who depend on you.
Don’t let me drag you into something you escaped once already.”
She was about to answer when her phone vibrated.
The sender was unknown.
A photograph appeared on the screen.
Ada stood outside a modest apartment building wearing her yellow sweater and holding red shoes.
The image had been taken that morning.
Underneath it was a threat.
“You found the father.
Now see whether you can protect his daughter.”
Iris showed Nico.
He stared at the photograph.
“They know where she lives,” he whispered.
Then he glanced at the restaurant entrance.
“And if they’re watching us, the man responsible for that fire is watching too.”
***
Iris moved immediately.
She told her security director, Daniel Kerr, to restrict access to the dining suite and preserve the restaurant’s security footage.
She asked her assistant to stop the event photographer from distributing any additional images from the evening.
A guest had already posted several photographs from the dinner online.
Nico and Ada were visible in the background of one image.
Someone watching the event could have recognized them.
“Call Detective Eileen Park,” Iris told Daniel.
“Tell her the Atlas Exchange case may have a living witness, and there’s been a threat against a child.”
Detective Park had investigated the fire as part of a cold-case review several years earlier.
She had warned Iris that suspicion alone wasn’t enough to reopen a major criminal investigation.
Now they had a witness.
Possibly evidence.
And a child who was being watched.
Nico looked toward Ada, who was drawing birds on a napkin.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
“You didn’t send that message,” Iris said.
“No.
But I’ve spent fifteen years believing silence was keeping everyone safe.”
She lowered her voice.
“Tell me what happened after you left the hospital.”
Nico stared at his hands.
“A man came to see me before I was discharged.
He wore a dark overcoat and knew my sister’s school, her schedule, even the route she walked home.”
“What did he want?”
“He told me investigators were preparing to blame the fire on faulty work I’d done.
He said they could make me a suspect in the deaths.
Then he showed me a picture of Rosa outside her school.”
Rosa was Nico’s fourteen-year-old sister, whom he had been raising since their mother’s death.
“He told me that if I spoke about the locked doors, Rosa would never make it home again.”
Iris felt sick.
“Did you report the threat?”
“I tried.
The man knew I’d called before I reached the station.
He called me again and repeated the name of the officer I’d asked for.”
Nico had no way to know whether that meant a corrupt officer, a tapped telephone, or someone listening nearby.
He only knew he was twenty-four, frightened, and responsible for a child.
He took Rosa to relatives in Vermont, changed his surname to Finch using his mother’s family name, and abandoned his apprenticeship.
Over the years he worked in warehouses, restaurants, maintenance jobs, and eventually food delivery.
He married a school librarian named Emily, and they had Ada.
Emily died after a sudden illness two years earlier.
Since then, Nico had been raising their daughter alone.
“Why stay in Boston?” Iris asked.
“Rosa came back for college.
I came back to help her.
