Chapter 6 - The Waitress They Tried to Bury
Emergency lights flooded the private room red.
Hargrove drew his weapon.
“Everyone down.”
Nora dropped behind the table.
Enzo moved beside her.
“Stay here.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep ignoring me.”
A crash sounded from the corridor.
Then Price shouted.
“Police!”
Footsteps.
A door slammed.
Hargrove’s men moved quickly.
Thirty seconds later, one of them called out.
“Clear!”
The lights returned.
The private room looked untouched.
But Whitcomb was gone.
Price stared at the empty chair.
“How?”
Nora pointed toward the service panel behind the curtains.
“There’s a dumbwaiter access corridor.”
Enzo looked at her.
“You knew that?”
“I work here.”
Hargrove opened the panel.
The narrow passage beyond was empty.
Enzo’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Speak.”
A man’s voice came through.
“Still giving orders like your father.”
Enzo became perfectly still.
“Salvatore.”
Nora heard the faint laugh through the phone.
“So the dead finally get remembered.”
“Where is Daniel Bell?”
“Alive.”
“And Whitcomb?”
“Disposable.”
Enzo’s jaw tightened.
“What do you want?”
“What should have been mine.”
“You poisoned a child.”
“I frightened you.”
“You nearly killed Lily.”
“That was unfortunate.”
Enzo’s face changed.
Nora had never seen hatred become so quiet.
Salvatore continued.
“Bring Marcus to St. Catherine.”
“No.”
“Then his son dies.”
Marcus stepped forward.
“I’ll go.”
Enzo looked at him.
Salvatore heard.
“Good boy, Marcus.”
Nora felt disgust.
Then something occurred to her.
She grabbed a paper and wrote:
KEEP HIM TALKING.
Enzo saw it.
“What else?” he asked.
Salvatore laughed.
“That waitress is clever.”
Nora froze.
He knew she was there.
Salvatore continued.
“She noticed the straw. The car. The footage.”
Enzo glanced toward the windows.
“You’re watching us.”
“No.”
Nora suddenly looked toward Whitcomb’s abandoned jacket.
She moved toward it.
Hargrove whispered, “Nora.”
She searched the pocket.
Found nothing.
Then she touched the button.
Too thick.
Nora tore it loose.
A tiny transmitter dropped into her hand.
Hargrove stared.
“A microphone.”
Nora crushed it beneath her shoe.
The call went silent for a second.
Then Salvatore said, less amused:
“I liked her better when she carried drinks.”
Enzo smiled coldly.
“That makes two of us.”
Salvatore hung up.
Price immediately coordinated with tactical teams.
Within twenty minutes, St. Catherine was surrounded discreetly.
The abandoned hotel had been closed for eleven years.
Marcus sat in the back of an unmarked vehicle.
Nora stood beside the command post.
Enzo looked at her.
“I told you to stay behind.”
“And I told Detective Price about the old kitchen tunnel.”
Price nodded.
“She’s right. Building records confirm it.”
Enzo stared at Nora.
“You know this place too?”
“My mother cleaned rooms here when I was a kid.”
“Of course she did.”
Nora almost smiled.
“You sound annoyed.”
“I’m beginning to suspect you know every hidden door in Chicago.”
“Only the useful ones.”
Price interrupted.
“We have movement.”
A thermal camera showed three figures downstairs.
Two upstairs.
One sitting motionless.
Marcus leaned forward.
“Daniel.”
Hargrove asked, “How can you tell?”
“A father can tell.”
Enzo looked at Price.
“We go.”
Price frowned.
“My team goes.”
Enzo said nothing.
Price sighed.
“You’re going anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Then stay behind my people.”
Enzo looked at Hargrove.
Neither man agreed.
Nora grabbed Enzo’s sleeve before he moved.
He turned.
“Lily needs you alive.”
His eyes held hers.
“That sounded like an order.”
“It was.”
Something almost resembling a smile touched his mouth.
“I’m starting to see why Whitcomb hated you.”
Then he disappeared into the hotel.
---
The operation lasted eleven minutes.
No dramatic gun battle.
No burning building.
Just controlled movement through dark halls.
Two of Salvatore’s men surrendered.
A third tried to flee and was arrested.
Daniel Bell was found alive in Room 314.
Whitcomb was discovered locked inside a pantry, abandoned by the people he had helped.
Salvatore made it to the roof.
Enzo met him there.
The older man stood beside the ledge with his silver cane.
“You look like your father.”
Enzo stopped ten feet away.
“You poisoned my daughter.”
“I corrected an inheritance problem.”
“She’s six.”
“She’s a Castellani.”
“That is not a crime.”
Salvatore laughed.
“You truly believe you’re different from us?”
“Yes.”
That answer surprised him.
Enzo continued.
“My father taught me fear was power.”
He stepped closer.
“You taught me what fear turns men into.”
Salvatore’s expression tightened.
Sirens flashed below.
“You’ll kill me.”
“No.”
Enzo looked toward Detective Price approaching behind him.
“You’re going to prison.”
Salvatore stared.
“You’d hand family to police?”
“You stopped being family when you touched Lily.”
Price cuffed him.
As Salvatore was led away, Enzo’s phone rang.
He answered.
Hospital.
His face changed immediately.
“What?”
Nora, waiting downstairs, saw him emerge five minutes later.
She ran toward him.
“Lily?”
Enzo stopped.
Then smiled.
A real smile this time.
“The doctors are releasing her tomorrow.”
Nora covered her mouth.
“Good.”
Enzo looked at her for a long moment.
“You saved her.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“The doctors saved her.”
“You stopped us from destroying the glass.”
“I noticed a straw.”
“You noticed what everyone else ignored.”
Nora looked toward the police vehicles.
“That’s my job.”
“No.”
Enzo shook his head.
May you like
“It was.”
---
