Chapter 7 - The Midnight Visitor
At 2:14 a.m., the snow stopped, leaving the grounds of the Caruso estate wrapped in a heavy, blinding white blanket that absorbed every sound.
Grace couldn’t sleep.
She sat propped up against three pillows in the narrow guesthouse bed, her hand resting on her stomach while the digital clock on the nightstand flickered its red numbers against the dark wall.
A soft tap came at the front door.
Not the heavy knock of Marco Vitali, but something lighter—almost hesitant—like a branch scraping against the glass.
Grace pulled her wool robe around her shoulders, slid her feet into her fleece-lined slippers, and crossed the cold floor. When she turned the deadbolt and pulled the door open six inches, the porch light caught the silver hair of the man standing on the mat.
Vincent Caruso was not wearing his overcoat. He wore a simple black turtleneck and dark trousers, his hands tucked into his pockets as if he had just walked out of his study to check the weather.
“Mr. Caruso?” Grace whispered, her voice tight with surprise. “Is something wrong? Is the baby—?”
“The baby is fine,” Vincent said. His voice was lower now, stripped of the public steel he used in hospitals and boardrooms. “I came to see if the bed was warm enough.”
Grace blinked. “It’s... it’s fine. It’s better than the sofa bed I had on 4th Street.”
Vincent looked past her into the small, warm room, his eyes lingering for a second on her father’s photograph by the pitcher.
“Your father’s name was Robert,” Vincent said.
Grace went cold. “How do you know that?”
“He fixed the transmission on my car in 1998,” Vincent said, stepping one inch closer, though he didn’t cross the threshold. “Behind the bakery on South Street. He didn’t charge me for the gasket because he said my muffler sounded like a dying cow.”
Grace let out a small, wet sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. “That sounds like him. He always said he could fix anything except for bad luck.”
“He was wrong about that,” Vincent said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, heavy silver key on a plain iron ring and set it on the small table by the door. “That’s for the back gate by the river. If you want to walk in the morning when the snow is clean, use that one. The front gate has too many people watching.”
Grace looked down at the key, then up at his face. The scar under his jaw looked dark in the shadows of the porch light.
“Why are you doing this, Mr. Caruso?” she asked, her voice dropping to a tremor she couldn't control. “You don’t owe me anything. You don’t even know me.”
Vincent looked at her for a long time—so long that the wind from the river blew a flurry of snow across the threshold between them.
May you like
“I knew your grandfather,” Vincent said quietly. “And I know what it’s like to live in a city where people like the Vances think they own the air you’re breathing.”
He turned around before she could answer, his boots crunching softly in the fresh snow as he walked back down the path toward the dark mass of the main house.
