Chapter 7 - THE PUZZLES
Norah’s mother kept everything.
Birthday cards.
School photographs.
Old tax returns.
Boxes of objects most people would have thrown away decades earlier.
That meant Samuel’s puzzles might still exist.
Norah called Margaret.
Her mother answered on the second ring.
“Norah?”
“Mom, I need you to listen carefully.”
Something in Norah’s voice changed Margaret immediately.
“What happened?”
“Do you still have Grandpa’s puzzle books?”
Silence.
Too much silence.
“Mom?”
“You weren’t supposed to remember those.”
Norah closed her eyes.
Gabriel watched her from across the room.
“You knew.”
Margaret began crying.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From Marcus Bell?”
Another pause.
That was answer enough.
Norah’s anger arrived slowly.
Almost coldly.
“He paid for my university.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t stop him without letting him know I understood what he was doing.”
Norah stood.
“You let him watch me?”
“I let him believe I knew nothing.”
“Mom.”
“He threatened you.”
Margaret’s voice broke.
“When your grandfather disappeared, Marcus came to our house.”
Gabriel leaned closer.
Norah put the phone on speaker.
“He told me Samuel had stolen something that belonged to dangerous people.”
Margaret continued.
“He said if I cooperated, you would be safe.”
“What did he want?”
“The puzzle books.”
Norah’s heart sank.
“You gave them to him?”
“No.”
Margaret’s voice suddenly strengthened.
“I burned copies in front of him.”
Norah stopped.
“Copies?”
“Your grandfather taught me better than that.”
Despite everything, Norah almost smiled.
“Where are the originals?”
“Inside your grandmother’s piano.”
Norah stared at Gabriel.
The piano had been in Margaret’s house for twenty-four years.
Marcus could have been standing ten feet from the evidence every time he visited.
“I’m coming to get them.”
“No.”
Margaret’s voice became urgent.
“Do not come here.”
“Mom.”
“There is a car outside.”
Norah froze.
“What kind?”
“Black sedan.”
Gabriel was already signaling Mateo.
“Lock the doors.”
Margaret laughed nervously.
“They’re already inside the yard.”
“Mom, go upstairs.”
“No.”
“Go.”
“I’m not leaving the piano.”
Norah heard breaking glass.
Then the line went dead.
She looked at Gabriel.
He was already moving.
Margaret lived forty-two minutes away.
Gabriel made it in twenty-eight.
When they arrived, the front door was open.
One man lay unconscious near the staircase.
Margaret stood beside him holding a brass fireplace poker.
Norah stopped in the doorway.
Her mother looked at Gabriel.
“You must be the reason my daughter never answers family dinners anymore.”
Gabriel blinked.
Norah almost laughed from relief.
Then Margaret hugged her.
For several seconds, Norah became sixteen again.
Safe.
Then Margaret stepped back.
“The piano.”
They opened the rear panel.
Inside was a narrow metal box.
Norah lifted out nineteen handmade puzzle books.
Every page was filled with symbols she remembered.
Gabriel picked up one.
“This looks like nonsense.”
“It isn’t.”
Norah spread the books across the dining table.
The black ring’s grid was missing.
But she had memorized enough of its structure from the photograph.
She began decoding.
The first names appeared after twenty minutes.
Victor Dane.
Two dead police officers.
Three contractors.
A judge.
A banker.
Then Marcus Bell.
Gabriel’s expression became stone.
Norah kept going.
The final encoded line took longer.
When she solved it, she did not speak.
Gabriel noticed.
“What?”
Norah looked toward Margaret.
Her mother had turned pale.
Gabriel stepped closer.
“Norah.”
She rotated the page toward him.
The final entry contained only initials.
I.M.
Gabriel stared.
Isabella Moretti.
His mother.
Beside the initials was one word.
WITNESS.
Not traitor.
Witness.
Gabriel looked up.
And beneath it was another name.
A name nobody had mentioned.
THOMAS VALE.
Gabriel’s face changed completely.
Norah knew that reaction.
“You know him.”
Gabriel whispered.
“He was my father’s best friend.”
“Where is he now?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“He’s been dead for seventeen years.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
May you like
She swallowed.
“Thomas Vale is alive.”
