“They contain the one document that connects the money to Orsini.”
“Perhaps. But we have transaction records, Frances's notes, authorized copies, witness statements, and original registry filings. The other side doesn't get to make the case disappear by stealing one book.”
Selene nodded. It was an answer she knew intellectually and could barely feel.
At noon Dante arrived carrying a battered watch in his pocket. He put it on Mara's table.
“My father gave me this when I turned eighteen,” he said. “He said a Valerio never lets the important things leave his hands.”
“Did you bring it to make a point?” Selene asked.
“I brought it because it stopped last night. I spent four hours trying to repair it. I thought if I could make one broken thing work again, I might be less likely to smash something today.”
“Did you fix it?”
“Then maybe that's the point.”
He gave a rueful smile. “You're very hard on metaphors.”
“Only expensive ones.”
He sat. “I had a meeting with federal investigators this morning. With Livia present. We provided the corporate records requested and disclosed the storage breach. There may be questions about my signatures and the business structures. I'm not pretending I was merely standing nearby.”
Selene watched his face. “How do you feel?”
“Terrified.”
He blinked.
“Fear means you understand this might actually cost you something.”
“That doesn't make it pleasant.”
“It isn't meant to.”
They worked until evening. Selene cross-checked the remaining cipher against photographs of the nineteenth-century source volume the archive had finally retrieved. Its marginal system converted place names into groups of marks, but Vittorio had copied the groups in reverse order and used a short repeated key to reorder them. The method resembled a Vigenère-style process in its repeated key, though the letters were embedded in a later notation of an older script. It took hours to identify the key, and two independent specialists disagreed about one line.
When the corrected reading settled, it did not reveal a secret room full of cash. It gave an instruction about the location of a duplicate schedule.
“Under the third bell,” Selene read, then shook her head. “That makes no sense without context.”
Dante leaned over the archive map. “My father's old shipping office had three bells on the wall. Salvaged from the boats after the pier closed. The third was from a tug called Mercy.”
“Does the office still exist?”
“The building is boarded up. It's inside the area under investigation.”
“Then we don't go there ourselves.”
He met her eyes. “You don't trust me to behave.”
“I trust that you can choose. I'm asking you to choose the one that preserves evidence.”
He nodded and called Livia.
By morning investigators had secured permission to inspect the abandoned office with a representative of the property owner and a preservation specialist. Selene attended as a consultant, standing behind the marked perimeter in the cold while workers photographed each stage of the search. Dante remained at Mara's office under Livia's advice. No one pretended that his presence would improve the chain of custody.
The third bell was still mounted on the wall. Its brass had gone green at the edges. Beneath it, workers found a narrow drawer, originally used for the vessel's maintenance cards. The drawer contained a sealed metal tube. Inside was a duplicate distribution schedule and a signed letter from Vittorio to his son, dated two months before Vittorio's death.
The documents were taken away for examination. Selene saw only the photographs the investigators later authorized counsel to review. She was nearly disappointed not to be allowed to hold the pages until she remembered that careful procedure was precisely what she had demanded.