Chapter 3 - The Blue Bird
At sunrise, I called Dante. I didn't say good morning. I said, "I need to break into Cameron's apartment."
He arrived twenty minutes later wearing a charcoal coat and the expression of a man who had already guessed I would make trouble. When I explained the call, he listened without interrupting.
"We can ask the police to recover your belongings," he said.
"Cameron's father practically owns the police commissioner."
"Not every officer."
"And while we search for one who isn't afraid of a senator, Cameron destroys the bird."
Dante considered that. "You won't go alone."
"I'm not asking for permission."
"Good. I'm not giving it. I'm offering help."
The distinction mattered. I hated that it mattered.
Isabella drove us to a diner first, where I ate pancakes and listened to Gabriel explain that Cameron had left for a morning television interview. A security camera showed him smiling beside his father beneath a banner that read FAMILY FIRST.
"I could throw up," I muttered.
"Finish your coffee first," Isabella said.
We entered the building with a locksmith and a lawyer's written authorization documenting my tenancy and my right to retrieve my own possessions. I had rehearsed seeing our apartment again. I hadn't rehearsed the smell: cedar cologne, expensive coffee, and the lemon cleaner Cameron used after every argument.
The kitchen was spotless. The ceramic bird was missing from the windowsill where I'd once kept it, but I knew Cameron's habits. He didn't throw away things that could hurt me. He kept them.
In the storage closet, behind a box of Christmas decorations, I found a shoebox marked NORA'S JUNK. Inside were birthday cards from friends he said had stopped calling, photographs he'd told me were lost, and the little blue bird.
Its glaze was chipped at the wing.
I began to cry before I could stop myself.
"We can leave," Dante said from the doorway.
"Not yet."
I turned the bird over. My mother had painted a tiny star on its base. Beneath the star was a seam. I pressed it with my thumbnail, and a hidden compartment clicked open.
A brass key fell into my palm. Attached was a paper strip bearing four numbers and one word: MERCER.
"A safety deposit box?" Gabriel asked.
"Maybe," Dante said. "Or a locker."
I looked at the key and remembered my mother saying, Some birds are made to carry secrets.
Then the apartment door opened.
Cameron stood in the hall, his television makeup still perfect. For one heartbeat, he looked shocked. Then he smiled.
"Sweetheart. I've been worried sick."
I stepped behind the kitchen counter. My pulse pounded, but Dante stayed where he was. He didn't move in front of me unless I asked.
"I'm collecting my things," I said.
"With him?" Cameron's gaze flicked to Dante. "Do you understand what kind of man he is?"
"I understand what kind of man you are."
His smile vanished.
"Nora, you're making this difficult."
"I'm leaving."
"You think you can walk away after everything I've done for you?"
I thought of the nights he made me apologize for arguments he started. The friends he erased from my life. The marks he left where nobody could see.
"Yes," I said. "I can."
Cameron reached into his jacket. Gabriel shifted, but Cameron produced only a photograph. He laid it on the counter.
My mother stood beside a hospital bed. In the bed lay a gray-haired man I recognized from childhood.
My father.
Alive.
"Come home," Cameron said softly, "and I'll tell you where your parents are."
I looked at the photograph. Then at the man who had spent two years making me doubt my own mind.
"You knew," I whispered.
He leaned close enough that only I could hear.
"Your mother should have taught you to obey."
Dante's voice cut through the room. "Step away from her."
Cameron laughed, but he stepped back.
We left with the bird, the key, and the photograph. In the elevator, my legs finally began to shake.
Dante offered his hand. I took it.
When the doors opened in the lobby, a police officer approached us.
May you like
"Nora Bennett?" he asked. "You're under arrest for the theft of confidential state documents."
Cameron had made his next move.
