Chapter 2 - “I don’t know.”
“Did my mother know?”
“I assume so.”
That answer bothered me.
“You assume?”
“I never met her.”
“Then how do you know any of this?”
Anthony looked toward the building.
“When my father died three years ago, I started sorting through decades of company files. Most of it was invoices, contracts, equipment records. Then I found a box of personal papers.”
He paused.
“Your father’s name kept appearing.”
I looked again at the receipt.
“What kind of papers?”
“Receipts. Notes. Job sketches. Donation records.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t know.”
“So you investigated me?”
The words came out colder than I intended.
His face tightened.
“No.”
“You found my father’s name. Then somehow you ended up sitting one table away from me at a restaurant?”
“That part really was an accident.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“Anthony.”
“I swear.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I made the reservation through the restaurant website. My date canceled. Yours canceled. I didn’t know who you were until you told me your name.”
He held my gaze.
“Then I recognized it.”
I said nothing.
“And yes,” he continued, “after that I looked up Corner Print & Copy. I wanted to know if Daniel Hayes was connected to you.”
“That is investigating me.”
“That is looking at your business website.”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
“Because we had known each other forty minutes.”
“What about the next week?”
“I should have.”
“The week after that?”
“Yes.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yes.”
At least he understood the problem.
“What did you want from me?”
“Nothing.”
“Nobody hides this much information because they want nothing.”
He looked down briefly.
“My father left a note.”
My heartbeat seemed suddenly louder than the fundraiser.
“What note?”
“It mentioned your father.”
“Where is it?”
“At my office.”
“What did it say?”
“Not much. That was the problem.”
He hesitated.
“It said, ‘Daniel kept his word when I didn’t deserve it. Riverside belongs to both our families more than Anthony knows.’”
I stared at him.
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“And you’ve had this for three years?”
“Yes.”
“Why care now?”
“Because three months ago, while reviewing the Riverside restoration records, I found something else.”
A breeze stirred the leaves above us.
“What?”
“A ledger entry from 1998.”
I waited.
Anthony’s voice softened.
“Twenty-eight thousand dollars was transferred out of a Russo company account.”
“What does that have to do with my father?”
“The payment authorization carried two initials.”
He met my eyes.
“My father’s.”
“And?”
“D.H.”
For a second I could not speak.
“Daniel Hayes.”
“I don’t know.”
“But you think it was him.”
“I think we need to know.”
“We?”
He let the word sit there.
“I shouldn’t have hidden who I was,” he said. “That was selfish. I liked being Ryan with you. I liked that you argued with me about appetizers without deciding who I was first.”
My anger softened despite my best efforts.
“But you decided who I was first.”
His eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
That was the truth.
Not polished.
Not comfortable.
Just true.
Before I could answer, Louise called my name from across the garden.
She was standing beside a white-haired man I recognized vaguely from old neighborhood events.
“Emma,” she called. “There’s someone you should speak with.”
Anthony glanced toward him.
His expression sharpened.
“You know him?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“Samuel Bell. He was Russo Electric’s bookkeeper.”
Samuel waited until I approached before extending his hand.
“You look like your mother.”
“Thank you.”
His grip was warm but unsteady with age.
Then he noticed the receipt in my hand.
“So Anthony found the box.”
“What box?”
Samuel looked at Anthony.
Anthony shook his head slightly.
“I only found my father’s papers.”
Samuel frowned.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Not Vincent’s box.”
My skin prickled.
“Whose?”
Samuel’s eyes moved toward Riverside’s newly glowing marquee.
“Daniel’s.”
My father’s.
I forgot to breathe.
Samuel continued quietly.
“He left it with me sixteen years ago.”
The exact year my father disappeared from my life.
“I was told never to open it unless either you or Anthony came asking questions together.”
I looked at Anthony.
He looked just as surprised as I felt.
Samuel reached into his jacket and withdrew a small brass key.
“I think,” he said, placing it carefully in my palm, “sixteen years is long enough to keep a promise.”
I closed my fingers around the key.
Stamped into its metal head were three faded characters.
R-214.
May you like
And suddenly the mystery was no longer only about Anthony Russo’s hidden name.
It was about why my father had apparently spent sixteen years waiting for the two of us to find the same locked box.
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