Chapter 5 — The Safest House in Miami

My apartment arrived in six cardboard boxes.

Clothes. Books. A chipped mug. The small metal box I had spent half the night hiding.

Mateo carried that one himself.

“No one opened it,” he said.

I checked the strip of tape across the lid.

It was intact.

“Thank you.”

“Your landlord believes you’re traveling for work.”

“Keep paying the rent. I’m not giving the apartment up.”

His expression didn’t change.

“Understood.”

I put the box in the wardrobe and locked the bedroom door before opening it.

The photograph was missing because I had brought it with me.

Everything else was where I had left it.

I moved the identity documents into a drawer, took out the old photograph, and went downstairs.

Jericho stood beside a table covered in printed access logs.

He looked at the picture in my hand.

“Yours?”

“Yes.”

I placed it beside his copy.

Two identical photographs.

Two messages about rabbits.

Only his had my old name beneath the first line.

“She made sure you could identify me,” I said. “But she didn’t give you my address.”

“No.”

“Why leave you a clue instead of telling you?”

He looked at the pictures.

“Because she wanted me to find you myself.”

“After five years.”

“After her death.”

I didn’t like how neatly those pieces fit.

Mateo returned with a folder.

“The maintenance override came from a standing authorization issued by Mrs. Blackwood.”

Jericho looked up.

“Eleven months ago?”

“Earlier. It was never removed from the system.”

I took the access log.

Vane’s name appeared beside several private visits that weren’t on Rosie’s appointment calendar.

Some were late in the evening.

Some fell on days Jericho had been out of town.

“Who approved these?” I asked.

“Celeste,” Mateo said. “Before the explosion.”

“And afterward?”

“The same access category remained active.”

Jericho’s jaw tightened.

“Who reviewed the permissions?”

“I did.”

Mateo didn’t look away.

“I removed her personal codes. I didn’t remove every professional visitor she had sponsored.”

“That changes now.”

“It already has.”

I traced a visit dated two weeks earlier.

“He wasn’t just here to see Rosie.”

“We don’t know that,” Jericho said.

“He had access to private areas without an escort. He knew where I lived. He left before anyone discovered the note.”

“I know.”

“Then let me look through Celeste’s files.”

“No.”

The word landed hard.

I set down the page.

“Because they’re private?”

“Because you’ve been threatened twice in this house.”

“Those threats aren’t going to stop if I sit in a bedroom.”

“You won’t be going to the oceanarium.”

“I haven’t asked.”

“You will.”

He was right.

That made it worse.

“You brought me here because I knew something you didn’t,” I said. “You don’t get to decide my knowledge is useful but my judgment isn’t.”

Mateo stepped out, closing the door behind him.

Jericho lowered his voice.

“One person already used your willingness to help.”

“And I’m trying to find out who.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“Then give me the information I need to notice danger before it reaches me.”

For a moment, I thought he would refuse again.

Instead, he pulled a chair out from the table.

“Sit.”

This time, it didn’t sound like an order.

Celeste’s records were immaculate.

Travel schedules. Foundation events. Renovation invoices.

Every part of her life seemed to have been arranged for someone else to examine.

I found a payment to Vane under family medical expenses.

Then a second payment under consulting.

Different account.

Different amount.

Same month.

“What did he consult on?”

Jericho read the entry.

“He didn’t.”

We marked it for the lawyer.

A property file contained correspondence about the oceanarium.

There was a proposal to demolish part of the building, followed by a request to preserve the lower viewing room and its maintenance access.

Celeste had signed the request.

I stared at the date.

Four years earlier.

After I disappeared.

“You knew her as a student,” Jericho said.

“We shared classes. Cheap dinners. A washing machine that ate quarters.”

“Did she talk about money?”

“Everyone talks about money when they don’t have any.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

I understood.

I took the photograph out again.

“She said she wanted to teach. Work with children. She used to help me run the weekend reading program.”

“Later, she said children exhausted her.”

I looked toward the hallway.

“Except Rosie?”

He didn’t answer.

I wished he had.

“She hated boats,” I said.

“She bought three.”

“Could people change that much?”

“Yes.”

“Could we both have missed it?”

Jericho rubbed his thumb over the scar at his temple.

“That’s the question I keep asking.”

I had expected anger from him.

The weariness was harder to watch.

That night, Rosie woke during a thunderstorm.

I heard her before the guards did.

By the time I reached her room, Jericho was already there.

She clung to him, shaking.

“I couldn’t find you.”

“I’m here.”

“In the dream.”

“I’m here now.”

He sat in the chair beside her window, holding her until the trembling eased.

I pulled the curtains shut.

Then I found the small blanket she liked and laid it over her legs.

Jericho looked up.

“Thank you.”

Rosie reached out.

I took her hand.

For a while, we listened to the rain.

There was no room in that chair for me, but Rosie kept pulling until I sat on the arm beside them.

Jericho shifted to make space.

His shoulder rested against my hip.

I felt the warmth of him through his shirt.

When Rosie fell asleep, neither of us moved immediately.

“Does she dream about the explosion?” I whispered.

“Sometimes. Mostly about people disappearing.”

“She shouldn’t have had to worry about whether I’d come back.”

“No.”

He looked down at her.

“I thought enough guards would make her feel safe.”

I watched his hand resting across her back.

“She needs to know someone will listen when she says she isn’t.”

His eyes lifted to mine.

“I’m listening now.”

Near midnight, Mateo found us in the kitchen.

He carried a battered envelope.

“Gideon’s assistant finally called back.”

Jericho straightened.

“Where is he?”

“She doesn’t know. He missed two meetings and told her to take time off. Before he stopped answering, he instructed her to deliver this if anyone asked about the oceanarium.”

“Who’s Gideon?” I asked.

“My uncle.”

Mateo set the envelope down.

Inside were photocopies of property records, payment schedules, and a photograph of a steel cabinet.

The number nineteen was painted on its door.

I touched the corner.

“When was this taken?”

“Last month.”

Jericho read a handwritten note beneath it.

Something is being stored here. Don’t use the family office to ask questions.

“He suspected the office was compromised,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you?”

“He asked about Celeste’s old consulting expenses. I told him the accounts had been reviewed.”

Jericho looked at the note again.

“I should have asked why.”

There was a second photograph.

The service entrance.

A newer lock on an old door.

“He went there,” I said.

Mateo nodded.

“Or sent someone.”

Jericho began giving instructions. A small team. A separate vehicle. No message through the household system.

I listened until he stopped.

“I’m coming.”

“No.”

“The drawings may give us more than a cabinet number. If there’s another part of the code, you’ll need me.”

“I can send you a photograph.”

“And if there’s no signal?”

His eyes hardened.

“Lennox.”

“Someone has watched me for five years. I’m already involved.”

He looked at Mateo.

Then back at me.

“You stay with me. You move when I tell you to move. If there’s trouble, you leave the evidence and get out.”

“I won’t argue about getting out.”

“That isn’t the same as agreeing.”

“It’s the agreement I can give you.”

He considered it.

Finally, he nodded.

Mateo’s phone vibrated.

He read the message.

“The observation team has eyes on the service entrance.”

“And?” Jericho asked.

“The lock is intact. There are fresh tire tracks.”

I looked at the photograph of cabinet nineteen.

Whatever Gideon had found was still there.

And someone else had been back.