“She’ll be ready,” I say, and end the call because hovering is a habit I don’t keep.
I put a cup under the machine to give my hands something to do. The pour is a neat, dark ribbon, a small domestic performance I could do asleep. I don’t drink it. The surface winks while the crema settles.
I pick up the phone again. Put it down. Three minutes. Five. Seven. This is stupid. She is not a teenager. She is not late because she is playing. She is not late because she is punishing me. She is late because mornings happen, because keys hide, because hair has a mind with its own mood.
At 6:12, the phone rings.
I answer so fast, it doesn’t have a chance for a full ring.
“Sir,” the driver says, not panicked, not calm, pitched in that middle register trained men use when they know the next sentence will elicit a response.
“What,” I say, and every trace of sleep leaves my voice. “Speak.”
“I’m at the address,” he says. “Been here since 5:58. No answer to the text. No answer to the call. At 6:10, I went to the door. No response to the knock. I tried again. Still nothing.” A beat. “I called her phone. I hear it ringing inside.”
“Get in,” I tell him.
“Yes, sir,” he says automatically.
“Deadbolt’s on,” he adds. “No chain.”
“Don’t wait.” I’m already moving—wallet, keys, gun. “Force it. Minimal damage if you can.”
A muffled grunt, wood giving. Then his breath in my ear as he steps through. “Front hall. Lights off. Boxes stacked. Suitcase by the stairs.” A pause. “Her phone’s on the dining table.”
Cold drops through me, clean and absolute. “Bedroom.”
“I’m going.” Footfalls, floorboards complaining. “Bed’s made. Looks untouched.”
“Bathroom. Back door. Windows.”
“I’ll clear the ground floor.” Another beat. “Rear door locked from the inside. Kitchen’s tidy. No sign of a struggle.”
Which is somehow worse.
“Stay put,” I say, already at my door. “Touch nothing else. I’m two minutes out.”
“Yes, sir.”
I end the call, pocket the phone, and take the hall in a sprint.
It’s all just as he described it.
Boxes stacked in the narrow hall. Suitcase sat next to them, handle up, as if she planned to move it “in a minute” and never did.
I walk farther in. The sole of my shoe barely creaks on the old boards. Her phone sits on the dining table, screen dark. It feels wrong. She does not leave without it. She does not step out to the curb without checking three times that it’s in a pocket. She would sooner forget her shoes.
I put the phone back where I found it and go into the kitchen.
Half an apple sits on the board, browning. A glass on the mat, beads of water still clinging around the rim.
“Sir.”
The voice comes from the front room. Alessio. He steps in but doesn’t cross the threshold to the kitchen. He knows enough to leave the room undisturbed until I’ve finished reading it.
“What,” I say.
He tilts his chin toward the street. “Paolo’s got something.”
