Chapter 2 - The View from the Floorboards
The narrow passage smelled of damp stone, ninety-year-old pine, and cold cellar air. Dust hung thick in the beam of Norah’s penlight, floating around them like powdered bone.
Declan kept his hand on the butt of his Glock, his steps matching hers. Every muscle in his shoulders coiled tight. He knew every blueprint of the Gallagher estate, or at least he thought he did. His father had shown him the main vaults, the wine cellars, the armored panic room behind the billiard parlor. But he had never known these walls ran hollow behind the grand ballroom and climbed all the way to the attic rafters.
Norah climbed a rusted iron maintenance ladder without hesitation. She climbed with a lean, fluid grace, tucking the hem of her black uniform skirt into her apron band so it wouldn’t catch on the rungs.
“Two more yards,” she whispered down, barely louder than the draft whistling between the masonry. “Step on the crossbeams. If you tread on the lath, the plaster in the hallway ceiling will crack, and Foley’s men will hear it.”
Declan stopped on the landing just behind her. His height made the crawl space suffocating, his broad shoulders brushing the rough stud walls. “How do you know Liam’s men are up here?”
Norah didn’t answer with words. She crouched on an unfinished oak joist and gently pulled aside a loose panel of decorative cedar paneling that functioned as an air intake for the ventilation shaft.
A sliver of warm, golden light cut across her pale face.
Declan leaned over her shoulder. The scent of vanilla soap and sharp gun oil radiated from her. He looked through the grate directly into his private study.
The sight made his blood drop below freezing.
The study was supposed to be empty until midnight. Instead, four men in black tactical vests stood near the heavy velvet draperies by the window. They weren't Moretti soldiers. Declan recognized three of them instantly: Tommy Vance, Ricky Cruz, and Miller—all soldiers on his own payroll, men who had taken his family's blood oath in St. Jude’s rectory. They held submachine guns equipped with thick suppressors, their muzzles pointed toward the door.
Near the corner bar, kneeling on the floor, was Liam Foley.
Liam had pulled back the edge of the antique red-and-gold Moroccan rug Declan had bought in Tangier five years ago. Beneath it, taped precisely where Declan’s left foot always rested while pouring his Macallan, sat an olive-drab brick of plastic explosive wired to a flat pressure switch.
Liam stood up, smoothed down the lapels of his custom charcoal suit, and carefully nudged the rug back into place with the polished toe of his leather shoe.
“Perfect,” Liam said, his voice carrying clearly up through the ventilation vent. “He takes two steps toward the decanter, his weight trips the primary charge, and Miller finishes whatever’s left of him. We blame Moretti’s vanguard. By two in the morning, the commission will have no choice but to name me interim boss to lead the retaliation.”
Tommy Vance shifted his weight, his face slick with sweat. “What about the maid? Foley, the girl who spilled the drink on him downstairs—Cruz said she led him toward the kitchen pantry.”
Liam waved a dismissive, manicured hand. “She’s nobody. A seasonal girl from the South Side agency. If Declan went down to yell at the kitchen staff, it buys us ten minutes. If she saw anything she shouldn't have, Cruz will put two in her chest before sunrise. Now shut your mouths and take your positions.”
Up in the darkness, Declan’s fingers closed so hard around his Glock that his knuckles cracked. The urge to kick through the vent, drop into the room, and empty his magazine into Liam’s skull roared in his ears. Liam was his godfather’s nephew. They had shared Sunday dinners at his mother’s table since they were eight years old.
A cold hand touched his wrist.
Declan looked down. Norah was staring up at him, shaking her head with fierce, silent urgency. Her dark eyes were steady, pleading without weakness.
Not yet, her eyes said.
She pointed toward a deeper branch of the shaft that sloped downward toward the mansion’s eastern wing, away from the study.
Declan forced himself to breathe through his nose, swallowing the taste of bile and pure venom. He nodded once.
They backed away from the grate on silent feet, easing the cedar panel into its grooves. Norah led him through a second hidden door, down a cramped wooden stairwell that twisted past the library chimneys, and finally shoved open a deadbolted panel concealed behind the linen cabinets of the second-floor nursery wing—an abandoned section of the estate Declan hadn’t set foot in since his mother passed away.
Norah shut the panel and threw the brass bolt.
Declan grabbed her lapel, spinning her around against the linen press, though he checked his strength this time. The air between them was electric with shock and shared danger.
“You’re no agency maid,” Declan rasped, his voice raw. “You knew the layout, you knew the plan, and you knew Liam was setting me up before I did. Who the hell are you?”
Norah took a slow breath, brushing his fingers off her collar with quiet dignity. She reached into the pocket of her maid’s apron. Declan’s thumb instantly pulled back the hammer of his Glock.
“Easy, Mr. Gallagher,” she whispered.
She didn't draw a weapon.
Instead, she pulled out a worn, heavy silver pocket watch on a broken chain.
Declan’s breath hitched.
The watch was an antique pocket chronometer with an engraved Celtic cross on its front casing. On the back, faint but legible beneath decades of wear, were the initials S.G.
It had belonged to his father, Sean Gallagher. It was the watch his father had worn every day until the night he died of a sudden, supposed heart failure in this very house six years ago.
“Where did you get that?” Declan demanded, his voice trembling for the first time in his life. “That watch was buried with my father.”
Norah looked straight into his eyes, her chin lifting slightly.
“No, it wasn't,” Norah said softly. “Because Sean Gallagher didn’t die of a heart attack, Declan. And my mother didn’t commit suicide in the Chicago River three days later. They were murdered together—and the man who paid for it was your father’s own brother.”
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Declan’s vision went white. “My Uncle Martin?”
“Listen to me,” Norah whispered, stepping closer as the grandfather clock down the hall chimed the half-hour. “Liam Foley is just the dog on the leash. Your uncle is the one holding the chain. And right now, there’s an eight-year-old girl locked in the carriage house who knows the whole truth—because she saw them do it.”
