Chapter 3 - Eleven Dollars and Seventy Cents
The restaurant transformed in seconds.
Front doors locked.
Kitchen exits covered.
Security cameras pulled onto monitors.
Men I had assumed were wealthy customers suddenly started behaving like trained guards.
Callaway’s had always been a restaurant wearing a secret.
Now the secret had stood up.
Reed moved me and Ava into his private office.
The forbidden room.
Eleven months working twenty feet away, and I had imagined weapons, cash, maybe photographs of people nobody wanted photographed.
Instead, there were books.
A mahogany desk.
Family photographs.
And a small wooden horse on the shelf.
Reed noticed me staring.
“Daniel carved it.”
I looked away.
Tommy entered.
“Elena’s car was waiting in the alley.”
“Driver?”
“Gone.”
“Plate?”
“Stolen.”
Reed’s face hardened.
“She planned this.”
I felt sick.
Elena had hired me.
Elena knew my address.
My schedule.
Every shift I missed because Ava was sick.
My emergency-contact information.
“She knew.”
Reed looked at me.
“Maybe.”
“No. She knew about Ava.”
“How?”
“I listed her on my employment paperwork.”
Tommy swore.
Then Reed asked:
“Who hired you?”
“Elena.”
“Who interviewed you?”
“Elena.”
“When?”
“Eleven months ago.”
Tommy and Reed exchanged a look.
Ava was eight months old.
I had started working at Callaway’s while pregnant.
This wasn’t coincidence.
Reed opened his computer.
My employment file appeared.
There was a note I had never seen.
PRIORITY HIRE — NO BACKGROUND REJECTION.
Authorized by:
E. VARGAS.
Elena.
“What does that mean?”
Tommy answered.
“It means you were getting this job even if you showed up drunk and stole the silverware.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
Nobody answered.
My phone buzzed.
Bank notification.
I nearly ignored it.
Then I saw the balance.
$25,011.70.
I stared.
“What?”
Someone had deposited twenty-five thousand dollars.
Memo:
FOR AVA.
My hands began shaking.
Reed took the phone.
“Don’t touch the money.”
“I wasn’t planning a shopping spree.”
He ignored the sarcasm.
Tommy traced what he could.
The transfer originated through a Nevada holding company.
Owner hidden.
Then another message arrived.
Unknown number.
You should have stayed home today.
I showed Reed.
His entire demeanor changed.
“Tommy.”
“I’m on it.”
Another message.
You were given enough money to disappear.
Then:
Take Ava and leave Chicago before midnight.
My chest tightened.
“Who knows my number?”
“Elena.”
“And?”
I hesitated.
Ava’s father.
Daniel.
Evan.
Whatever his name was.
Reed saw the answer on my face.
Then the office phone rang.
Not my phone.
Reed’s private line.
He answered.
Silence.
Then his face changed.
“Say that again.”
I could hear a man faintly through the receiver.
Reed put the call on speaker.
A distorted voice said:
“The girl and her child leave Chicago tonight.”
Reed leaned against the desk.
“And if they don’t?”
“You buried Daniel once.”
My blood froze.
The voice continued:
“Don’t make Mara watch you bury him again.”
The call ended.
I stared at Reed.
“He’s alive.”
Reed didn’t answer.
Then Tommy’s computer chimed.
The security system had recovered footage from the alley.
Elena entering the waiting car.
A man opening the door for her.
The camera caught his face for less than one second.
Reed enlarged the frame.
My knees weakened.
Evan.
Daniel.
Ava’s father.
May you like
Alive.
Standing in Chicago.
