Chapter 3 - The Master’s Study
The sun didn't come out on Thursday. Instead, a grey, freezing fog rolled in off Lake Michigan, swallowing the Chicago skyline until the Sears Tower looked like a broken tooth rising out of a bowl of milk.
I was scrubbing the baseboards in the second-floor gallery when Mrs. Alvarez found me. Her grey bun was pinned so tight her eyebrows seemed permanently arched in suspicion.
"Mr. Rourke wants you in the library," she said without preamble. "Not the cleaning staff. You, Martha. Put down the rag, wash your hands, and for heaven’s sake, fix your hair. You look like you've been dragged through a hedge."
My knees felt hollow. In the five years I had worked at the Rourke estate, I had only entered the master library twice—once to clean up after a water leak from the radiator, and once to vacuum behind the massive globe while Gabriel was away in New York. The library was his sanctum. It smelled of old leather, expensive bourbon, burning cedar wood, and power.
When I pushed the heavy mahogany door open, the room was so dark I could barely see the rows of leather-bound legal and shipping folios lining the walls. A single brass banker’s lamp cast a sickly green glow over the massive mahogany desk in the center of the room.
Gabriel Rourke sat behind it.
He wasn't wearing his suit jacket; his white shirt sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, revealing lean, corded muscles and a faint scar running across his left wrist like a white thread. He was staring down at the blue spiral notebook—Thomas’s notebook—which lay open flat in the center of the blotter.
"Shut the door, Martha," he said. His voice was low, devoid of the theatrical anger I had braced myself for. It was worse than anger; it was flat, heavy, and dangerous.
I stepped inside and clicked the heavy latch behind me. The sound was like a cell door locking.
"Mr. Rourke," I began, my voice shaking so badly I could barely form the syllables. "I am so sorry about yesterday. Lucy shouldn't have—she’s just a child, she doesn't understand—"
"She understands more than you think," Gabriel interrupted. He didn't look up from the page. With the tip of a silver fountain pen, he pointed to a sketch near the bottom margin. "Your husband was an orderly man, Martha. Look at these columns. Every shipment from the St. Lawrence Seaway accounted for down to the kilogram. But look at the dates."
I stepped closer, my feet feeling as though they were weighed down with lead. I didn't want to look. I wanted to turn around, grab Lucy from the kitchen, and run out into the freezing Chicago sleet until my legs gave out. But I couldn't move.
"March fourteenth," Gabriel read aloud, his eyes finally lifting to meet mine. They were the color of stagnant river water beneath gray ice—unreadable, bottomless, and entirely devoid of warmth. "April second. June ninth. Four years ago. Three years ago. Right before he died."
"He was an accountant," I whispered. "He did shipping manifests for the logistics division."
"He did more than that," Gabriel said softly. He leaned back in his leather chair, the springs groaning under his weight. "Thomas Fontaine was the internal auditor for Rourke Freight’s secondary ledger. Do you know what the secondary ledger is, Martha?"
I shook my head, my throat closing up.
"It’s where we keep the books that the IRS doesn't need to see," Gabriel said, his mouth twisting into a bitter, humorless line. "Taxes, union payoffs, port security bribes, and transit fees for cargo that doesn't clear traditional customs. It’s dirty business. Everyone in Chicago knows it. But someone inside my company was altering the destination codes on the secondary manifests."
He stood up, towering over the desk. He was a big man, but he moved with an eerie, predatory grace.
"Cargo marked for heavy machinery was actually containing something else," Gabriel continued, his voice dropping until it was almost a whisper. "Contraband. Illegal firearms coming out of Eastern Europe through our private docks at Berth 14. And when the federal investigators started sniffing around three years ago, someone needed a scapegoat."
The room spun. The green-shaded lamp seemed to tilt sideways.
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"Thomas didn't take bribes," I gasped, my hands flying to my mouth. "My husband was an honest man! He came home smelling of paper and ham sandwiches! He died because a truck didn't have its lights on!"
"Did he?" Gabriel asked quietly. He walked around the desk, stopping just two feet away from me. I could smell his cologne—sandalwood and expensive scotch. "The police report called it a tragic accident. A driver fell asleep. Case closed. But Thomas's brakes weren't worn down by friction, Martha. They were severed with a hydraulic cutter three hours before he got on the expressway."
