Chapter 2 - The Photograph in the Wallet
Clara did not take the phone.
For several seconds, she simply stared at Simon while rain rattled against the windows behind him.
Leonardo moved first.
"Put it on speaker."
Simon obeyed without arguing.
A faint hiss filled the alcove.
Then there was silence.
"Hello?" Clara said.
No answer came.
She looked at Leonardo.
He motioned for her to wait.
Finally, a distorted male voice spoke.
"Take off the ring."
Clara's heart slammed against her ribs.
"Who is this?"
"Take it off and leave it under the third bench in Union Station before midnight."
Leonardo leaned closer to the phone.
"You picked the wrong night to make demands."
The caller laughed quietly.
"Still pretending you protect people, Leo?"
Leonardo's face hardened.
Dante's hand tightened at his side.
Clara gripped the table edge.
"What do you know about Gabriel?"
The voice paused.
"More than his wife ever did."
The line went dead.
Clara stared at the phone.
The insult worked because it was probably true.
Leonardo took the receiver from Simon.
"Can you trace it?"
Simon looked helpless.
"It's a restaurant landline."
Dante was already pulling out his own phone.
"I'll have someone check the incoming exchange."
Clara shook her head.
"No."
Leonardo looked at her.
"No what?"
"No people checking exchanges."
"No men following me."
"No private cars."
"I am not stepping into whatever this is because a stranger used my dead husband's name."
Leonardo's gaze dropped to the ring.
"You already stepped into it three years ago."
Clara hated that he might be right.
She pulled the ring from her finger.
The clear thread Gabriel had wrapped around the inside caught briefly on her knuckle.
For the first time in years, the ring sat in her palm instead of on her hand.
The black stone reflected the chandelier like a square of night.
"What does it mean?"
Leonardo did not answer immediately.
He glanced toward Dante.
Dante gave a nearly invisible shake of his head.
Clara saw it.
"Do not do that."
"Do what?"
"Decide what I deserve to know while standing three feet from me."
Leonardo studied her for a moment.
Then he pulled out a chair.
"Sit down."
"I'm working."
"Not anymore."
Clara's eyes flashed.
"You don't employ me."
Simon cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Clara, maybe take the rest of the night."
She turned toward him.
"Are you firing me?"
"No."
"Then I'm finishing my shift."
Leonardo's expression almost softened.
"Gabe would have liked that answer."
Clara froze.
The sentence felt too intimate coming from him.
She sat down.
Leonardo placed both hands on the table, keeping them visible.
"The ring belonged to our father."
"Before him, it belonged to his father."
"The fractured lion is a family mark, but not the public one."
"It was used on private documents, accounts, and agreements that were never meant to exist outside the family."
Clara looked at the engraving.
"That sounds like a code."
"It was a promise."
Dante snorted softly.
Leonardo ignored him.
"Our grandfather built legitimate businesses after the war."
"Trucking, warehouses, restaurants, import companies."
"Later, other things grew around those businesses."
Clara understood what he was carefully not saying.
"And the ring?"
"Only the person trusted with the family's private records carried it."
"My father gave it to Gabriel, not me."
That admission seemed to cost Leonardo something.
"Why?"
"Because Gabriel was the only one who hated what the family had become enough to tell the truth about it."
Clara looked down at the ring again.
"That doesn't sound like someone who wanted power."
"He didn't."
"That was exactly why my father trusted him."
Dante leaned against the wall.
"Five years ago, Gabe discovered money disappearing from the legal companies."
"At first, everyone assumed it was theft."
"Then he found names."
Leonardo's voice cut in.
"People inside and outside the family."
"Officials, contractors, accountants, men who had spent years pretending they were loyal."
"Gabriel copied the records."
Clara's stomach tightened.
"Into the ring?"
"No."
"The ring is the key."
She nearly laughed.
"It is a piece of jewelry."
Leonardo held out his hand.
"May I?"
Clara hesitated before placing it in his palm.
He turned it sideways and pressed one fingernail beneath the onyx setting.
Nothing happened.
Then he rotated the stone exactly ninety degrees.
A nearly invisible seam appeared along the inside of the band.
Clara stared.
Leonardo stopped before opening it.
"Gabriel modified it."
"I didn't know he had."
He returned the ring to her.
"Whatever is inside that mechanism has been sealed for at least five years."
Clara held it as though it might burn her.
"And people are calling a restaurant because they want it."
"Yes."
"Why now?"
Dante answered.
"Because someone saw it."
Clara's eyes went toward the dining room.
Dozens of people had been seated under bright chandeliers.
Any one of them could have noticed Leonardo seize her wrist.
Any one of them could have recognized the ring.
Simon shifted uncomfortably.
"There are cameras."
Leonardo looked at him.
"Where?"
"Lobby, bar, hall to the kitchen, and street entrance."
"No camera directly on Table 8."
Dante pushed away from the wall.
"Get the footage."
Simon nodded and hurried off.
Clara turned the ring in her hand.
"You said Gabriel disappeared in Italy five years ago."
"Yes."
"I met him four years and eight months ago in Seattle."
Leonardo's eyes narrowed.
"Where?"
"A bookstore."
"He knocked over a display trying to reach the same travel guide I wanted."
The memory made her smile before she could stop herself.
Gabriel had been embarrassed and charming and completely incapable of rebuilding the display correctly.
Leonardo watched the smile vanish from her face.
"What name did he use?"
"Gabriel Bennett."
"Did he ever tell you where Bennett came from?"
"His mother."
Leonardo nodded slowly.
"That part was true."
Clara looked up.
"Her maiden name?"
"Yes."
A strange relief moved through her.
One more piece of Gabriel had not been invented.
"Did he ever contact you?"
Leonardo asked.
"After Italy?"
"No."
His answer was immediate.
Too immediate.
Clara noticed.
"You're lying."
Dante looked away.
Leonardo's mouth flattened.
"I received one message."
"When?"
"About six months after the boat."
Clara stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor.
"You just told me he never contacted you."
"I said I received a message."
"It was not proof he was alive."
"What did it say?"
Leonardo hesitated.
Clara stepped closer.
"What did my husband say?"
Leonardo's eyes held hers.
"He said, 'If I stay dead, Leo stays alive.'"
Clara's anger stopped cold.
"That's all?"
"No."
"There was one more line."
"Tell me."
Leonardo looked down at the ring in her hand.
"He said, 'If the lion ever comes home, don't trust the first person who recognizes it.'"
Clara stared at him.
The meaning arrived slowly.
Leonardo had been the first person to recognize the ring.
She stepped backward.
Dante immediately noticed.
"Clara, that message could have meant anyone."
"It could have meant him," she said.
Leonardo did not defend himself.
That frightened her more.
Simon returned carrying a small tablet.
"I have the lobby footage."
Dante took it and scrolled backward.
Several minutes passed.
Then he stopped.
His face lost color.
Leonardo moved beside him.
Clara could not see the screen.
"What is it?"
Neither man answered.
She grabbed the tablet from Dante.
The grainy image showed Clara entering the restaurant that afternoon for her shift.
A man in a dark coat stood across the street beneath an awning.
His face was partly hidden by rain.
But when Clara zoomed in, her knees nearly gave way.
May you like
The man wore a familiar crooked half smile.
And on his right thumb was the scar Leonardo had asked about.
