Chapter 3 - THE PRICE OF KINDNESS
By the time I reached our apartment, my brother had already discovered that I'd lost my job.
"It's online," Noah said when he opened the door. "And before you tell me not to look, you should see what people are saying."
He was sixteen, tall enough to steal my jackets and young enough to believe I couldn't tell when he'd skipped breakfast. We lived above a laundromat on the west side of Chicago, where the pipes clanged like angry ghosts and the upstairs neighbor practiced trumpet at midnight.
"Please tell me you're not reading comments," I said.
He held out his phone. On the screen, Todd's video showed Elena stumbling and me rushing into the sleet. The caption read: WAITRESS CHOOSES A STREET LADY OVER CUSTOMERS, GETS WHAT SHE DESERVES.
Underneath it, tens of thousands of strangers argued about whether I'd staged the fall to attract publicity. Somebody had identified Café Blanc. Somebody else had found my first and last name on an old employee photograph.
"You were helping her," Noah said fiercely.
"I know."
"Then why did they fire you?"
"Because David is spectacularly bad at being human."
He didn't laugh. That worried me more than anything. Noah usually found my disasters amusing in a way only a younger brother could.
I showed him the message I'd received. He read it twice and lowered his voice. "You have to tell someone."
"I will. First, we're making dinner."
"Norah."
"I know." I squeezed his shoulder. "I'm scared, too. That's why we're going to be smart."
We photographed the message, preserved the number, and called the nonemergency police line to report the threat. I also sent a screenshot to Gabriel's number, followed immediately by an apology for having contacted him when his mother was in the hospital.
His reply came less than a minute later.
DON'T APOLOGIZE. ARE YOU SAFE WHERE YOU ARE?
I typed that I was home with my brother, then spent five full minutes deciding whether that was too much information to give a stranger associated with a family the newspapers called dangerous.
Gabriel called instead of texting again.
"My mother has a bruised hip, mild hypothermia, and a medical team arguing over why her blood pressure dropped," he said without preamble. "She's stable. You deserve to know that."
My knees went weak with relief, and I sat on the edge of our couch. "Thank God."
"She asked for you."
"That's flattering, but she should focus on recovery."
"She also asked for her cart."
"I have terrible news. The cart was not invited into my apartment."
A quiet exhalation on the line might have been a laugh.
"Norah, the message you received concerns me. I've informed the police liaison handling my mother's disappearance. Will you speak to her?"
"Yes. If she's actually police."
"She's actually police. You can verify her through the department yourself."
He gave me the officer's name and hung up before the conversation could turn into a contest about favors. I checked it independently, just as he suggested.
The next morning, an investigator named Detective Rosa Medina interviewed me at a neighborhood library. She asked about the fall, Elena's condition, the medication bottle, the cart, the words about Victor Voss, and the threatening text. I answered precisely and resisted the temptation to improve my story by pretending I'd noticed things I hadn't.
"Do you know who Victor Voss is?" I asked.
"You should let us establish that," she said. "If anybody contacts you again, preserve the message and call us."
Afterward, I headed to a job interview at a diner where the owner wanted me to work doubles for minimum wage and described health insurance as a luxury for people who made better life choices. I thanked him for his time. We both understood we were lying.
By lunch, the café video had mutated. A new edit cut away the fall and began with me bending beside Elena's cart. It suggested I'd stolen something from a vulnerable older woman. Todd had added a caption asking why I refused to show what I'd taken from her purse.
I hadn't taken anything. But my little speech about what actually happened was losing a competition against a catchy lie.
Noah sat at the kitchen table with his homework untouched. "There's a reporter downstairs. He asked if you'd sell an interview."
"Did you talk to him?"
"I told him his haircut was a crime."
"Not helpful. Excellent insult, though."
I went down with Noah beside me and asked the reporter to leave our building. Instead, he wanted to know whether Gabriel Russo had bought my silence. His cameraman was already recording.
"An elderly woman was injured," I said. "I helped her. Beyond that, speak to the people investigating the situation. My brother is a minor. Don't photograph him."
The reporter stepped closer. "Have you received money from the Russo family?"
"No."
"Would you?"
I looked directly into his lens. "Is that what you think a person's dignity costs?"
We went upstairs, but my hands were shaking again. I hated that cameras could follow us home simply because somebody richer had laughed at somebody poorer.
At four, Gabriel's number appeared on my phone. I almost ignored it. Then I remembered Elena's grip on my sleeve.
"She wants to see you," he said. "At the hospital. Tonight, if you're willing."
"Why?"
"She won't explain it to me." A pause. "And someone altered the visitor log at the private clinic she left before the fall. She's afraid somebody there was watching her."
I glanced at Noah, who was pretending not to listen from the couch.
"I'll come," I said. "But I'm bringing my brother, and I want the detective to know where we're going."
"Agreed."
He hesitated long enough for me to notice.
"What aren't you telling me?" I asked.
"Victor Voss manages my family's charitable trust. He was the last person to see my mother before she disappeared."
"And you trust him?"
"Until yesterday," Gabriel said, "I thought I did."
When I ended the call, I found Noah holding out my dry winter coat. It was missing two buttons, and the lining was torn.
"You should wear this," he said. "And if the mafia guy gets weird, text me one word."
"Which word?"
May you like
He thought about it. "Avocado. Nobody uses that during a kidnapping."
I laughed despite everything. By nightfall, that ridiculous word would become the last thing I thought about before somebody tried to lock me inside a hospital room.
