Chapter 4 - The Man Outside My Door
My first instinct was to hide the notebook beneath my shirt. My second was to call the police. The third was to stand motionless and hope whoever waited outside would go away.
He knocked again.
“We know you're in there, Olivia.”
I backed toward the window. My apartment was three floors above a grocery store, with no fire escape on the street side. A narrow metal landing overlooked the alley. I could reach it through the kitchen window, but climbing down at night with an old knee injury would be an excellent way to break something else.
I dialed 911 and whispered my address. The dispatcher told me to keep the door locked, stay away from it, and remain on the line. Then I sent Nina a text with one word: NOW.
The voice outside grew impatient. “You don't need to get hurt. We just want what Lucia left.”
I didn't answer.
A small metallic scrape came from the lock.
My pulse hammered. I grabbed the heavy cast-iron skillet from the stove and stood behind the kitchen counter. The door shuddered once. A second scrape followed, then the sound of someone swearing.
A voice farther down the hallway shouted, “Police are coming!”
The men ran.
I stood with the skillet in my hand until the dispatcher told me two officers had arrived. When I opened the door, the hallway was empty except for fresh scratches around the lock. The officers took my statement, photographed the damage, and checked the stairwell. A neighbor said she had seen two men in caps coming up from the street. Neither face was visible on the building's broken security camera.
Before we left the apartment, I made Nina wait while I packed three things that seemed ridiculous under the circumstances: Ellen's patched quilt, the first paycheck I'd ever saved, and a photograph of my parents standing outside our old house. Nina didn't comment. She simply helped me fold the quilt small enough to fit in my bag.
I looked around the room. The cracked windowsill, the stack of library books, the basil plant refusing to grow under weak sunlight—none of it looked dangerous. It looked like a life I'd built one exhausted shift at a time. I hated that two strangers with a lock pick could make me feel like a visitor in it.
“Will they come back?” I asked.
“Possibly,” Nina said. “That's why we're documenting the damage and asking the building owner to preserve the camera recordings. The police can follow up with the neighbors who heard them.”
“And if the owner refuses?”
“Then we'll put the request in writing and explore the legal options.”
I nodded. For the first time since my aunt died, someone was explaining the next step instead of promising that everything would somehow work out.
On the way downstairs I passed Mrs. Feldman, who lived on the second floor. She took one look at my overnight bag and pulled me into a hug.
“I heard the knocking,” she whispered. “I called the police when I saw those men on the stairs.”
“You did?”
“Of course. Your aunt used to bring my groceries up when my hip was bad. You think I'd let someone frighten her girl?”
My eyes filled. I had thought of myself as alone in that building. Mrs. Feldman's hand on my shoulder reminded me that being independent didn't have to mean nobody cared where I slept.
Nina arrived twenty minutes later. Dante was with her, but he stayed on the sidewalk until I agreed to speak to him. Orion waited in the back of a vehicle, looking anxiously through the window.
“Did you call him?” I asked Nina.
“I told him there was a security concern connected to the fire records. He offered help. The decision is yours.”
I stared at the damaged lock. There was no brave version of spending another night behind it.
“I'll go somewhere safe,” I said. “But I want my own room. No one takes my phone. No one tells me where I can and can't go.”
Dante nodded. “Agreed.”
“And the notebook stays with Nina until a forensic copy is made.”
“Agreed.”
I looked at him skeptically. “You really are going to agree to everything?”
“No. But I won't argue about your right to decide where you sleep.”
I almost smiled.
We drove to a secure guesthouse owned by a private hotel company, not to Dante's mansion. I was given a room overlooking a courtyard and a key that worked from both sides. Nina photographed the notebook and sealed it for independent storage. The original would go to an attorney whose only client was me.
Orion followed me up the stairs. When I reached the bedroom, he walked in, circled twice, and lay beside the door as though he had been guarding it all his life.
“Does he always do that?” I asked.
“Only with people he thinks need him,” Dante said.
I sat on the bed and looked at the dog. “I don't remember saying goodbye to him.”
“You probably didn't.”
“That seems unfair.”
“He agrees.”
Dante stood in the doorway, uncertain. It was an unfamiliar look on him. The man had no trouble commanding guards or silencing a room, but he didn't seem to know what to do with a woman who was frightened and unwilling to be managed.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Anything.”
“Why do people fear you?”
He leaned against the frame. “Because I've done things that deserve fear. And because people repeat stories that make those things larger.”
“Did you kill the people who hurt your sister?”
His gaze darkened. “No. I never learned who they were.”
“Would you, if you found them?”
The silence stretched.
“I used to think revenge was the only way to honor her,” he said. “Now I think she would have hated being used as an excuse for another death.”
I believed he meant it at that moment. I did not know whether he could keep meaning it when the truth came out.
I changed the subject. “Did Lucia really want me to become a veterinarian?”
“She talked about you constantly. She said you had the patience to sit with an animal until it decided to trust you.”
“I remember the clinic. Not enough, but some.”
He nodded. “You don't have to force it.”
After he left, I took a shower and stood under the hot water until the shaking stopped. In the mirror, I could see the pale scar above my eyebrow where the hospital had stitched my forehead. I had spent years thinking it belonged to a random accident. Now I wondered whose hand had caused it.
The next morning, Nina returned with news. The red notebook contained handwritten account numbers, freight dates, and initials. Lucia had documented shipments billed as veterinary medical supplies but linked to companies that did not operate clinics. Some entries named Victor Salvatore. Others named Anthony Bellini. A final page was torn out.
“Do the numbers prove a crime?” I asked.
“They are leads,” Nina said. “They'll need corroboration. But they explain why someone wanted this book.”
“Why would Lucia give it to me?”
“Perhaps she trusted you. Or perhaps she needed the record to leave the clinic while she stayed behind.”
I studied the copied pages. A tiny drawing of a black star appeared beside three of the dates. My finger stopped on it.
“That's not a star,” I said.
“What is it?”
“A dog tag. Lucia used different symbols for animals. The black star meant an intake with no owner.”
Nina leaned forward. “Can you remember which animal?”
I closed my eyes. The clinic came back in pieces. Blue walls. A steel table. A dog barking behind a locked gate. Lucia saying, “Those boxes don't belong here.” A man laughing in the corridor, his shoes making a heavy sound against concrete.
“The boxes,” I whispered. “They hid something in the transport crates.”
Before Nina could respond, Dante called. His voice was controlled, but I could hear urgency beneath it.
“We found an old surveillance file,” he said. “It shows Victor Salvatore entering the clinic at 10:42 on the night of the fire. He brought two men.”
“Were they carrying boxes?”
“Yes.”
“Lucia told them to leave. I remember that.”
A pause. “Olivia, how much more do you remember?”
“A man grabbed my wrist. Orion bit him. Then someone struck me, and there was smoke.”
Dante exhaled sharply.
“Victor's security company had contracts with my organization. One of the men in that video is still employed by him. His name is Peter Voss.”
I felt my skin go cold.
“Was he the man at my apartment?”
“We don't know. The police are comparing images.”
“Don't go after him yourself,” I said.
Dante was quiet. “You think I'm that predictable?”
“I think grief makes people dangerous, even when they mean to do the right thing.”
For a moment, I thought he'd be angry.
Then he said, “Lucia used to say exactly that.”
I looked toward Orion. He had risen at the sound of Dante's voice, ears tilted forward. I scratched behind his ears, and the dog settled again.
“Promise me you'll let the investigators do their work,” I said.
“I promise I'll put the evidence first.”
It wasn't the exact promise I'd requested, but it was closer than I'd expected.
After the call, Nina opened the copied notebook to its last written page. Beneath a list of shipments, Lucia had written one sentence in a hurried hand.
If Bellini says the girl died, ask who paid for her funeral.
I stared at the words.
May you like
Someone had paid for a funeral that never should have happened.
And somewhere in the city, the person who arranged it knew I was alive.
