Chương 2
“You saw me carrying the diaper bag through the kitchen for three weeks.”
“I thought your sitter brought her by.”
“My sitter quit three weeks ago.”
Rosa’s eyes filled, but she did not look away. “I should’ve asked.”
The dishwasher behind her muttered, “We all should’ve.”
Dominic turned toward the man. “What’s your name?”
The dishwasher stiffened. “Calvin.”
“How long did you know?”
Calvin rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t know. Not exactly.”
“That answer is how buildings burn while everyone claims they smelled nothing.”
Mara looked at him. “Don’t lecture them.”
His attention returned to her. “I was not lecturing.”
“You were making them afraid of you.”
“They already are.”
The bluntness of it passed through the room. One of the busboys gave a nervous cough that might have been a laugh in another life.
Mara shifted Ellie to her other arm. Her muscles had begun to shake from exhaustion. She had been on her feet since four that afternoon, balancing plates priced higher than her weekly grocery budget while wondering whether Ellie had rolled too close to the mop bucket. Every ten minutes, she had found a reason to enter the service hallway. A missing spoon. Extra napkins. A bottle of mineral water. Victor had warned her after the third visit that customers noticed when servers disappeared.
Dominic noticed the strain in her arm. “Sit down.”
“I’m leaving.”
“The car will take you.”
“I don’t want your car.”
“It has heat.”
“So does the subway.”
“At midnight, with a broken door and half the staff staring at you, this is the point on which you intend to defend your independence?”
“Yes.”
He considered that. “All right.”
She had expected mockery. His acceptance left her feeling foolish and furious.
Rosa moved aside to let her pass. Mara stopped in the doorway and turned back. “Where is Victor?”
“Escorted off the property,” Dominic said.
“Alive?”
The men by the shelves went still.
Dominic looked at her for a long moment. “Yes.”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
“Yes.”
“How would I know?”
“You wouldn’t.”
Mara tightened her grip on Ellie. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said.”
She walked into the corridor.
The service elevator brought them up through the center of the building. Rosa came with her, carrying Mara’s coat, diaper bag, and the dented serving tray because she had picked it up without thinking. Ellie stayed asleep through the elevator’s mechanical shudder. Mara kept one hand beneath the baby’s head even after her arm went numb.
When the doors opened, the restaurant had not recovered from the sound below.
Aurelia occupied two floors of a converted bank building in Lower Manhattan. The dining room had white linen, low amber lamps, handmade glass fixtures, and windows that looked toward the dark line of the river. Reservations were booked months in advance. Guests came to celebrate mergers, engagements, elections, reconciliations, and divorces conducted with excellent wine. The room usually seemed insulated from ordinary disorder.
Now waiters stood frozen beside tables. A sommelier held an uncorked bottle in midair. Conversations had softened into a restless murmur.
Mara crossed the room with Ellie beneath her coat.
A man near the bar raised his phone.
Rosa stepped between him and Mara. “Don’t.”
“I’m not filming.”
“You’re pointing it at a baby.”
The man lowered it.
Near the entrance, the maître d’, Colin Avery, stood with his hands clasped over his vest. Colin had worked at Aurelia for nine years and treated panic as a stain that could be removed with club soda. His face remained smooth, but a muscle fluttered beneath his left eye.
“Mara,” he said, “perhaps we could use the staff exit.”
“Why?”
“For privacy.”
“Mine or the restaurant’s?”
Colin glanced toward the dining room. “Both, ideally.”
She almost laughed. Nothing came out.
The front doors opened before he could redirect her. Cold air moved across the marble floor. Outside, a line of black cars waited beneath the awning while rain darkened the sidewalk. Mara stepped into the city with Ellie against her chest and heard Aurelia’s doors close behind her.
Rosa held out the coat. “At least put this on.”
Mara let her drape it over her shoulders.
“You can come to my place,” Rosa said. “My boys are with their father. The couch pulls out.”
“I have an apartment.”
“I know. I just meant—”
“I need everyone to stop deciding where I should go.”
Rosa looked down. “Okay.”
Mara watched a cab splash through a shallow gutter. Her hands had stopped trembling, which frightened her more than when they shook. “What happened before you came downstairs?”
Rosa shifted the serving tray under one arm. “I heard a noise in the closet.”
“What kind of noise?”
“Crying. Not loud. Sort of tired.”
Mara closed her eyes.
“I opened the door,” Rosa continued. “Ellie was on the blanket behind the boxes. The light was off.”
“The bulb burned out yesterday.”
“I know that now.”
“Did Victor lock it?”
“The latch was hooked from the outside.”
Mara opened her eyes.
Rosa’s mouth tightened. “I got her out. Victor saw me. He said you’d put her there and that if I made trouble, you’d lose your job and maybe your kid. Then Mr. Moretti came through the service hall.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He never uses that hallway.”
“People like him always know where to appear.”
“He heard Victor yelling. Mr. Moretti asked why there was a baby next to industrial detergent. Victor said she belonged to a guest.”
Mara stared at her.
“Then Ellie reached for you,” Rosa said. “She saw your apron hanging on the hook. She grabbed it and wouldn’t let go.”
The rain gathered along Mara’s lashes. “And Dominic picked her up?”
“Not right away. He asked me whether she had a parent in the building. I said yes. Victor told me to shut up. Mr. Moretti looked at him, and Victor shut up instead.”
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“Then what?”
“He told Colin to find you. Colin said you were serving the Lancaster table and couldn’t be interrupted. Mr. Moretti said something in Italian. Colin went white.”
