Chapter 6 - The Woman in the File
I had not spoken my father's name aloud in months.
Daniel had never heard it from me.
"Who sent that?" I asked.
He turned the secure phone over as if the answer might be printed on the back.
"No routing data."
Leo looked between us. "Who's Thomas Bennett?"
I sat down.
The bakery office seemed to shrink around me.
"My father."
"Was he connected to Reed Global?" Daniel asked.
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
I corrected myself.
"I don't know. He worked shipping jobs. Warehouses, docks, freight offices. I was eleven when he died."
"How?"
"Truck accident."
Daniel went still.
"Where?"
"Chelsea freight yard. Why?"
He closed his eyes for a moment.
"Reed Global leased part of that yard eleven years ago."
I stared at him.
"That doesn't mean anything. Half the port leased space there."
"Maybe."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Turn my father into a clue because your life is currently one giant conspiracy."
His face softened.
"You're right. I'm sorry."
Again with the apologies. Again with the unnerving habit of actually meaning them.
Leo found an old kettle and filled it from a bathroom tap that looked older than Boston politics. We had no electricity in the back office, but the pilot flame on an ancient stove still worked. While he warmed water for formula, Daniel texted Dr. Ortiz using a code phrase.
The doctor replied within two minutes.
ONE HOUR. OLD ST. AGNES RECTORY. COME ALONE.
"That's not alone," I said, looking at the twins.
"He means no security."
"Comforting."
Daniel tried to stand.
He failed.
Leo pointed at him. "You are not walking anywhere."
"Then we need a car."
"Mine's behind the diner," I said.
"Police are there."
Leo held up a set of keys.
"Ali's delivery van is in the bakery lot. Don't ask why."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because Ali doesn't trust meters."
Twenty minutes later, I drove an old white van through empty streets while Leo stayed behind to deal with the diner and invent a story that would not get him arrested.
Daniel lay across the back bench with the twins secured beside him in borrowed car seats. The city passed in wet streaks of orange and red.
At St. Agnes, Dr. Samuel Ortiz met us behind a shuttered parish hall.
He was sixty, compact, and furious.
"You idiot," he told Daniel before even saying hello.
"Good to see you too."
"You were shot and decided a waitress would be your trauma unit?"
I raised my hand. "Former paramedic student."
Dr. Ortiz glanced at the dressing.
"Not bad."
"Thank you."
"Still insane."
"Also fair."
He cleaned and closed Daniel's wounds in a small room beside the chapel. The bullet had only grazed his side, but blood loss and a deep laceration made the situation dangerous. Daniel needed rest, antibiotics, and several things rich men apparently considered optional.
While Ortiz worked, I sat in the hall with the twins.
Evie fell asleep against my chest.
Theo played with the zipper on my uniform.
I thought about my father.
Thomas Bennett had been a quiet man who fixed broken radios and always smelled faintly of motor oil. After my mother disappeared from our lives, he raised me alone until the night police knocked on our apartment door. They said his truck lost control on wet pavement.
Three months later, I entered foster care because there was no family willing to take me permanently.
The story had always been sad.
Until tonight, it had never been suspicious.
Daniel came into the hall wearing a borrowed shirt from the church donation closet. It had a cartoon lobster on the pocket.
Despite everything, I laughed.
He looked down.
"Ortiz has a cruel sense of humor."
"It humanizes you."
"I was hoping blood loss had already accomplished that."
He sat beside me carefully.
"Anna, there's something I need to show you."
He opened his secure phone and accessed an old corporate archive.
A personnel record appeared.
THOMAS BENNETT — COMPLIANCE INSPECTOR, NORTHEAST FREIGHT OPERATIONS.
My breath stopped.
"He worked for you."
"For Reed Maritime. Before the current corporate structure."
"I never knew."
Daniel scrolled.
My father's last assignment was highlighted.
INTERNAL REVIEW: UNRECONCILED CUSTOMS PAYMENTS — CHELSEA YARD.
Supervisor: MARCUS VALE.
I read the name twice.
"Marcus?"
"He was regional finance director then."
The room tilted.
"My father died in a truck accident at Chelsea Yard while investigating payments supervised by Marcus."
Daniel's voice was careful. "That's what the record suggests. It doesn't prove causation."
"But someone tonight knew his name."
"Yes."
I looked down at Evie sleeping against me.
For eleven years, I had believed my father died because rain made a road dangerous.
Now the man who had tried to kill Daniel might have known him.
Dr. Ortiz appeared in the doorway.
"We have another problem."
"What?" Daniel asked.
The doctor held up his phone.
A local news alert filled the screen.
DANIEL REED MISSING AFTER POSSIBLE ABDUCTION. POLICE SEEK WAITRESS ANNA BENNETT FOR QUESTIONING.
My employee photograph was beneath Daniel's corporate headshot.
The article described me as a person of interest.
Daniel's face hardened.
"Marcus isn't just taking my company."
I stared at my own picture.
"He's making me the kidnapper."
Dr. Ortiz muted the television. For a moment, the room held only the soft breathing of two sleeping babies. I stared at my photograph and wondered how many people would see that headline before they ever heard my voice. That was what Marcus understood about power: you did not have to prove a lie immediately if you could make it arrive first.
Daniel looked sick with anger. "I'll fix this."
I turned on him. "No. We fix it. You do not get to make me disappear from my own story because you feel guilty."
He absorbed that without argument. "You're right."
May you like
Ortiz handed me a clean sweatshirt. "Then both of you start by staying alive. Truth is less useful if the witnesses are dead."
I changed clothes, tucked my father's name into the center of my thoughts, and understood that I was no longer helping Daniel escape his enemies. I was looking for answers of my own.
