“I believe you,” Selene said. “And please call me Selene.”
One phrase had been underlined twice. She could read enough of it to hesitate: the women paid for the bricks. The next line mentioned an address on South Carpenter Street. It was followed by a warning not to let a room be locked.
Tomas saw her expression. “You recognize something?”
“Some words. Not the full meaning.”
“It's about the old house, isn't it?”
“What old house?”
“The Harbor Street House. My grandfather swept the floors there before he got sick. My aunt used to help serve dinners. A developer sent everyone a letter last month. They say the building's being sold and the upstairs tenants should consider moving.”
Dante reached for his coat. Then he stopped, one hand on the back of an empty chair.
“South Carpenter,” he repeated. “Do you have the number?”
Tomas told him.
Dante's face tightened. Selene had seen that expression before: the instant he recognized a detail inside an enormous collection of transactions he was supposed to have stopped treating as somebody else's business.
“There's a property in that block scheduled for disposal through the old freight holding company,” he said. “I read the sale packet on Monday.”
“Is that the same building?” Selene asked.
“I don't know. I'm going to find out.”
Tomas pushed back his chair. “Look, I don't want trouble. My aunt still lives on the second floor. She has bad knees. If I should take the letter away—”
“No,” Selene said. “You're not in trouble because you asked a question.”
She waited while Tomas made copies of the front and back with his phone. He gave her permission to send them to Dr. Luz Herrera, a language historian who worked with community archives and had agreed to consult on her next project. Selene wrote down Tomas's telephone number and promised him a transcript only after he approved the work.
Before he returned to the kitchen, Tomas said, “Grandpa always told me a house could remember things. I thought he was just being old-fashioned.”
“Sometimes old-fashioned people are the ones who kept the receipts,” Selene said.
He smiled for the first time.
Dante waited until the door closed behind Tomas. Then he took out his phone and called Livia Serra. The call went to voicemail. He left a message asking her to check the parcel number, any occupancy agreements, and the status of the proposed sale. He did not ask anyone to stop the sale yet.
Selene noticed.
“That's progress,” she said.
“What is?”
“You didn't order someone to chain the gates.”
“I considered it.”
He put the phone away. “You were supposed to be deciding whether you'd put your books in my hallway. This is becoming a poor date.”
“Our dates keep being interrupted by paper,” Selene said. “There's a lesson in there somewhere.”
They walked toward the river. She could feel how badly he wanted to tell her he could solve the matter before dinner. It wasn't all arrogance. He was afraid of repeating an old failure, and a powerful man's fear could become a second problem if he acted before listening.
“What happens if that building belongs to one of your former companies?” she asked.
“Then I ask what obligations go with it.”
“And if the sale pays money owed to workers from the freight division?”
He looked at her. “Then it gets complicated.”
“It was always complicated, Dante. We just weren't in the room when the decisions were made.”
That evening Selene took the train to the institute, where her desk stood beneath a window that didn't close properly in winter. The office contained a battered reading lamp, three folding chairs, and more boxes than shelves. She loved it with an unreasonable affection. It had been built around work she chose, not work somebody had offered as a favor.