Chapter 2 - The Waitress Who Refused to Look Away
Henry stared at the name on the receipt so long I wondered whether he could still read it.
“Elena Price,” he said finally. “Where did you get this?”
“From the wallet.”
“You didn't tell me the wallet belonged to Elena.”
“I didn't know it did. The only thing I saw was this receipt.”
Walter came around the kitchen counter, wiped his hands on his apron, and read the paper over his brother's shoulder. His expression hardened into something I hadn't seen before. Henry was the one who laughed, who fed stray cats and sent leftovers to shut-ins. Walter was the worrier. But this time Henry looked frightened, and Walter looked furious.
“Elena reviewed our lease,” Walter said. “She warned us not to sign the renewal Voss mailed.”
I studied them. “You have a property dispute?”
“Every storefront on our block does,” Henry said. “Grant's company says we either accept a new lease at four times the rent or sell our fixtures and leave.”
“Who owns the building?”
“An investment trust,” Walter said. “The same one that bought the restaurant where you found the wallet.”
“Bellini?” I asked, remembering the name on the report Lucy brought.
Neither brother answered right away.
Lucy sat at the counter, pale, crumpling her termination letter. I felt a fresh wave of guilt. My honesty had already cost her employment. Now I'd drawn two elderly men into the problem. A year ago I would've rushed to solve it all by myself. That was how I had lost my municipal job: believing being right would eventually be enough.
Henry put his hand over Lucy's. “You'll help us tomorrow. Walter's back is going bad. We could use a server with manners.”
“I can't accept charity.”
“Then don't. We pay our people.”
He looked at me too. “And you, Iris, are going to get some sleep.”
But I lay awake in my station wagon listening to rain click against the roof and thinking about Elena Price. I'd seen her name somewhere before. Around two, I remembered: a city public-hearing notice pinned outside my old records office. Elena had requested an independent review of several historic-property transfers in the riverfront redevelopment district. It wasn't the sort of work people paid attention to until their homes were involved.
By eight the next morning, Lucy was wearing one of Walter's spare aprons and carrying coffee to two construction workers. Henry acted as though she had always been there. I watched her smile become real for the first time since the previous night. Then a black sedan pulled up across the street.
A man stepped out with a thick neck, silver hair, and a perfectly pressed overcoat. He approached the front entrance, studied Ward's Kitchen's faded lettering, then entered.
“Morning,” Henry said. “Coffee?”
“I'm looking for Iris Shaw.”
Every muscle in my back tightened.
I stepped forward. “That's me.”
“My name is Rafael Cruz. I work for Mr. Bellini.”
“What does he want?”
“To make sure you are safe.”
I laughed once. “I'm sleeping in a wagon behind a restaurant, and your boss just discovered safety?”
Rafael didn't react. “He also wanted me to give you this.”
He handed me a white envelope. Inside was a business card bearing the name Dante Bellini and a handwritten note: You did the right thing. Don't let Grant convince you otherwise. No check. No money. Somehow that made me trust the sender slightly more.
“Did he send anything for Lucy?” I asked.
“Yes.” Rafael placed another envelope on the counter. “Full wages owed, severance under the employee handbook, and a written notice that the firing is being reviewed by an outside investigator.”
Lucy's eyes filled. “How did he know?”
“He was at table seven last night.”
The quiet man in the black suit. The one who'd watched but said nothing.
I folded my arms. “If he owned the place, why didn't he stop it?”
Rafael hesitated. “He should have.”
That was an unexpected answer.
“Tell him that,” I said.
“I will.”
Before leaving, he glanced at the receipt in my hand. His face changed almost imperceptibly.
“Where did you find that?”
My heart began racing. “You recognize it?”
“It's one of Elena's. She wrote reminders on receipts because she didn't trust her work email.”
“Where is she?”
“We're trying to determine that.”
He was lying by omission. I recognized the skill. People at city hall practiced it like an art. I leaned against the counter. “Why would she disappear?”
Rafael glanced at the Ward brothers. “Because she discovered something she wasn't supposed to.”
After he left, I called the last phone number I had for a clerk named Priya at my old office. She answered immediately, as if she had been waiting for months.
“Iris? Oh my God. Are you okay?”
“Define okay.”
“Your name is circulating again.”
My throat tightened. “Where?”
“In the redevelopment files. Someone submitted a correction under your old employee credentials yesterday.”
“I haven't had those credentials for seven months.”
“I know.”
“Then somebody used my name.”
“That's why I called the number I had.”
I felt the station wagon and all its tiny defeats crowd into my chest. Once again someone had decided my name was convenient cover for a dirty transaction.
“What correction?”
Priya lowered her voice. “A parcel map. It erases the pedestrian access easement behind Ward's Kitchen.”
I looked toward the back alley where I slept.
“Without that easement,” I said, “they can declare the restaurant noncompliant for service access.”
“Exactly.”
“Who authorized it?”
A pause. “Your signature. Electronically.”
I closed my eyes. “Can you preserve the audit log?”
“I already did.”
I thanked her, ended the call, and found Dante's card again. On the back, Rafael had written a direct number. My first impulse was to call and demand answers. Instead, I copied the suspicious timestamp into my notebook. Paper records had outlasted better lies than this.
At lunch, a stranger in a charcoal raincoat entered Ward's and sat where he could see the rear exit. He ordered nothing. Walter noticed him too. A minute later, the man left after photographing the front window.
Lucy followed him with her eyes. “You think that's Voss?”
“Maybe.”
My phone vibrated. Unknown number.
You took something from Elena's wallet. Return it, and no one else loses a job.
The message included a photograph of Lucy standing behind the counter, taken less than five minutes earlier.
May you like
I turned toward the street. The charcoal raincoat was gone.
And I understood that the person hunting Elena's evidence had already found me.
