Chapter 14
The suit looked at Elena and not past her. I stayed flat against the back wall of the pantry where the shelves made a shadow. The ledger was zipped inside my coat and I held my coat closed with one hand.
"Step out," the suit said to Elena.
She stepped out into the kitchen, leaving the pantry door open behind her. She didn't look back at me. That was the point. She kept his eyes.
I heard Marino walk in from the front. "That's her. Reyes. She knows where Kane hides things. Her husband was always in that office."
The second suit came into the kitchen too. I could see through the slit between boxes — two dark jackets, one heavier man who had to be Marino in a canvas coat.
Elena stood between them and the pantry. "My husband kept no book," she said. "Mr. Kane keeps his own records."
Marino laughed, short. "Sure. Kane's son owes forty grand on that lot. That's in the book too, right? Victor thought his dad would clear it?"
My jaw locked. Page forty-seven. My debt. He knew.
The suit nearest the pantry leaned in to check the shelves. His hand reached for the cereal boxes right in front of my face.
Elena moved first. She knocked a stack of tin cans off the counter with her elbow. Loud clatter across the tile. Both suits turned.
"Sorry," she said. "My hands shake."
That second was all I had. I slipped out of the pantry low, behind the door, into the utility room we had locked earlier. The gray passage door was still locked from our side. I turned the brass key Elena had given me last chapter and pulled it open. The dark housekeeper passage yawned, smelling like plaster and cold air.
I held it open and mouthed to Elena, "Now."
She saw me. She nodded once, then did something I didn't expect. She grabbed Marino's arm.
"Check the desk," she said to him, loud enough for the suits. "The portrait comes off. There's a safe. That's where Mr. Kane kept the red book."
Marino pushed past the suits toward the office. The suits followed him, arguing.
Elena ran to me and pulled the utility door shut behind us as we dropped into the passage. She locked it from inside with the same key and handed it back to me, her hand shaking hard now.
From the other side, a suit hit the door. "Open it!"
We didn't. We ran down the narrow passage, bent, hands on the walls, toward the east wing where the wood panels ended and the plaster got rough.
Behind us, the door shook and then went quiet. Then we heard Marino shout, "Safe's empty! Someone beat us!"
Elena stopped running and leaned against the wall, breathing fast. I leaned with her. The ledger thumped against my ribs with my heart.
"We got out," she said.
"We got out because you stayed in front of me," I said.
She looked at the ring on her finger and twisted it. "Daniel would have stayed too."
Above us, footsteps spread across the house, fast now. They knew the book was gone and they knew we had it. The service exit was still locked, the front still blocked, but we had the passage.
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"We need to get to the church lot," she said. "Sheriff parks there at night. If we can get the side window now while they're at the safe, we can run to my car."
I took her hand, ring and all, and we moved again toward the side of the house where the pantry window let out to the yard.
