Chapter 7 - The Ledger’s Secret
Elena did not drop the book. Instead, she reached into the deep pocket of Ciro’s overcoat, where her fingers found the heavy brass drafting compass she had stolen off the library desk two hours earlier while Ciro was on the red telephone.
The thug swung his leg over the second rung, his boot slick with oil. As he reached down to grab her collar, Elena drove the four-inch steel point of the drafting compass directly into the top of his foot, right through the leather of his work boot.
The man let out an ear-piercing shriek of agony, his hands reflexively releasing the ladder rungs to clutch his impaled foot. He tilted backward into the open shaft with a grotesque, flailing lurch, hitting the iron crossbeam with a dull metallic crash before vanishing beneath the black, surging marsh water with a violent splash.
Elena scrambled down the remaining rungs, dropping waist-deep into the freezing tide. The cold drove the air from her lungs in a sharp gasp, but she waded through the suction of the intake pipe until she reached her sister.
""Hold still,"" Elena hissed through chattering teeth, pulling the thug's dropped switchblade from the surface of a floating grease drum. She sawed frantically at the wet nylon cords around Theresa’s wrists.
""Elena... Paolo said he was taking me to Maine,"" Theresa wept, her face purple with cold, her lips blue. ""He told me he had a house near Bar Harbor... I thought he loved me...""
""Paolo is an idiot who couldn't find Maine on a road map without an escort,"" Elena snapped, the nylon fibers finally giving way with a sharp snap. ""Get your arms around my neck. Don't look at the water.""
Above them, the heavy thud of leather boots sounded on the iron grating. Ciro appeared at the top of the ladder, looking down into the cistern. His white shirt was torn at the shoulder, stained with dark grease and a smear of crimson along the collar, but his hands were steady as he braced himself against the safety rail.
""Catch,"" he called down.
He tossed a heavy coil of hemp rescue rope down into the water. Elena caught it, looping it twice under Theresa's arms and knotting it with the square hitch her father had taught her on the docks when she was nine.
""Pull!"" Elena shouted.
Ciro hauled on the line with rhythmic, mechanical power, lifting Theresa's shivering weight from the intake current as if she weighed nothing at all. Within two minutes, both sisters were pulled up onto the dry iron walkway, coughing up brackish spray onto the rusted diamond plates.
Elena collapsed against the brick wall, shivering violently as the freezing salt water drained from her woolen clothes. In the corner near the entrance, Paolo lay face-down on the concrete, his hands bound behind him with his own silk necktie, groaning into the dirt.
Ciro walked over and knelt beside Elena. He pulled his dry woolen scarf from around his neck and wrapped it tightly around her throat, his thumb brushing against her chilled cheek. His touch was warm, steady, and unexpectedly lingering.
""You took my compass,"" he said softly, a ghost of an amused shadow touching the corner of his lips.
""It belonged to my father,"" Elena whispered, her teeth knocking together. ""I just put it back to work.""
""Look at the last page,"" Ciro said, holding up the oilcloth notebook, which had remained tucked safely inside his inner vest during the struggle. He turned the wet cover toward the dim bulb light.
May you like
Elena leaned in, squinting at the faded numbers. On the final page, beneath forty years of dock shipping codes, was a single line written in Arthur Vance’s hand that had never been coded at all:
For Ciro and Elena. The harbor belongs to those who build it, not those who bleed it. Salem Street Trust account #4088. Clear the name.
