Carmine said nothing, because Remy was wrong. He knew that feeling well.
“Anyway, I’m rattling on here,” Remy said, tinkering with an old gold watch around his wrist. “Sorry, man. Just a sore spot, especially since what happened to my little brother.”
Those words made his heart rate spike. Dean Tarullo. Carmine nearly forgot all about the boy from the warehouse. “What happened to him?”
“He got mixed up with the wrong people, I guess. Disappeared months ago.”
“So he’s missing?”
Remy’s voice was quiet. “Yeah, but not the kind of missing that’ll ever be found, if you get what I’m saying.”
Gunshots flashed in Carmine’s mind, the memory of Corrado silencing the boy forever infiltrating his mind.
“Yeah,” Carmine muttered. “I know what you mean.”
* * *
Haven sat on the green metal park bench, watching the activity all around her. She had just gotten out of her last art class and her final project lay beside her, the canvas carefully wrapped and secured in brown paper.
It surprised Haven how therapeutic painting turned out to be, two weeks of art doing what three months of waiting and crying couldn’t begin to touch. It opened up a part of her, exposing her nerves for the world to touch. Drawing was technical, the lines and details needing to be precise, but she could let go while painting and pour her emotions into it. Each piece of artwork held special meaning, but she knew others would look at it and see something entirely different.
She enjoyed that about art, like it held a hidden code only she had the key to. She was telling her story, getting out every gritty detail of her tortured life, but people were none the wiser. She could never tell the world, but there was nothing that said she couldn’t show them . . . as long as they didn’t know what they were looking at.
Haven sat there for a while, enjoying the peaceful spring evening, before gathering her things and heading across the street to the apartment. It was approaching dusk, and Dia would already be home from her classes. They had made plans to go out to commemorate the end of her workshop, but Haven didn’t feel much like celebrating. She felt another void deep inside now that it was over.
She reached their building, walking into the lobby as the elevator opened. A man stepped out of it wearing a black baseball cap and spotted her, holding the door.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling politely.
He nodded. “Don’t mention it.”
She stepped into the elevator and pushed the number 6 button, humming to herself as the elevator dinged with each floor. She strolled down the hallway to the apartment, finding the door wide open with Dia in the living room. She held a small brown box up, shaking it zealously before holding it to her ear. Her hair was a soaked mess of colored streaks sculpted on top of her head, chemical fumes from hair dye potent in the air.
Haven shut the door behind her and dropped her canvas beside the door. “What in the world are you doing?”
Dia swung around, startled, and smiled sheepishly for having been caught. “Just trying to figure out what’s inside.”
“Why don’t you just open it?”
“Because it’s not mine,” Dia said, holding it out. “It’s yours.”
Haven gaped at the box. “Where did it come from?”
“A guy just dropped it off a second ago.”
She blinked a few times. “The mailman?” Who would send her a package? Dominic? Tess? Maybe Celia?
“Actually, I think he was a police officer.”
Haven stared at her as those words sunk in. “Did he tell you he was?”
“No, he didn’t say much, just asked if you lived here and left the box. I should’ve asked him, but I didn’t think about it. He would’ve had to tell me, you know. They can’t lie when you ask them.” Dia thrust the box forward. “I need to go wash my hair. I’ll be right back.”
Haven looked over the cardboard box, seeing no labels, nothing but a piece of packaging tape securing it closed. She cut the tape with a knife and opened the flaps, her brow furrowing.
Inside was a large clear plastic bag labeled EVIDENCE, holding a normal-looking notebook. Haven picked it up, along with a piece of paper addressed to her from the Department of Justice office in Chicago.
Miss Antonelli,