Chương 2
Mara stood, knees aching from the pavement. “There’s a security camera above your door.”
Celeste looked up despite herself.
A small black lens watched from beneath the awning.
“That camera hasn’t worked in months,” she said.
From inside the salon, a woman called, “It worked Tuesday.”
Celeste’s jaw tightened.
Mara moved behind Rocco’s chair. One handle was wrapped in black electrical tape. “I’m taking you next door. You’re soaked.”
“No.”
“You have coffee in your eyes.”
“I had rain in them before that.”
“And now you have both.”
His gaze shifted toward the bakery entrance. Hale’s Bread & Pastry occupied a narrow brick storefront beside the salon, its painted sign faded enough that the H looked pale blue in certain light. The door stood open where Mara had rushed out. A customer inside was holding it with one hand and the abandoned pastry boxes with the other.
Rocco said, “I don’t need rescuing.”
“Good. I’m terrible at it.”
He almost smiled. It disappeared before becoming visible.
Behind them, Celeste was calling the police.
Mara leaned closer. “She’s going to say you threatened her.”
“I heard.”
“And there are two videos that start after the coffee.”
“I noticed.”
“The bakery camera points through the window. It caught the beginning.”
That made him look at her.
Mara nodded toward the door. “Come inside before somebody edits your life into whatever version helps them sleep.”
He considered her for several seconds. Rainwater ran from his beard onto his chest. At last, he unlocked the right wheel with the heel of his palm.
“I push myself.”
The front caster struck a crack in the pavement and twisted sideways. He forced it straight. His upper body did most of the work, thick muscles shifting beneath the wet fabric while his legs remained still. The chair creaked with each turn.
Mara did not touch the handles.
Celeste spoke into her phone behind them. “Yes, outside my business. A homeless man and an employee from the bakery. She struck me.”
Mara turned just far enough to say, “Owner.”
Celeste blinked. “What?”
“I own the bakery.”
That was technically true for another eleven days. After that, unless Mara found twelve thousand dollars, First Cedar Bank would own most of it and the county would own the unpaid tax portion. She had not yet told her father the exact number.
She followed Rocco inside.
The bakery smelled of yeast, burnt sugar, and wet coats. Three customers had gathered beside the pastry case. Old Mrs. Talbot, who came every morning for one plain roll and stole napkins without shame, was holding Mara’s phone.
“It kept ringing,” she said. “I didn’t answer. I’m not your secretary.”
“Thank you.”
“I said I didn’t answer.”
Rocco stopped near the radiator. Coffee dripped from the bottom of his chair. A little girl sitting with her mother watched him with the solemn curiosity children reserved for wheelchairs and people arguing in public.
Mara retrieved two dish towels. “May I?”
He took one from her and wiped his face himself.
The girl’s mother packed their muffins and left without meeting Mara’s eyes. The remaining customers lingered, pretending to examine bread they had already bought.
Mara crossed to the front window and switched the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.
“It’s nine-thirty,” Mrs. Talbot said.
“I’m aware.”
“You have six rye loaves cooling.”
“I’ll call you.”
“I don’t like rye.”
“You’ve bought one every Thursday for eight years.”
“For my sister. She has a joyless mouth.”
Mrs. Talbot looked at Rocco. “You look familiar.”
He dried his beard. “I have one of those faces.”
“No, you don’t.”
Mara placed a cup of water on the nearest table. Rocco ignored it.
Outside, Nadia and Bianca had gone into the salon. Celeste remained beneath the awning, speaking rapidly to a police dispatcher and pointing toward the bakery. The rain had flattened her hair on one side. Without the polished arrangement around her face, she looked younger and less certain.
Rocco noticed Mara watching.
“You should delete your recording,” he said.
“I’m not deleting anything.”
“You should copy it, then delete it from whatever system she can reach.”
“She can’t reach my system.”
“Who installed it?”
Mara thought of Owen Pike, the contractor who handled security cameras for half the businesses on Cedar Street and golfed twice a month with Celeste’s father.
Rocco held out his hand. “Your phone.”
“No.”
“Then check whether the camera is still connected.”
Mara unlocked the bakery’s tablet from beneath the register. The security application took longer than usual to open. When it did, two of the four feeds were gray.
The front camera showed an error message.
She pressed playback.
No recordings appeared after eight forty-seven that morning.
Her stomach tightened. “It’s gone.”
Rocco continued wiping coffee from his forearm. “Was it there before?”
“I checked the ovens at nine. I saw the sidewalk on the screen.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I don’t know.”
He handed the towel back. “Make a copy of whatever you still have.”
“There’s nothing to copy.”
“There’s always something. A cloud account. A local drive. A backup.”
“You seem very knowledgeable for someone who was collecting quarters outside a salon.”
“I wasn’t collecting quarters.”
She looked toward the paper cup lying in the rain.
“It belonged to the man who sits there most mornings,” he said. “He went to the clinic. I was keeping his place.”
“Why?”
“Because he asked.”
A police cruiser pulled to the curb.
Rocco looked at the yellow envelope inside Mara’s apron. “Your father. Where is he?”
“Saint Agnes.”
“Sick?”
“He fell yesterday.”
“Where?”
“In our storage room.”
Mara heard the change in his breathing before she understood it.
“He said he tripped,” she added.
“Did you see where he fell?”
“There was flour everywhere. A shelf had come down.”
May you like
“Was anything missing?”
She remembered the rear door unlocked, though her father always checked it twice. The drawer beneath the old cash desk had been open. At the hospital, he had gripped her wrist and told her to bring him the photograph hidden behind the flour bins. When she returned, she found the yellow envelope beneath it.
