The sleet did not just fall against the tall, leaded windows of the Rourke estate; it struck with a rhythmic, impatient fury, as if the Chicago winter were trying to claw its way inside and warm its freezing hands by the marble fireplaces.

When I finally hurried down the grand service staircase twenty minutes later, the foyer was empty except for Nolan Pierce. Nolan was forty-two, with slicked-back dark hair, skin the color of skim milk, and a smile that never quite reached his cold, watery blue eyes. He was standing by the tall grandfather clock, tapping a silver pen against his palm.

"Your girl’s got nerve, Martha," Nolan said before I could even open my mouth to apologize. His voice had that smooth, greasy cadence of a man who spent his life smoothing over rough patches with cash or threats. "The boss doesn't usually like being interrupted when he’s heading out to a board meeting."

"I am so sorry, Mr. Pierce," I stammered, my hands instantly smoothing the front of my grey cotton maid’s apron. "The school closed down. I had nowhere else—"

"Relax," Nolan cut me off, stepping closer. As he moved, I heard it—a faint, rhythmic squeak-click, squeak-click coming from his left Oxfords. The leather was damp from the sleet outside. "The boss didn't yell. In fact, he took the book."

My blood ran cold. "He... he took the notebook?"

"Put it right inside his breast pocket," Nolan said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studied my face, searching for a reaction, looking for a pulse he could exploit. "Said he wanted to see what kind of homework your kid is doing these days. Now, get her back to the kitchen, Martha. The master’s in a foul mood today, and I'd hate for Mrs. Alvarez to find another reason to dock your hours."

He turned and walked down the long corridor toward the executive garage, his left shoe squeaking out a mocking rhythm against the marble floor.

Squeak-click. Squeak-click.

I stood frozen in the cavernous hallway, the smell of melting snow and lemon wax heavy in my nose. That sound—that exact mechanical squeak—echoed in my memory from a night three years ago. It was the sound I had heard standing outside Thomas’s home office door the evening before he died, arguing on the phone with someone whose voice was muffled behind heavy mahogany. Someone who had promised Thomas that if he didn't sign the transfer papers, his wife and daughter wouldn't have to worry about rent anymore because they wouldn't need a roof.

I found Lucy sitting back at the end of the kitchen table. Her apple was untouched. She was swinging her small legs, her sneakers barely brushing the rungs of the heavy oak chair.

"Lucy," I whispered, kneeling beside her and grabbing her shoulders perhaps a bit too tightly. "What did you give him? What was in that book?"

"It had daddy's numbers," she said simply, looking up at me with those wide, unblinking eyes. "The man in the big coat looked at the page where daddy drew the anchor with the red X through it. He didn't look happy, Mama. He looked like the thunder before it rains."

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. The anchor with the red X. Thomas had drawn that symbol next to Berth 14 at the South Chicago docks—the exact berth where Rourke Freight allegedly unloaded imported machine parts, but where dockworkers whispered about crates that weighed twice as much as steel and smelled faintly of copper and iron.

"Did he say anything?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"He asked me where I got it," Lucy replied, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a single, jagged piece of torn blue paper that had fallen out of the binding. "And I told him my daddy left it in the trunk before he went to sleep forever. Then the other man—the one with the squeaky shoe—tried to take it back, but the boss held up his hand and said, 'Leave it, Nolan. Let the child keep her memories.' Except he didn't sound like he was talking about memories."

I snatched the torn scrap from her hand. It was a receipt from a hardware store on South Halsted Street, dated four days before Thomas’s car accident. On the back, in Thomas’s neat, accountant’s handwriting, were three words: