking onto a private courtyard. For the first time in two days, Paige felt something close to safe.
Roman stood near the doorway, hesitant.
That was new.
“You don’t have to hover,” she said.
“I’m not hovering.”
“You are absolutely hovering.”
“I’m assessing vulnerabilities.”
“You’re standing in my borrowed kitchen glaring at a toaster.”
“The toaster is near a window.”
Despite everything, Paige laughed.
The sound softened him.
For a moment, they were not hunting a ledger. They were just two exhausted people in a warm room while sleet tapped against the glass.
Roman looked at her wrist brace. “Does it hurt?”
“Less than before.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It aches when I’m tired.”
“You should rest.”
“So should you.”
“I rest.”
“You brood in expensive chairs.”
His smile was small and real.
Then the lights went out.
Complete darkness swallowed the apartment.
Roman moved immediately, pulling Paige behind him with one arm while reaching for his phone with the other. Emergency lights from the courtyard cast pale bars through the window.
His phone had no signal.
Paige’s didn’t either.
Jammed.
A knock sounded at the door.
Three slow taps.
Roman put a finger to his lips.
Another knock.
Then a woman’s voice said, “Miss Turner? My name is Helen Gallow. I knew Roman’s mother.”
Roman froze.
Paige felt it through his body.
She whispered, “Who is Helen Gallow?”
He did not answer.
The woman outside spoke again, softer now.
“I have the first half of the Widow Ledger. And if Declan finds me before you open this door, both halves die with me.”
Roman stared at the door.
Luca was outside in the car. The signal was dead. The hallway camera had gone offline with the lights.
This was either the break they needed or the trap Declan had promised.
Paige reached for the lamp on the side table and removed the heavy metal base.
Roman glanced at it.
She whispered, “What? You get a gun. I get a lamp.”
Even in the dark, she saw his expression flicker.
Then he opened the door.
A woman in her sixties stood in the hallway, soaked from the sleet, clutching a leather document tube against her chest. She had elegant bones, frightened eyes, and a faded scar along her jaw.
Roman’s voice came out rough.
“Aunt Helen?”
The woman looked at him with grief so old it had become part of her face.
“Hello, Roman.”
Before anyone could move, the stairwell door behind her opened.
A man stepped out holding a suppressed pistol.
Paige did not think.
She swung the lamp.
The metal base hit the man’s wrist. The pistol clattered across the floor. Roman lunged past Helen, slammed the attacker into the brick wall, and Luca burst through the building entrance seconds later with two guards behind him.
It was over in less than a minute.
But Helen was shaking so badly Paige had to guide her into a chair.
Roman knelt in front of her.
“You disappeared after the funeral,” he said.
Helen’s eyes filled. “Because Declan told me if I came near you, he would finish what the tunnel explosion started.”
She handed him the leather tube.
“Your mother knew,” Helen whispered. “She knew your father was keeping records. She stole half before she died.”
Roman’s hand tightened around the tube.
Paige watched him open it.
Inside were old bank statements, handwritten codes, photographs, and one torn sheet with names arranged in two columns.
May you like
At the top, written in Anthony Gallow’s hand, were three words:
IF I DIE.
