THE MAFIA BOSS BOUGHT HER DEAD FATHER'S DEBT—THEN SHE FOUND HIS NAME ON A PAYCHECK

The first time Chloe Hayes saw her dead father's name on a payroll report, she thought exhaustion had finally made her careless.

It was eleven forty on a Thursday night, and Laura's dining room had emptied except for a senator's security detail and a woman who had been staring at an untouched plate of sea bass for forty minutes. Chloe stood at the service station with an aching back, a pencil behind her ear, and a stack of time sheets nobody else wanted to reconcile.

FRANK HAYES. CONSULTING SERVICES. $3,800.

Payment scheduled for Friday.

Her father had been dead for four months.

Chloe checked the date twice. Then the account number. She knew it as well as she knew the scar above Sam's eyebrow: it was the checking account her father had emptied before he died. The account had supposedly been closed when she settled his modest estate.

"You look like somebody put a mouse in your coffee," Rosa Alvarez said.

The head chef had emerged from the kitchen carrying two bowls of soup. At fifty-eight, Rosa believed that every problem deserved food before advice. She set one bowl in front of Chloe.

"I wasn't aware dead people could be on payroll," Chloe said.

Rosa's smile vanished. "Don't say that out loud. Not here."

"Why?"

Rosa glanced toward the office above the dining room. Its smoked-glass window was lit. "Because Nicky can hear things through two walls when it's something he wants to hear."

Nicky Ferraro managed purchasing. He also handled whatever Dominic Rossi preferred not to discuss in front of waiters. Three weeks earlier, Chloe had questioned an invoice for twelve hundred pounds of lobster ordered on a Tuesday when the restaurant had served fewer than a hundred guests. Nicky told her the difference was for a private event. There was no private event on the calendar.

"Then I'll ask Dominic," Chloe said.

"Ask him where your tips went while you're at it," Rosa replied. "My dishwasher worked sixty hours. His check says thirty-two."

Chloe stopped turning the payroll pages. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"Because he has a family and doesn't want to lose this job. Just like you."

That landed. Three months earlier, she'd accepted Dominic's offer because Varga's collector had a knife and Sam had nowhere safe to sleep. Since then, the apartment Dominic provided had been warm, Sam attended a school with a real library, and Chloe had paid back $2,650 of the forty thousand dollars Dominic claimed she owed him. She tracked every dollar in a little green notebook. Dominic had never offered a receipt.

Her phone buzzed. Sam.

YOU SAID YOU'D COME TO THE SCIENCE FAIR.

Chloe looked at the clock. The fair had ended at nine.

Her brother had built a working model of a water filter using charcoal, gravel, and a plastic bottle. He'd practiced explaining it to her while she washed her uniform in the sink. She'd promised to be there. Then Nicky had sent the entire evening's timesheets back because the numbers "didn't look right."

She called immediately.

"Hey, professor."

"It's okay," Sam said, which meant it wasn't. "Ms. Dyer took pictures."

"I wanted to see it myself."

"I know."

"I'll be home in twenty minutes."

"You said that yesterday."

Chloe shut her eyes. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'll show up tomorrow, even if I have to walk out of this place."

"Would you get fired?"

"That's a grown-up problem. Your science fair was my problem, and I let you down."

A beat of silence. "My filter worked," he said.

"I knew it would. Save me a demonstration."

When the call ended, Chloe discovered Dominic standing several feet away. He wore a charcoal suit and looked as if he hadn't slept either. The guards had stopped clearing tables in his presence.

"You missed something important," he said.

"Don't tell me what I missed. I know exactly what I missed."

He considered her. "Take tomorrow off. Paid."

"I'll take it. But I want you to look at this first."

She placed the payroll report on the station and tapped her father's name.

Dominic's expression barely changed. His right hand closed slowly over his left wrist. Chloe recognized the gesture. He used it when he was deciding how much truth to let into a room.

"Who gave you access to that report?" he asked.

"Your accounting system did. You hired me to review the books."

"You were supposed to reconcile dining receipts."

"Then your purchasing manager shouldn't have asked me to sign off on the payroll." She stepped back so Dominic could see the entire page. "My father isn't consulting for anybody. He's dead."

Dominic read the document. His eyes rested on a cost-center code: HARBOR OUTREACH.

"Give me the original," he said.

"I'll give you a copy."

The dining room grew very quiet. Rosa, still in the doorway, didn't retreat. Chloe hadn't known until that moment how badly she needed another witness.

Dominic lowered his voice. "You think I'm going to destroy it?"

"I don't know what you'll do. That's the problem."

A bell chimed at the entrance. Nicky appeared in the doorway, his overcoat hanging open. He looked from Chloe to the report and smiled with all his teeth.

"Still working? Great. We have an early delivery. Need your signature."

"For what?" Chloe asked.

"Two hundred meals for the Harbor Family Center. Senator's initiative. Nice publicity."

"The center closed last winter," Rosa said.

Nicky's smile thinned. "They reopened."

"My sister volunteers there. They didn't."

Dominic turned to Nicky. "Leave the invoice. Go home."

Nicky complied too quickly. A minute later, Chloe heard a car engine accelerate outside.

She examined the delivery form he had abandoned. The approval line carried her electronic initials, although she'd never seen the order. The ship-to address was a warehouse beside the same alley where Sam had found Dominic. On the attached remittance list, beneath the words COMMUNITY PARTNERS, appeared Frank Hayes again.

This time the payment was twenty thousand dollars.

Chloe looked toward the empty entrance. "Someone's using my father's name to move money."

Dominic didn't deny it. He pulled out his phone, stared at a message, and went pale in a way she had never seen.

"What did it say?" she asked.