Chapter 2
But the air felt narrower.
“Who?”
“We don't know.”
“We?”
“My sister and I.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Your address. Where you work. Whether your mother still lives in San Francisco.”
My pulse accelerated.
“Police?”
“No.”
“Debt collectors?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“That is one of the things I intend to find out.”
I stood.
My chair scraped against the floor.
“I need to go.”
“Ava.”
“I've been away from my tables too long.”
“This is more important than your tables.”
“To you.”
I picked up the sparkling-water pitcher.
“To me, those tables pay rent.”
Something in Damien's expression changed.
He reached into his jacket.
I immediately stiffened.
He noticed.
Then slowly removed a business card instead.
He set it on the table.
No title.
No company.
Just his name and a phone number.
“If you remember anything unusual from your childhood, call me.”
I looked at the card but didn't touch it.
“And if I don't?”
“I'll respect that.”
I almost believed him.
Almost.
Then he said, “But someone searched your mother's hospital room two nights ago.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“What?”
Damien's voice remained controlled.
“A woman entered while Isabella was in radiology.”
I sat down again.
“How do you know?”
“Hospital security.”
“Why were you checking hospital security?”
“Because the person asking questions about you knew where she was.”
Fear crawled across my skin.
“What did the woman take?”
“We don't know.”
“Did she hurt anyone?”
“No.”
“Did she go near my mother?”
“Not while your mother was present.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
Mom hadn't told me anything was missing.
Then I remembered our conversation yesterday.
She had asked if I had moved the blue scarf she kept in her overnight bag.
I said no.
She laughed and blamed her medication.
“What did the woman look like?”
“Late fifties, possibly early sixties. Dark hair. Medium height. She wore hospital scrubs beneath a coat.”
My breath caught.
“Did she have glasses?”
Damien's expression sharpened.
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“How did you know?”
I barely heard him.
I was back in Mom's hospital room six days earlier.
A woman had been standing by the elevator when I arrived.
Dark hair streaked with gray.
Rectangular glasses.
She smiled at me.
Not friendly exactly.
Familiar.
I had thought she was a nurse.
“She spoke to me.”
Damien became completely still.
“What did she say?”
“She asked if I was Isabella's daughter.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said yes.”
His jaw tightened.
“What else?”
“Nothing. She said she hoped Mom recovered quickly.”
“Did she give you a name?”
“No.”
“Would you recognize her?”
“I think so.”
He took the phone, opened a file, then turned the screen toward me.
A security still showed the hospital corridor.
The woman was partially turned from the camera.
But the glasses were the same.
The coat was the same.
My stomach tightened.
“That's her.”
One of Damien's men immediately stood and left the room.
I looked at Damien.
“What happens now?”
“We identify her.”
“And then?”
“We ask why she was there.”
The simplicity of the answer was somehow reassuring.
No threat.
No dramatic promise.
Just a question.
I looked down at the card.
This time, I took it.
“I have to finish my shift.”
Damien nodded.
I stood.
At the door, I stopped.
“There is one thing.”
He waited.
“My mother has a box.”
“What kind of box?”
“Wooden. Small. She kept it locked when I was a kid.”
“Do you know what's inside?”
“No.”
“I once asked her.”
“What did she say?”
I remembered her exact words.
“Some things are safer when you don't understand them.”
For the first time since I'd entered the room, Damien looked genuinely unsettled.
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
But that wasn't completely true.
Because as I walked back into the restaurant, I remembered seeing the box only three months ago.
It had been underneath Mom's bed.
And two days earlier, she'd asked me to bring her apartment keys to the hospital.
The rest of my shift passed inside a fog.
I poured wine.
Carried plates.
Smiled when required.
But every ordinary sound felt strangely distant.
At eleven forty-five, I finally clocked out.
I expected Damien to be gone.
He was standing near the entrance.
Alone now.
“You waited?”
“I was hoping you would remember where the box was.”
I looked at him.
“You really don't know when to stop.”
“I've been told that.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Almost.
Then I walked past him.
He followed.
Outside, San Francisco was cool and foggy.
Streetlights dissolved into pale circles along the pavement.
“My apartment is six blocks away,” I said.
“I'll have someone drive you.”
“No.”
“Ava.”
“I have spent one evening discovering that a stranger knows almost everything about my life. I'm not getting into his car.”
“That is fair.”
He said it so easily that I stopped.
“You're not going to argue?”
“You look like you would rather walk.”
“I would.”
“Then I'll walk.”
I stared at his polished shoes.
“You?”
“I know how.”
“That remains unproven.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
It was the first human expression I'd seen from him.
We started walking.
For the first block, neither of us spoke.
Damien didn't walk like the frightening man people whispered about.
He walked like a man who noticed everything.
Passing cars.
Windows.
People on corners.
He looked constantly alert without seeming nervous.
“You really knew my mother?”
“Yes.”
“What was she like?”
That surprised him.
“Twenty-seven years ago?”
“Yes.”
He thought about it.
“Impatient.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
“That sounds right.”
“She argued with everyone.”
“Still right.”
“She believed instructions were optional.”
I smiled.
“That is definitely right.”
His own expression softened.
“She was also fearless.”
I looked ahead.
“No. She isn't.”
“She was then.”
Something in his tone made me wonder what had changed her.
“What happened between you?”
“We wanted different lives.”
“That sounds like something people say instead of the truth.”
“It probably is.”
I waited.
He sighed.
“My family expected certain things from me. Your mother hated those expectations.”
“What things?”
“To stay in the business. To marry someone my father approved of. To become useful.”
“Useful?”
“That was his favorite word.”
“And Mom?”
“She wanted to leave San Francisco.”
“Where?”
“Chicago.”
That surprised me.
“She never mentioned Chicago.”
“She had been accepted to school there.”
“For architecture?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She didn't go.”
“Because of you?”
“No.”
He looked down the street.
“She ended our relationship shortly before she was supposed to leave.”
“Why?”
“She said she had changed her mind.”
“About Chicago?”
“About me.”
The words came without self-pity.
That made them sadder.
We reached my building.
I climbed the front steps and turned.
“This is me.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do.”
His gaze moved toward the apartment windows.
“I'll leave.”
I hesitated.
“There's something else.”
“Yes?”
“I remembered where the box is.”
His attention sharpened.
“Mom's apartment.”
“Are you going there now?”
“Yes.”
“I'll come.”
“No.”
“Ava—”
“No.”
I pulled out my phone.
“If I find something, I'll call.”
He clearly disliked the idea.
But finally, he nodded.
“Don't stay there if anything looks disturbed.”
I studied him.
“You actually think someone might break in?”
“I think someone entered your mother's hospital room.”
That was enough.
Twenty minutes later, I stood outside Mom's apartment.
The building smelled like laundry detergent and old carpet.
I'd grown up here.
Third floor.
Apartment 3C.
I unlocked the door.
Everything looked normal.
Her faded green sofa.
Books stacked on the coffee table.
A ceramic bowl filled with unopened mail.
For a moment, emotion hit harder than fear.
The apartment looked like Mom might walk in any second.
She should have been here.
Complaining about the upstairs neighbor.
Telling me I worked too much.
Pretending she wasn't tired.
I swallowed and headed toward her bedroom.
The wooden box was still beneath the bed.
May you like
I pulled it out.
Dark walnut.
