Chapter 2 - The Man in the Black Car
Arthur Vale had spent forty years buying companies and twelve years failing to find one daughter. The second failure had taught him more about himself than the first success ever could.
He did not step away from Rosie.
The man in the car was his younger brother, Frederick. Silver-haired and handsome, Frederick wore the patient smile he used at charity dinners when he wanted everyone to know he was the reasonable Vale.
“Arthur,” Frederick said through the window. “Get in. You’re making a scene.”
“You knew where I was?” Arthur asked.
“Your driver called.”
“My driver is at home with the flu.”
Frederick’s smile slipped. “Then your office.”
Arthur looked at Rosie. “Do you know this man?”
She shook her head, but her mitten tightened around his sleeve. “I know the car.”
Frederick opened the door. “That child is confused.”
“Children often are when adults frighten them.” Arthur turned to the security guard. “Please call the police. Tell them a child has been threatened and her employer owes her mother wages.”
Gordon snorted. “I don’t owe anybody anything.”
Arthur took the torn receipt from Rosie and carefully fitted its pieces together. “Then you won’t mind a payroll audit.”
Frederick stepped onto the sidewalk. “You promised you’d stop doing this, Arthur. Chasing strangers because they have a familiar button or an old photograph.”
Arthur held open Rosie’s collar. Frederick saw the embroidered label and stopped speaking.
There it was: recognition, immediate and unguarded.
“Where did you get that?” Frederick demanded.
Rosie hid behind Arthur.
“You’ve seen it before,” Arthur said.
“Lucy had dozens of coats.”
“This one was made by Margaret. She embroidered both their names because Lucy was afraid she would forget her mother after the funeral.”
Margaret had died of cancer when Lucy was sixteen. Two years later Lucy left home after a fight with Frederick about money missing from the family foundation. Arthur had believed his brother when he said Lucy was unstable and needed distance. He had believed him for three months. Then Lucy stopped answering every phone.
A police cruiser pulled up. The officer recognized Arthur from local fundraising events, but Arthur refused to turn the sidewalk into a private favor.
“The child needs to get home,” he said. “Her mother is ill. Please document what happened and let us take the proper steps.”
Rosie supplied her address. Frederick’s eyes flickered at the street name.
“Don’t,” Arthur warned him.
“Don’t what?”
“Pretend you’ve never heard it.”
The officer spoke to Gordon while Arthur arranged for a local family-assistance worker to check on Anna. Arthur offered Rosie a ride; she accepted only after the officer confirmed the car belonged to Arthur and her mother could be called first. Anna’s phone rang unanswered three times.
“I can walk,” Rosie said.
“Then we’ll walk,” Arthur answered.
Frederick followed them in the car for two blocks before turning away. Arthur memorized the direction.
Their destination was a second-floor apartment above a shuttered dry cleaner. Christmas lights blinked in one window; the other was covered with plastic to keep out the cold. Rosie climbed the stairs slowly. Arthur heard her counting each step under her breath.
“Mom?” she called, opening the door. “I’m home.”
A woman lay curled on the couch beneath two blankets. Her dark hair was damp with sweat, and her work uniform hung over a chair beside an unopened envelope marked FINAL NOTICE.
She tried to sit up when she saw Arthur.
“Rosie, who is that?”
“He helped me.”
Anna looked at his face. Every trace of color left hers.
“Arthur Vale,” she said.
He gripped his cane. “Have we met?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know me?”
Anna looked at Rosie’s coat, then at the door. “You need to leave.”
“I’m not here to hurt you.”
“That’s what they said last time.”
Arthur noticed a photograph on the mantel. Anna stood beside a younger woman with Lucy’s smile. Between them was a toddler in a yellow hat.
He stepped closer.
Anna rose despite her fever and took the frame down. “Please. You don’t understand.”
“Who is that woman?”
Anna pressed the picture against her chest. “My sister.”
“Lucy?”
Anna shook her head. “No. Her name was June.”
Arthur had never heard of June. He was still trying to understand when someone knocked three times at the apartment door.
May you like
A man’s voice said, “Anna? It’s December. You know the arrangement.”
Rosie stopped breathing. “That’s him.”
