Chapter 3 - THE BLUE ANGELPolice cars reached Amelia’s apartment before she did.
She sat in the back of Detective Mills’s unmarked sedan while officers moved through the narrow brick building on West Addison.
Her landlord stood outside in slippers, arguing with a patrol officer.
Luca’s black SUV remained half a block away.
He had been told not to follow.
He had followed anyway.
Amelia stared at her second-floor window.
Three years.
That apartment had represented safety.
Not luxury.
Not success.
Safety.
The radiator screamed every winter.
The bathroom tile was permanently cracked.
The neighbor upstairs played country music at six every morning.
But Raymond had never been there.
Until now.
Detective Mills returned.
“The apartment is clear.”
“Did they take anything?”
“We’re still checking.”
“The angel?”
“On the bed.”
Amelia nodded slowly.
That meant whoever entered hadn’t wanted to steal from her.
They wanted her to know they could enter.
That was worse.
Inside, the apartment looked almost normal.
No smashed furniture.
No drawers emptied.
No obvious destruction.
But Amelia noticed things strangers wouldn’t.
Her bathroom towel had been moved.
A kitchen cabinet stood slightly open.
A photograph of her mother faced the wrong direction.
And in the bedroom, the blue ceramic angel rested exactly where the photograph had shown it.
Detective Reeves photographed it.
“Don’t touch anything.”
Amelia stopped in the doorway.
The angel had belonged to her mother.
She had kept it after cancer took her at seventeen.
It had sat beside every bed Amelia had owned since.
Except for the last three years.
She had been too afraid Raymond might somehow remember it and use it to find her.
So she had left it in storage.
Now somebody had carried it here.
“Your storage unit was broken into,” Mills said.
“When?”
“Security system shows access at 1:12 this morning.”
“I was in the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“Did they get the drive?”
“We don’t know.”
Amelia shook her head.
“I kept it inside the angel.”
Reeves lowered his camera.
“What?”
“The bottom twists off.”
He exchanged a glance with Mills.
Crime-scene technicians examined it.
The compartment was empty.
Amelia closed her eyes.
“Gone.”
Luca’s voice came from behind them.
“Maybe.”
Detective Mills spun around.
“How did you get upstairs?”
“The landlord seems to like me.”
“I told you to stay outside.”
“You did.”
“And yet here you are.”
Luca ignored her and looked at Amelia.
“Did Raymond know you used that angel?”
“He knew it belonged to my mother.”
“But did he know you hid things inside it?”
Amelia thought.
“No.”
“Then whoever took the drive knew exactly where to look.”
Detective Reeves frowned.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning Raymond probably didn’t find it himself.”
The room fell quiet.
Amelia’s phone rang.
This time the number wasn’t hidden.
Richard Bell.
She answered.
“Richard?”
His breathing sounded strange.
“Amelia.”
“What happened?”
“I need you to listen to me.”
“What is it?”
“There was a man here.”
Her eyes moved toward Luca.
“What man?”
“He came after closing.”
Richard was whispering.
“He wanted the security footage.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No. Police already copied it.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know.”
Glass shattered somewhere on Richard’s end.
Then he gasped.
“Richard?”
“Don’t come here.”
A man’s voice sounded in the background.
Calm.
Almost friendly.
“Mr. Bell?”
Richard’s breathing stopped.
The phone disconnected.
“Richard!”
Amelia called back.
No answer.
Detective Mills was already moving.
“Address?”
“Castellano’s.”
Everyone rushed downstairs.
Luca caught Amelia’s arm.
“You’re not going.”
“He could be hurt because of me.”
“Which is exactly why whoever is there may be expecting you.”
“Let go.”
He immediately did.
That surprised her.
Most men who looked like Luca Moretti didn’t appear accustomed to being told what to do.
“You’re right,” he said.
Amelia blinked.
“I’m right?”
“I shouldn’t grab you.”
His voice softened.
“Not after what you’ve been through.”
Something inside her shifted.
Barely.
But enough for her to notice.
Detective Mills called from the stairs.
“Amelia stays here.”
“No.”
“That isn’t negotiable.”
Amelia started protesting.
Luca interrupted.
“She can stay with me.”
Mills laughed.
“Absolutely not.”
“My building has twenty-four-hour security.”
“So does the county jail.”
“I’m not spending the night in jail.”
“Give me time.”
Despite everything, Amelia almost smiled.
They eventually compromised.
Two officers would remain outside her apartment until morning.
Luca left reluctantly.
Before stepping through the door, he handed Amelia a plain card.
Only a phone number was printed on it.
“No name?”
“The people who need the number know whose it is.”
“Very mysterious.”
“Very economical.”
She looked at him.
“What if I don’t need it?”
“Then burn it.”
He started down the hall.
“Luca.”
He turned.
“Why are you helping me?”
For the first time since she met him, the answer didn’t come immediately.
“Because someone should have helped Daniel sooner.”
Then he left.
At 3:46 a.m., Detective Mills called.
Richard was alive.
Barely.
A dishwasher returning for his forgotten phone found him unconscious in the wine cellar with two broken ribs and a severe concussion.
Nothing had been stolen from the restaurant office.
But one message had been carved into the wooden desk.
Three letters.
A.H.
Amelia’s initials.
By sunrise, fear had transformed into something else.
Anger.
She was tired of hiding.
Tired of men using terror as a leash.
At eight, she called Luca.
He answered on the first ring.
“I thought you might.”
“Can you find Raymond’s uncle?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“Then find him.”
“Amelia—”
“I’m done running.”
“You don’t know what Victor Fletcher is capable of.”
“No.”
She stared at the blue angel on her dresser.
“But he doesn’t know what I’m capable of either.”
Another silence.
Then Luca said quietly, “Get dressed.”
“Why?”
“Because I think I know who took your flash drive.”
Thirty minutes later, Luca arrived with a laptop and a photograph.
Amelia looked at the picture.
Her stomach dropped.
It showed a man walking out of her storage building at 1:16 a.m.
A man wearing the jacket of a Chicago police detective.
May you like
And she knew him.
Detective Nolan Reeves.
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