Chapter 5 - Aunt Lydia’s Apple TreeGabriel did not speak for several seconds.
Norah watched his face, searching for a crack in the stone. She found one in his eyes.
“Who is this?” he asked.
The woman on the phone laughed.
“You know who I am.”
“My sister is dead.”
“Is that what they told you? Poor Gabriel. Still believing stories men wrote for you when you were grieving.”
Norah sat frozen.
Gabriel’s voice lowered.
“Where are you?”
“Closer than you think.”
“What do you want?”
“The same thing everyone wants. What belongs to me.”
“The ledger?”
“The truth.”
“Then show yourself.”
“No. Not yet. First, take Miss Hayes to Vermont. Let her dig under the apple tree. Let her learn why her father chose your sister over his own daughter.”
Norah’s breath caught.
Gabriel’s eyes cut to her.
The woman continued.
“Careful, Norah. Saints are just sinners with better lighting.”
The call ended.
Elias glanced into the rearview mirror.
“Boss?”
Gabriel stared at the dark phone.
“Keep driving.”
Norah’s voice was thin.
“She knew where we were going.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Someone close is feeding her.”
“Victor?”
“Victor is useful. Not close.”
“Matteo?”
Gabriel did not answer.
Norah looked out the window.
Thomas Hayes chose your sister over his own daughter.
The words sank into places she had spent years protecting.
Her father had disappeared when she was nine. Her mother had raised her alone in a two-bedroom apartment with leaking ceilings and careful lies. Every birthday, Norah had wished for a man she barely remembered. Every year, the wish became smaller until it vanished.
If he had left to save another child, what did that make Norah?
A sacrifice?
A mistake?
An afterthought?
Rosa reached back and placed one warm hand over Norah’s knee.
“Do not believe poison just because it is poured in a woman’s voice.”
Norah swallowed hard.
“Thank you.”
Dawn broke pale over Vermont hills when they reached Maple Ridge. Aunt Lydia’s farmhouse sat at the end of a dirt road, weathered and white, surrounded by bare apple trees and long grass silvered with frost.
A thin woman in a blue cardigan opened the door before they knocked.
Lydia Hayes was older than Norah remembered, but her eyes were the same sharp gray.
She looked first at Norah, then at Gabriel.
“Absolutely not.”
Norah folded her arms.
“Good morning to you too.”
Lydia pointed toward the road.
“Take him and leave.”
Gabriel’s expression did not change.
“We need to talk.”
“I do not talk to Costas.”
Norah stepped forward.
“Then talk to me.”
Lydia’s mouth trembled before she hardened it.
“You should not have come.”
“Someone emptied my storage unit. Someone attacked us. Someone sent me a message about the apple tree.”
Lydia’s face went white.
Gabriel noticed.
Norah did too.
“What did you bury?” Norah asked.
Lydia gripped the doorframe.
“Nothing that should be dug up.”
Gabriel’s voice was low.
“Mrs. Hayes—”
Lydia snapped, “My sister died terrified because of your family.”
Gabriel went still.
“My family died too.”
“And still the Costas kept taking.”
Norah stepped between them.
“Enough. I did not drive through the night to watch two people worship old hate. Tell me the truth.”
Lydia looked at her.
For a second, the anger disappeared, leaving only sadness.
“You look like your mother when she had nothing left but stubbornness.”
Norah’s throat tightened.
“Then talk to me like I’m her daughter.”
Lydia opened the door wider.
Inside, the farmhouse smelled of woodsmoke, coffee, and old paper. Lydia led them to the kitchen, where a faded photograph of Norah’s mother hung near the stove.
Gabriel remained standing.
Lydia noticed.
“Afraid to sit in a poor woman’s kitchen?”
“No.”
“Then sit. You make the room look like a threat.”
To Norah’s surprise, Gabriel sat.
Lydia poured coffee for everyone except him.
Rosa, entering behind them, gave Lydia an approving look.
“Good,” Rosa said. “Men with too much power need fewer refreshments.”
Lydia almost smiled.
Norah did not.
“The apple tree,” she said.
Lydia looked out the window.
“The night your father disappeared, he came to my sister with a little girl. Six years old. Dark hair. Red coat. She had blood on her sleeve and would not speak.”
Gabriel’s face turned gray.
“Isabella.”
Lydia nodded once.
“Thomas said the ambush was not what people thought. He said someone inside the Costa family had arranged it, and your father discovered it too late.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
Lydia slammed her mug down.
“I am tired of dangerous men calling terrified women liars.”
Norah touched the table.
“Please.”
Lydia took a breath.
“Thomas said Isabella heard a name. A man told the shooters to leave Gabriel alive because grief would make him useful.”
Gabriel’s hands tightened.
Norah looked at him, horrified.
“He was sixteen,” she whispered.
Lydia continued.
“Thomas knew if Isabella returned, the traitor would kill her. So he took her. He begged my sister to hide you both, but your mother refused to run with another woman’s child. She said you deserved a father too.”
Norah closed her eyes.
“And he left?”
“He left to draw danger away from you.”
“With Isabella.”
“Yes.”
The truth did not heal. It opened.
Norah’s voice shook.
“Why didn’t he come back?”
Lydia’s eyes filled.
“Because three months later, a package arrived. His ring. A note. And blood on a child’s ribbon.”
Gabriel looked toward the window.
“What did the note say?”
Lydia stood and walked to the back door.
“Come.”
The apple tree stood at the edge of the property, old and twisted, its branches bare against the morning sky. Beneath it, the ground was hard with cold.
Lydia pointed to the base.
“Your mother made me bury it when she got sick. She said if Norah ever came with a Costa, it was time.”
Gabriel removed his coat and handed it to Norah without looking at her. She did not protest this time.
Elias dug with a folding shovel from the SUV.
After several minutes, metal struck metal.
They uncovered a small rusted tin box.
Norah knelt beside it.
Her hands shook too badly to open the latch.
Gabriel crouched beside her.
“May I?”
She nodded.
Inside were oil-wrapped papers, a child’s gold bracelet, a cassette tape, and a small black ledger.
Norah inhaled sharply.
Gabriel lifted the bracelet.
On the inside, engraved in tiny letters:
Isabella Maria Costa.
His sister’s bracelet.
His hand closed around it.
Norah picked up the ledger.
The first page was written in her father’s careful hand.
If this is found, then I failed to keep them safe.
The second page listed names.
Payments.
Routes.
Dates.
And one name circled three times.
Salvatore Costa.
Gabriel stared.
“That was my uncle.”
Lydia looked away.
“He died two years after the ambush,” Gabriel said.
“No,” Lydia whispered.
Gabriel turned slowly.
“What do you mean, no?”
Lydia’s voice trembled.
“Your uncle did not die. That funeral was staged.”
Norah felt the air leave her lungs.
Gabriel stood very still.
“Where is he?”
A new voice answered from behind them.
“Right here.”
Everyone turned.
At the edge of the trees stood an older man in a dark coat, leaning on a cane.
His face was lined by age, but Gabriel recognized him instantly from old photographs.
Salvatore Costa smiled.
“My boy,” he said. “You have your father’s eyes.”
Gabriel drew his weapon.
Salvatore did not flinch.
Norah clutched the ledger to her chest.
Behind Salvatore, three black SUVs rolled silently onto the property.
May you like
The dead had come walking into daylight.
And they had not come alone.
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