Chapter 2 - FIVE BLACK SUVS
I had never seen an entire room reconsider its behavior so quickly.
Todd slipped his phone beneath a napkin. The blonde beside him smoothed her hair and sat straighter. David practically sprinted to the front entrance, pulling his lips into the kind of smile he usually reserved for people whose names appeared on buildings.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen!" he announced when the door opened. "Welcome to Café Blanc. How can we—"
"Where is Elena Russo?"
The man in the black overcoat didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to. Every syllable landed cleanly through the quiet room.
David's smile froze. "I'm sorry?"
"My mother." The man's gaze moved past him. "An older woman. Gray coat. Shopping cart. She was seen here less than twenty minutes ago."
Mother.
I looked down at the scarf in my hands.
Elena Russo. Even I knew the name. The family owned an enormous share of the city's freight terminals, restaurants, and commercial buildings. Officially they were investors. Unofficially, my customers liked to whisper the word mafia over twelve-dollar coffee before assuring one another they didn't believe a thing they read.
"She fell," I said.
The man's head turned immediately.
"She's at St. Catherine's," I continued. "The ambulance took her. She was conscious when they left, but she hurt her hip."
He crossed the room in four long strides. I resisted the instinct to back away.
"You were with her?"
"I called emergency services. My coworker brought a blanket. The paramedics took her medication list."
"What medication?"
I described the bottle I'd found, careful to distinguish what I'd actually seen from what I didn't know. His jaw grew rigid, and he turned to the broad-shouldered man behind him.
"Call Dr. Salazar. Have her meet me at St. Catherine's."
The other man was already dialing.
"What's your name?" the stranger asked me.
"Norah Hale."
"Gabriel Russo."
He said it as though introducing himself at a boring neighborhood meeting. Around us, however, the air seemed to thicken. David made a tiny sound in the back of his throat.
Gabriel glanced at my stained clothes. "Did you get hurt?"
"I'm fine. Your mother wasn't. You should go."
His eyes held mine for a moment. "You don't know what she means to me."
"I know she's your mother. That's enough."
He nodded once and reached for his phone. Then Elena's last request returned to me.
"She told me something," I said. "Before the ambulance left."
Gabriel went perfectly still. "What?"
"She asked me to keep her shopping cart safe. She said not to give it to anyone named Victor Voss."
The man behind Gabriel stopped speaking into his phone.
For an instant, Gabriel's composure broke. Not into rage. Into the expression of somebody finding the one piece of a puzzle he'd prayed wasn't missing.
"Where's the cart?"
"Our stockroom. Benji put it away."
David surged forward. "Mr. Russo, please understand, we didn't realize who the woman was. We have standards here, and my waitress behaved completely—"
"Stop," Gabriel said.
David stopped.
Gabriel looked toward the enormous window. "Which of you called the ambulance?"
I lifted my hand slightly. "Me."
"And which of you filmed her?"
A terrible silence followed. Todd's neck darkened above his cashmere collar. He slid his phone farther under the napkin.
Gabriel had followed my glance. "I see."
"Please don't do anything stupid," I said before I could consider the wisdom of correcting a reputed crime boss. "The ambulance matters more than a guy with a phone."
Gabriel looked back at me, surprised. Then, to my enormous relief, he gave an almost imperceptible nod.
"You're right."
He turned toward his security chief. "Ask them to preserve any footage. No confrontation. We have somewhere to be."
Benji led us to the cramped stockroom. Elena's cart had left wet tracks beside the flour sacks. Gabriel crouched beside it and ran his fingers along the stained fabric lining. His hands were unexpectedly careful.
"My mother hated this thing," he murmured. "I've tried to replace it three times. She says new carts have no character."
"She has opinions," I said.
A quick glance. "You noticed?"
His security chief, whose name was Marco, found a loose stitch near the bottom. Gabriel didn't touch it. Instead, he straightened and asked whether I could keep the cart locked up until the police or Elena's representative documented its contents.
"You don't want to take it?" I asked.
"Not if she specifically told you to keep it."
That answer surprised me more than the motorcade.
The front door slammed. David had followed us and was now wiping his palms against his trousers. "Mr. Russo, I cannot tell you how appalled I am by the way some of our customers acted. I personally instructed staff to help your mother."
Benji looked at the floor. My anger rose so fast it briefly cleared my exhaustion.
"He fired me," I said. "For helping her."
I hadn't planned to tell Gabriel. It slipped out because David was looking at me as if I were an inconvenient stain he intended to bleach away.
Gabriel studied the envelope still protruding from my pocket. "Is that your final paycheck?"
"Yes. And I intend to cash it."
"I'm certain you do." He turned to David. "My mother came into your neighborhood needing help. Your employee gave it. You're free to make your own employment decisions. We're equally free to reconsider doing business with this establishment."
David swallowed. "Business?"
"The building's landlord is one of our investment partners. They'll be reviewing the customer-service complaints I heard today. Through ordinary channels."
It wasn't a cinematic threat. Somehow the ordinary part frightened David more.
Gabriel faced me again. "May I leave my number? In case my mother asks for the cart—or for you."
"You can. But I'm not interested in a reward."
"Neither am I. I'm interested in finding out what happened to her."
He wrote his number on a clean receipt Benji handed him. Then he left for the hospital.
I should have gone home. I should have called Noah and told him we'd be eating canned beans until I found another job. Instead, I checked that the stockroom door was secure and walked out into the slush to retrieve the can that had rolled into the gutter.
My phone buzzed as I bent down.
An unfamiliar number. One sentence.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE OLD WOMAN WHERE YOU FOUND HER.
May you like
I stared at the screen until it dimmed. Across the road, one of the SUVs that had remained behind started its engine. The driver looked toward me, then sharply toward a blue sedan parked across the intersection.
The sedan accelerated away before I could see the license plate.
