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“I’ll find her,” Pisano blustered. “I-I’ll do it. Please.” He coughed, and blood-laced spittle ran down his chin. “Help me.”
“You’re far beyond help now.” Zbirak tried not to revel in this man’s undoing, but it was difficult. It was not the first time he had considered killing him. “I had a simple request, Joseph. Kill Mrs. Sherman. I sent you because you are a cop. Instead, you employed your nephew, who has as much tact and brains as you do, but without the badge to back it up. He spooked her, and now she’s in the wind. I will find her eventually, but I will waste valuable time and resources to do so.”
“I-I’m s-sorry.” Pisano’s breaths were wet and gasping. Red blooms filled the toilet water, having dripped from his mouth and nose. “P-please—”
“Don’t beg.” Zbirak didn’t hide his disdain now. “You should’ve known better, Joseph. The only thing I hate more than having my time wasted is a loose end. Mrs. Sherman is a loose end that my employer expects me to trim. I entrusted that job to you, and you failed. I killed your nephew because you gave him information that was not yours to share. I killed you because you have been a pain in my ass for two decades, and my patience has finally run thin.”
Pisano was purple in the face. His mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for oxygen, but the sound of air moving through his lungs was ostensibly absent. The man only had a few moments left, and he would spend them in excruciating pain. It was a blessing, all things considered. If Zbirak had more time, he would’ve dragged Pisano’s death out for days.
“You’re a disgusting, arrogant bastard who only made it this far in life because of the handouts you received along the way.” Zbirak wanted to spit on him but resisted. “If you had a modicum of self-awareness, you would’ve come here begging for your life instead of maintaining your mask of false bravado. I may have even considered sparing your life, though the chances would’ve been slim.”
Pisano’s body had gone still, and the smell emanating from his pants indicated h
e could no longer hear Zbirak’s words. It would take a few hours before anyone realized there was a dead body in the stall, and that would be more than enough time for Zbirak to put distance between himself and the restaurant.
As he exited the restroom and returned to his seat, Zbirak motioned for the server. “My friend is ill,” he said, rearranging his face into a frown, “so I’m going to take this time to pay for the bill while he is otherwise occupied.”
“Oh no.” She glanced down at Pisano’s empty plate. “Do you think—”
“Doubtful.” Zbirak transformed his frown into another brilliant smile. “He’s got a sensitive stomach. I keep telling him he’ll eat himself into an early grave.”
She followed his cue and laughed at the joke, then pointed to his plate. “Would you like a box for your steak?”
Zbirak couldn’t stomach the idea of trying to reheat his meal without overcooking it. He’d rather see it go to waste. “Just the check please.”
The woman took their plates, but when she reached for Pisano’s beer bottle, Zbirak’s hand shot out to stop her. He wrapped his fingers around the neck and smiled up at her. “This can stay.” If the woman thought his actions were strange, her face didn’t betray her. Instead, she bounded away, returning a few moments later with the check. He waited for her to retreat once more before dropping a wad of cash on the table, sliding the beer bottle into the pocket of his jacket, and striding out the front door.
Once the staff realized Pisano was still in the bathroom, they would send a busboy in to check on him. When the kid discovered the dead body, they would call the police, who would question Zbirak’s server. She’d describe the man at the table as white, with brown hair and a kind smile. He had an average build and was likely in his forties, with no distinguishing features. By then, the kitchen staff would have washed away any evidence of fingerprints from their leftover food. He’d wiped off the lock on the stall and the handle on the door before exiting the bathroom. Not to mention he’d tossed the beer bottle in a dumpster three miles across town. Any traces of the poison he’d slipped into its open mouth while Pisano was distracted would be gone in a matter of days.
And just like that, Zbirak would slip back into the shadows like he had for the past twenty-five years. His spirits were high as he merged onto the highway half an hour later, certain no one had followed him. His only regret was that he’d let Pisano ruin his dinner.
No matter. Once Mrs. Sherman was out of the picture, he’d sit down for another steak dinner. And this time, he wouldn’t make the mistake of inviting anyone else to the table.
Concealed in Shadow: Chapter 2
The Chicago Historical Society was founded in 1856 to study and interpret the city’s storied past. After pieces of their collection succumbed to fire on two separate occasions, the CHS moved their museum and library to Lincoln Park, where it still stands to this day, boasting over twenty-two million items exploring the city’s influence on American history and vice versa. With the city providing a backdrop to the West and Lake Michigan to the East, the Chicago History Museum collects snapshots of time and preserves them for all to witness.
One of the great ironies of her life was that Cassie Quinn loved museums. The smell, the atmosphere, the people, the history, the influence—all of it. You could walk into a museum and transport yourself to Ancient Egypt, where a toilet was merely a hole in a stool, and then fast forward to a time in which a man named Marcel Duchamp could place a urinal upside down in a gallery and call it a fountain. Nowhere else in the world can you find such a strange amalgamation of historically and intellectually significant objects. The breadth of human achievement placed under the same roof was astronomical.
But Cassie could not celebrate museums without also acknowledging the elephant in the room. Lord Elgin famously stole pieces of the Parthenon and transported them to Britain, where they continue to reside in the British Museum. Vandalism and theft were not solitary events, and many European museums have refused to return the legacies of other countries to their rightful places. If Greece cannot retrieve their beloved history, imagine the likelihood that an African nation could convince England to give up their cultural property, nearly all of which dwells outside of the continent.
Even the Chicago History Museum has an uncomfortable past to atone for. Lincoln Park was once a municipal burial ground for over thirty-five thousand people, many of which had died of cholera. But the earth at the edge of the lake was loose and sandy, and they had buried the bodies below the water table, which meant they were at risk for contaminating the city’s water supply.
In the mid- to late-1800s, the bodies were transferred from the park to rural cemeteries outside the city limits. But with so many people buried there, it was impossible to locate and move them all. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed many of the markers, further complicating the situation. Estimates indicate ten thousand bodies could still be buried beneath the soil of the park, and every time someone brings in a backhoe—like during each of the Chicago History Museum’s several expansions—more bones surface.
And there was the irony—Cassie loved museums with every fiber of her being, but they tested her mental fortitude like no other place on the planet could. When she crossed the threshold into a cemetery, she knew what she was getting into. There was bound to be a ghost who approached her, begging for help. But in a museum, there were no rules. Ghosts and visions assaulted her senses. Millions of objects harbored information from the past, waiting for the right person to walk by. Pair that with tens of thousands of spirits who had passed through the grounds, and it was hard to say whether Cassie could truly have a good time within the confines of such a place.
But something had shifted in New Orleans. Sabine Delacroix had turned a key and unlocked Cassie’s powers. Her abilities were nowhere near stable or perfect, but for the first time in her life, she was confident. She had patience. She trusted the answers would come in due time. That trip to New Orleans had opened her eyes to an infinite number of possibilities. She didn’t want to run and hide anymore; she wanted to help those forgotten by the annals of time. With a newfound purpose in hand, Cassie walked a little taller.
Nevertheless, exploring the Chicago History Museum was no easy feat. She could feel the artifacts tugging on her consciousness, begging to be heard. Spirits drifted by, untethered and yet imprisoned within a world where they had been relegated to myth and legend. The older the ghost, the further gone. But the younger ones were still hungry for answers, and they often went to great lengths to seek her out.
Unfortunately, Cassie already had a mission, and the museum was merely a pit stop along the way. She wandered aimlessly, allowing the current of the universe to determine her destination, until she stopped in front of one of the most prominent oil-on-canvas paintings in the building. Memories of the Chicago Fire in 1871, painted from memory forty-one years later by Julia Lemos, who had witnessed the historical event firsthand.
Billowing clouds of smoke stretched across the sky as tendrils of flame consumed buildings from the inside out, like a parasite, with no concern for the longevity of its host. Its fuel was too willing to accept its embrace, and so the fire feasted like a king.
Dozens of people fled the scene, their dark clothes in contrast to the pollution overhead. Cassie could hear the calamitous event like she had a crackling speaker up to her ear. People shouting, horses neighing, and wood crackling as the blaze consumed the city without pause or prejudice.
Cassie had been to Chicago once in her youth and vowed never to return. As a teenager, she had buried her abilities so deeply within herself that they were nearly non-existent. Nearly. The city had always given her a headache and caused her stomach to twist in response to an unseen force. While the migraines were a distant memory, the knot in her abdomen curled in on itself until Cassie winced. She consciously had to loosen the muscles and tell her body to relax. But it was difficult to convince herself she wasn’t in any immediate danger when she could feel the inferno’s heat caressing the back of her neck.
