PART 7:

That’s not what you actually think. He turned and looked at her fully. The light from the street was enough to see his face, and she’d been learning to read it over the last 2 hours. The way the stillness wasn’t blankness, the way things moved underneath it if you watch the right places. No, he said, “It’s not what I think, but it’s what I’m saying to keep you from making a different calculation right now.” She appreciated that, too.

She didn’t say so. They went in through the parking structure. Enzo stayed with the vehicles. Luchiano’s man at the lobby. She never got his name, just a face. Mid-30s, dark jacket, the same particular stillness she was starting to recognize as a type. Handed Luchiano the key card without a word exchanged. The concierge desk was empty.

The other man was not visible, and she didn’t ask where he was. The service elevator smelled like cleaning supplies and the mechanical effort of the building, the honest smell of the infrastructure that kept the luxury part running. The ride to 52 took 90 seconds. Luchiano stood slightly in front of her and to the left, which she understood was tactical, and tried not to find as reassuring as she did.

The maintenance corridor was narrow and lit by fluorescent strips, and it had the slightly unreal quality of all back of house spaces and expensive buildings. The sense that the building had two identities, and you were currently inside the one it didn’t advertise. She counted the doors.

The stairwell access was the third on the right. He went up first. The door at 53 opened onto the residential corridor, and for a moment she just smelled it, that particular air of the floor she’d lived on for 14 months, neutral and climate controlled and faintly expensive. And her body did something involuntary, a kind of flinch that wasn’t physical, just a recalibration of every signal she’d spent the last few hours building.

She pushed it down. She kept moving. The apartment door was 12 ft from the stairwell. Luchiano positioned himself to the side of the frame and looked at her. She stepped forward and put in the code, six digits. The lock disengaged. He went in first. She was two steps behind him, and she had just enough time to register that the living room was dark.

All the lights that had been burning when she left were off, which was wrong, which was the first wrong thing before Luciano’s arm came back across her chest and stopped her. Two seconds, the lights came on. Not the normal ambient light of the apartment, overheads, harsh and complete. There was a man sitting in the chair by the window, not one of the security staff she recognized, older, 50s, in a dark suit with the jacket open.

He had a glass of something amber on the table beside him, and his legs were crossed, and he looked, more than anything, like a man who had been waiting for a while and was comfortable with waiting. He looked at Luchiano first, then at Rowan. Luciano, he said, I was wondering which door you’d use. Luciano didn’t move.

His arm stayed across her. Tanner, he said. The name came out flat and without texture, which she’d learned in the last few hours meant the opposite of how it sounded. It’s been a long time, the man said. Sit down. Where’s the drive? We’ll get to that. He picked up his glass. Sit down, both of you.

This is going to be a longer conversation than you’ve planned for. Rowan looked at Luciano’s profile. The muscle in his jaw was doing something she hadn’t seen it do yet. Who is he? She said low. Luchiano said nothing for a moment, then. Richard Tanner. He runs the Federal Financial Crimes Division out of the Chicago field office.

She went very still. The man, Tanner, smiled at her. It was a professional smile practiced and functionally warm. Miss Vale, I’ve been reading your file for about 6 months. I’m sorry we’re meeting like this. You’re FBI, she said. I am. Then you’re here to help. The smile didn’t change. I’m here to do my job. Those aren’t always the same thing.

Luciano moved then forward into the room and she followed because the arm had dropped. He didn’t sit. He stood in the middle of the living room with his hands loose at his sides and looked at Tanner the way she imagined he looked at people when he’d already calculated everything in the room and didn’t like the calculation.

The drive, Luciano said again, is an evidence custody as of 43 minutes ago, Tanner said, along with the laptop, the bag, and several other items from this apartment. The room held that for a second. You were already here, Luciano said. We’ve had a monitoring order on this apartment for 9 weeks. When the phone activity spiked tonight and Pierce moved, we accelerated the timeline.

He set down his glass. We’ve had eyes on Pierce for 2 years, Luciano. The financial architecture, the offshore structures, the alderman crest connection. We’ve had most of it. What we didn’t have was the internal documentation that proves direct authorization. He paused. What was on that drive gives us that.

Then you have what you need, Luchiano said. We’ll leave. Not quite yet. Luchiano stopped. Tanner stood. He was taller than he looked sitting, and the easy manner shifted slightly when he was on his feet. Something more structural underneath it. The drive has what we need on Pierce. 18 months of direct authorization documentation.

Enough for Rico if we want it, which we do. He put his hands in his jacket pockets. It also has something else. something I think you came here specifically for. The silence stretched. My brother, Luciano said. The Marco Duca file. Tanner looked at him steadily. I know what you were told. I know you’ve believed for 4 years that it was the criminal network that had him killed, that Pierce had involvement. He paused.

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