Chapter 10 - The View from the Forty-Eighth
Six months later.
September brought a soft, golden light to Lake Shore Drive. The water of Lake Michigan was calm, blue as lapis lazuli, reflecting the tall glass towers that stood along the edge of the city.
On the forty-eighth floor of the tower—a space that had once been an private art gallery—the glass walls looked out over thirty miles of Illinois skyline.
There were no gilded couches. No velvet curtains.
There was only a long, mahogany work table, six rows of steel filing cabinets containing the blue leather books of Chicago, and a single high-backed leather chair.
Eliti Morceli sat at the table, wearing a dark gray linen suit that fit her small frame perfectly. Her hair was styled simply, held back with a small silver clip. On her left wrist, the gold watch caught the afternoon sun.
Beside her desk sat a small plush cushion where Duchess—the silver-gray cat she had taken from the street behind the Western Avenue garage—lay sleeping in the warmth of the glass.
A soft chime sounded from the desk intercom.
She pressed the brass button. "Yes?"
"Mr. Vance is in the lobby," Sodor’s voice came through the speaker—clear, calm, and absolute. "He says he has the updated papers for the riverfront expansion."
Eliti opened the small blue notebook resting on her desk. She flipped to page forty-two, her finger tracking a line of yellowed ink.
"Tell him to wait twenty minutes," she said into the microphone. "He brought his nephew with him—the one who bought three acres of marshland in Joliet last month under a false company name."
Through the speaker, she heard Sodor let out a soft, dark chuckle.
"You see everything, Eliti."
"It's my job," she said. "I am paid to keep the house in order."
May you like
She clicked off the intercom, closed the blue book, and looked out over the city stretching vast and bright beneath her window.
Down on the street forty-eight floors below, a long black Lincoln was turning south onto Lake Shore Drive, moving smoothly through the amber grid of traffic—a machine that moved without trembling, guided by hands that remembered everything, and guarded by a woman who had refused to disappear.
