Chapter 4 - WHAT HE LEFT IN MY APARTMENT
The police officer who met me at my apartment did not look like someone interested in mafia gossip. Officer Denise Ruiz wore sensible boots and carried a notebook already damp from Chicago's relentless drizzle. She took my statement at the doorway before letting me go inside.
John hadn't come. I was grateful for that. His presence might have turned a report about an unlawful entry into a spectacle about my employer. Gabriel waited downstairs with my permission, while a uniformed officer accompanied me to the second floor.
My apartment smelled of old radiator heat and lemon dish soap. It should have felt familiar. Instead, everything looked subtly wrong. A kitchen chair had been moved. The cabinet beneath the sink stood open. Noah's drawing of a purple spaceship lay facedown on the counter.
“He was looking for something,” I said.
Ruiz studied the room. “What's missing?”
I hurried to the closet and pulled down the cardboard box where I stored pay stubs, old phone bills, and the notebook I'd kept during my brief stint at Vale Freight. The papers were still there. The notebook wasn't.
I sat back on my heels. “It's gone.”
Ruiz wrote down the description: blue cover, cracked spine, about fifty pages, entries dated over two years. She asked why Evan might want it. I told her about the questionable invoices. I also told her something I'd never admitted aloud: Evan had once asked me to sign a blank vendor confirmation. When I refused, he told me not to be dramatic and tore it up in front of me.
I no longer knew whether he'd actually destroyed it.
The officer photographed the room and asked whether I wanted to pursue a report. I said yes. She gave me a case number and explained what evidence to preserve. Nobody promised immediate answers. Nobody told me to calm down. For the first time, I was taking an action that didn't depend on Evan's approval.
While Ruiz finished her report, I retrieved Noah's winter clothes and the worn quilt my mother had made. On his bookshelf I found a photograph of us at the lake last summer. In it, I was laughing without watching over my shoulder. I barely recognized that woman.
I almost left the photograph behind. Then I tucked it into my bag.
At the mansion, John listened as I explained the missing notebook. He didn't interrupt. When I finished, he leaned against the window and rubbed a hand over his jaw.
“Marcus Vale,” he said finally. “Evan works for him?”
“Yes. Do you know Marcus?”
“Too well.”
I waited for more. John sighed. “Vale and I were partners years ago. We split after I discovered he was using third-party vendors I hadn't approved. He wanted me to stop asking questions. I wanted him out of my shipping operations.”
“And Pier Nineteen?”
John's eyes darkened. “It was one of the reasons we split.”
I wanted to believe the separation made him innocent. He didn't offer that comfort.
“I signed agreements I shouldn't have,” he said. “I benefited from a business culture that rewarded me for not asking enough. Whatever Vale later did doesn't make those choices disappear.”
Something shifted in my understanding of him. A less frightening man might have lied. John Walker was frightening enough to tell a version of the truth that damaged himself.
Mrs. Harper interrupted with news that Noah had been searching for me. She led him into the sitting room. He ran straight into my arms, Captain Biscuit swinging from one hand, Sir Chomps-a-Lot clutched in the other.
“Mommy, Mrs. Harper says turtles can live longer than people!”
“Some turtles,” she corrected from the door.
“Then I want to be a turtle when I grow up.”
John crouched. “It's a respectable career choice.”
Noah inspected him. “Do you know a lot of turtles?”
“Only one. She doesn't like me.”
“Maybe you look scary to turtles too.”
John gave him a solemn nod. “A possibility I've considered.”
I found myself laughing. The sound startled me. I hadn't realized how much I needed it.
Later, Priya called with instructions about documenting Evan's communications. She was preparing a petition for a protective order and explained the difference between emergency relief and the longer process ahead. I wrote everything down. John offered to cover legal fees as an employee assistance advance; I declined the advance and asked instead whether my next paycheck could include the overtime I'd already worked. He agreed without argument.
“You could let me help,” he said.
“You already are.”
I needed to remain capable of standing without him. If this fragile safety depended entirely on a powerful man's affection, it could disappear just as quickly.
That evening, a silver sedan rolled through the estate's service entrance. A woman stepped out with a medical bag. John introduced her as his older sister, Dr. Evelyn Walker, a pediatrician who lived across town. She'd come to check on a staff member's child with a lingering cough and agreed to look at Noah only after I said yes.
Evelyn examined him in the sunroom. Noah announced that his dinosaur was also sick. She listened to the plastic creature's chest before reassuring us both.
“He's fine,” she told me. “A little tired, perhaps. The dinosaur is beyond my training.”
Once Noah ran to show Mrs. Harper his clean bill of health, Evelyn turned to John. “You haven't invited me to dinner in six months, and now you're asking whether I remember where children's medicine is kept.”
John rubbed his forehead. “Evelyn.”
She grinned. “Relax. It's nice to see you care about something besides warehouses.”
He did not smile. “Don't misunderstand.”
“Oh, I understand more than you think.” Her expression grew gentle. “Just make sure you don't mistake wanting to protect them for having a right to decide their lives.”
He glanced at me. “I'm learning.”
After Evelyn left, John walked me to the stairs. We stopped beneath a painting of a sailboat trapped in heavy weather.
“Do you regret telling me about Evan?” he asked.
“No,” I said honestly. “I regret not telling someone sooner.”
He nodded. “That's different.”
My phone vibrated. An email appeared from an address I didn't recognize. Its subject line was FOR THE HOUSEMAID. Inside was a single photograph of the missing blue notebook lying open on a polished desk.
Beneath it were seven words.
Walker can't save you from his past.
I showed John. His face lost all expression.
May you like
I had seen men fear John Walker. Until that moment, I had never seen what he looked like when he feared somebody else might pay for his mistakes.
---
