Chapter 2 - The Photograph
Norah’s third-floor apartment was twelve blocks from Benny’s and small enough that three adults made it feel occupied by a crowd. Rain pressed against the windows. A nursing pharmacology book lay open beside an unpaid electric bill, and a row of secondhand mugs hung from hooks above the sink. Gabriel paused just inside the door, taking in the modest room with an expression Norah could not read. Leo checked the bedroom, the fire escape, and the narrow closet before announcing they were alone. Norah resented the intrusion, but she noticed that Gabriel said nothing until Leo had finished. The starving man who had trusted her cooking still did not know how to trust the world around it.
She knelt beside a battered cedar trunk and removed her mother’s old nursing uniforms, a stack of condolence cards, and a sewing box blackened along one edge. Elaine Bennett had died of ovarian cancer two years earlier. In her final week, she had tried twice to tell Norah something about Rosa’s fire, but morphine and exhaustion broke the story into fragments: a man in a gray coat, a hallway full of smoke, Rosa refusing to leave without “Gabriel’s proof.” Norah had assumed grief was making her mother confuse memories. Now Leo stood behind her with his fists clenched, and the fragments no longer felt confused.
The photograph frame was wrapped in an infant blanket. Its wood was scorched, and a brown crescent of smoke stained one corner of the glass. Behind it, Rosa stood in the courtyard of the Narrows apartments with one hand resting on the shoulder of a dark-haired boy of perhaps twelve. He was thin, bruised at the mouth, and glaring at the camera as though daring it to pity him. Gabriel lowered himself into the kitchen chair. For the first time since Norah had met him, the violence went out of his posture completely.
“She kept me,” he whispered. His thumb touched the glass above Rosa’s face. “She told me she had thrown every picture away.” Norah sat opposite him. “Maybe someone told you that for her.” Gabriel looked up. The observation landed harder than an accusation. He turned the frame over and saw that one brass tab had been bent beneath the smoke-blackened paper. When he pried it loose, the brittle backing tore. A small brass key dropped toward the table, and Leo lunged.
Gabriel caught his wrist in midair and drove his forearm against the wood. The frame hit the edge of the table, cracking the glass. Norah snatched it away before it fell. Leo’s other hand moved toward his coat, but Gabriel twisted once, forcing him to his knees. “Don’t touch that key,” Leo gasped.
The room went still except for the rain. Norah picked up the key. The number 317 was stamped into its oval head. Behind the photograph, a smoke-stained strip of paper had been folded so tightly that it resembled part of the backing. Rosa’s handwriting crossed it in faded blue ink: GABRIEL—LOCKER 317. TRUST ELAINE.
Norah held the frame against her chest. “Rosa died saving that photograph.” Gabriel’s grip on Leo tightened. Leo stared at the key and lost all color. “That key burned with her apartment.” Gabriel turned slowly. “How do you know what burned?” Leo’s mouth opened, but no answer came. Gabriel released him only long enough to pull the pistol from beneath his coat. He placed it beyond Leo’s reach, then removed the second weapon from his ankle. “You told me you reached the building after the fire crews.” Leo remained on his knees. “I did.” “Then how did you know about a key hidden behind a photograph?” Gabriel asked. “I saw it before that night.” The lie came too quickly. Norah saw Gabriel recognize it.
He might have killed Leo there if his body had not betrayed him first. Gabriel’s face tightened. One hand went to his chest, and the other missed the table entirely. He fell sideways, striking the floor hard enough to rattle the mugs above the sink. Leo surged forward, but Norah blocked him with her body. “Stay back.” She dropped beside Gabriel and found his pulse racing, then stalling beneath her fingers. Sweat had appeared across his forehead. His pupils struggled to focus.
“What did you take today?” she demanded. Gabriel’s breathing came shallow. “Nothing.” “Medicine, supplements, drops—anything.” He tried to dismiss her with a shake of his head, then winced at another violent beat in his chest. Leo said, “His doctor gave him electrolyte drops after Paulie died. They’re in his coat.” Norah reached into Gabriel’s inside pocket and found a small amber bottle. The pharmacy label had been peeled away, leaving a sticky white rectangle.
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“Who brings him these?” she asked. Leo looked toward the key instead of the bottle. That was answer enough to frighten her. Norah took Gabriel’s phone, pressed it into his palm, and said, “Call off the men outside or let me call an ambulance. Those are your choices.” He was a man accustomed to making every choice in a room, yet he looked into her face and understood that survival had changed the hierarchy. “There’s a clinic on Halsted,” she continued. “My pharmacology instructor is covering overnight. She’ll help if I tell her someone is dying.”
Gabriel’s lips had begun to lose color. He unlocked the phone and called the men outside. “You follow Norah’s instructions,” he said. Then he looked at Leo on the floor. “And if he touches that key again, break both his hands.”
