Chapter 3 - THE LOCKED STUDYDr. Aris—a thin, grey-haired man with the nervous tic of someone who spent most of his life stitching up men who didn't want their names on death certificates—bandaged my wrists with heavy gauze and sterile ointment while Roman stood by the fireplace, staring into the flames with a glass of un-iced bourbon in his hand.
“She’ll lose the use of her left pinkie if she doesn't soak those in salt water twice a day for a week,” the doctor muttered, packing his leather bag. “And the contusion on her left temple needs ice. Who did this, Roman? One of the dock crews?”
“No,” Roman said without turning around. “An amateur.”
“Amateurs leave bodies in places where the police find them,” Aris grunted, snapping his case shut. “Professionals put them in the bay. You’re getting soft in your old age, Calder. Keeping stray cats.”
Roman’s hand tightened around the crystal tumbler until the knuckles turned white.
“Get out, Aris.”
The doctor didn't argue. He knew the tone. He picked up his bag, nodded to me with a brief, professional tip of his head, and let himself out through the private side exit.
The silence that followed was heavy, thick with the smell of burning oak and the distant, rhythmic pounding of the bay against the rocks below the terrace.
I sat on the edge of the oversized leather sofa in Roman’s private study—a room the entire household was forbidden to enter without written permission. The walls were lined with dark mahogany bookshelves filled with ledgers, old leather-bound shipping logs from the nineteen-thirties, and rows of thick black notebooks containing the names of every man, ship, and warehouse between New York and Norfolk.
Roman walked over to a heavy oak desk in the corner, unlocked the bottom drawer with a small brass key he kept on his key ring, and pulled out a manila folder marked with a single word in red ink: STERLING.
He didn't open it. He just laid it on the coffee table in front of my knees.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Insurance,” Roman said, taking a slow sip of his bourbon. “Elevance Sterling—Evelyn’s father—has been using his position on the Port Authority board to divert municipal funds into a shell company registered in the Caymans. For three years, I let him do it.”
I looked up, my breath catching. “Why?”
“Because a starving dog is manageable,” Roman said simply. “A well-fed dog bites your hand when you try to take his bowl. But two weeks ago, Elevance tried to block the expansion of our Terminal Four docks to force me into a partnership with his brother’s construction firm.”
He leaned down, placing his glass on the marble tabletop with a sharp clink. His face was only inches from mine now. I could smell the sharp, clean scent of cedarwood soap and Kentucky bourbon on his skin.
“When you didn't show up for work last Tuesday,” Roman continued, his voice dropping into that dangerous, quiet register, “my first thought was that you had finally gotten tired of the cold winters and the seventy-hour work weeks and gone back to your cousins in Pittsburgh.”
“I left a note on the kitchen counter,” I said defensively.
“The note,” Roman said, his grey eyes narrowing, “was found in the trash can by the back gate with a heel print across the signature. Someone took you from the service alley behind the market, Clara. And the only people who knew which market you used on Tuesday mornings were the household staff… and Evelyn, who spent the last month coming over uninvited to inspect the pantry.”
A cold shiver ran down my spine, replacing the lingering heat of the fever in my wrists.
“She knew about Caleb,” I whispered. “When she was questioning me in the warehouse… she asked if he still liked his blue bicycle.”
Roman didn't blink.
“Evelyn is currently sitting in a holding cell at the Coast Guard station in Annapolis,” he said. “Her father is on a red-eye flight from London trying to figure out which federal prosecutor’s office has his bank statements. By noon tomorrow, the Sterling name will be as dead as the whale oil industry.”
He straightened up, walking back toward the massive mahogany desk. He picked up a small, silver-plated bell and gave it a single, sharp ring.
A moment later, the side door opened and Mrs. Adler bustled in, carrying a tray loaded with toast, hot broth, and a small ceramic teapot. Her grey hair was slightly askew, and she wore her usual tweed cardigan with three missing buttons, but her eyes were sharp as needles.
“Oh, thank the good Lord,” she muttered, setting the tray down on my lap before turning her glare directly onto Roman. “And you, Mr. Calder! Letting girls get snatched off the street like common turnips while you’re sitting here counting boxes of iron ore!”
Roman didn't flinch. He actually looked slightly chastised—a sight so absurd I almost choked on my own spit.
“The security perimeter has been doubled, Mrs. Adler,” Roman said stiffly.
May you like
“It should have been tripled the day she started bringing you that tea with the extra lemon,” the old woman snapped, tucking a blanket around my knees with a rough, affectionate pat. “Eat that broth, Clara. You look like a ghost that’s been run over by a truck.”
She turned on her heel and marched out, leaving the door slightly ajar so the sound of the grandfather clock in the hall could fill the heavy silence between us.
