Chapter 2 - The Edge of the Cliff
The morning after the library encounter, the atmosphere within the stone estate shifted subtly. It was nothing tangible—no extra security guards at the iron gates, no raised voices in the study. But Nora felt it in the way the head housekeeper, Mrs. Gable, suddenly stopped correcting her posture, and the way Roman’s personal driver held the side door a second longer when she arrived.
Yet, outside the estate’s high stone walls, the world remained cold, hungry, and unforgiving.
By Thursday, the city was shivering beneath a blanket of freezing rain. Nora finished her shift at the mansion, collected her modest weekly envelope, and hurried through the damp dusk to catch the crosstown bus. Her mind was already on Caleb. She had left him a note about macaroni and cheese and warned him not to open the door for strangers, but an invisible claw of anxiety pulled at her ribs. In Highlandtown, neighborhood talk had grown darker lately; warehouse docks were closing down, union jobs were evaporating overnight, and unfamiliar cars with tinted windows had been idling near the corner grocery store.
When she stepped off the bus three blocks from her apartment, the wind off the Patapsco River bit straight through her wool coat.
She turned the corner onto her street, her boots splashing through slush-filled potholes.
Then she saw the van.
It was a nondescript black utility vehicle idling haphazardly across the curb, right outside her apartment building. Two men stood near the entrance, smoking cigarettes and watching the door.
Nora’s instincts, honed by years of surviving the harshest corners of the city, screamed at her to turn around. She clutched her canvas bag to her chest and stepped back into the shadow of a brick warehouse wall.
Where is Caleb?
Mrs. Adler’s window on the first floor was dark. The old woman usually kept a small amber lamp burning until eight. Today, the curtains were drawn tight, completely motionless.
Before Nora could weigh her options, a heavy hand clamped down over her mouth, and an iron forearm wrapped around her waist, lifting her off her feet with effortless, terrifying strength.
May you like
She opened her mouth to scream, but a thick rag pressed over her nose and mouth, reeking of sweet, chemical poison. The cold pavement of the street spun crazily into a blur of gray slush, neon signs, and black sky.
Her last coherent thought before the darkness swallowed her whole was not about herself, but about the tin box beneath Caleb's bed, and the note she had left on the kitchen table that morning.
