coat, the way he cut every label out of my school sweater with kitchen scissors, the way he kept saying, ‘No last names.
Not tonight.’
‘Why didn’t he tell me the truth?’ I asked.
Julian looked at the blood drying across my fingers and answered so softly it hurt more.
‘Because if you ever slipped, you died first.’
## The Woman In Pearls…
Nico came in without knocking and bent to Julian’s ear, but I heard enough.
The shooter had used Julian’s private dining code to access the service alley door in Marzano’s building.
Somebody at that table had opened the line.
Only five people knew that code, and one of them had just gotten red wine on her pearls.
Adriana stood when Julian and I came back into the dining room.
She had switched to anger because fear wasn’t working.
‘This is insane,’ she said.
‘You’re taking the word of a bartender who threw herself at you in public.’
I wiped my palm on the towel and answered before Julian could.
‘I threw you off the kill line.’
Her smile came back sharp as glass.
‘You really think a dead bookkeeper left you anything worth this much?’
Julian nodded at the manager for the security pull.
Pennsylvania is a two-party consent state, and Marzano’s had cameras in the hallways but no live audio in the private dining wing because their lawyers were careful and their customers were richer than careful.
The footage was enough anyway.
On the screen over the bar, timestamp 8:37 p.m., Adriana stood by the service stairs with her phone low against her skirt.
At 8:39, a maintenance door that was supposed to stay alarmed opened for exactly six seconds.
Then another camera caught a thin man in a dark cap slipping into the tailoring shop across the street with a rifle case tucked along his leg.
Adriana crossed her arms and said, ‘Video without sound is theater.’ Julian answered, ‘Then let’s see who wrote the script.’
## Box 414 Opened Late…
Police lights washed the front windows blue and red while statements got taken and retaken.
I gave mine twice, once to a homicide detective who smelled like coffee and peppermint, and once to an assistant district attorney who kept checking the blood on my sleeve like it might change my answer.
Hannah came over from Franklin House with my coat and my bag and one look that said she had a thousand questions and wasn’t going to ask one in front of Julian Moretti.
She squeezed my arm and whispered, ‘Still your alibi.’
That almost made me laugh.
Instead I held onto her fingers for one extra second because sometimes the only thing keeping you upright is the fact somebody came when you didn’t call.
At 11:16 p.m., Julian’s attorney signed us into a records room behind Courtroom 4B in the Criminal Justice Center using an emergency access order tied to the deed and the attempted homicide.
The brass tag from my medal fit a narrow locker in the annex wall like it had been waiting longer than I had.
The metal door stuck halfway.
Nico had to jerk it loose.
Box 414 held a black ledger, a USB drive wrapped in wax paper from DiBruno Bros., a cream envelope addressed to Evangeline, and
