Chương 10
“I’m being suspended because Craig is scared of liability and the owners are scared of you.”
“Same difference.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“What do you want?”
The question caught her.
She stared at the laptop.
“I want my job.”
“Why?”
She frowned.
“Because I need money.”
“I can—”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
Vincent stopped.
Anna continued, “And because I liked parts of it.”
“You liked being a waitress?”
“Some nights.”
“What parts?”
She had never been asked that.
“People.”
“You complain about people constantly.”
“I like them and complain about them.”
“That sounds inefficient.”
“It’s called working in service.”
Vincent said nothing.
Anna thought about it.
“I liked when regulars came in and didn’t need menus. I liked knowing which couple was pretending not to fight. I liked getting a table with a kid who was nervous about ordering for himself. I liked when the kitchen survived a rush that should’ve killed us.”
“And Craig?”
“I didn’t like Craig.”
“Good.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“What is?”
Anna looked at the blank employment field on the screen.
“That I don’t want my whole life to become the thing I did for you.”
Vincent’s voice softened.
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
He was quiet.
Anna regretted saying it.
Then Vincent replied, “You’re right.”
No defense.
That stopped her again.
“Why are you so calm when people insult you?”
“I’m not.”
“You sound calm.”
“That’s different.”
She pictured his tattooed hands around a coffee cup.
“What happens when you’re not calm?”
“Usually something expensive.”
Anna laughed.
He did too, very softly.
Then he said, “Torres found where the forty-eight thousand came from.”
Anna straightened.
“Who?”
“Elise.”
The COO.
Anna felt the now-familiar shift under her feet.
“Why was she paying Craig?”
“Her attorney says consulting.”
“For what?”
“Hospitality development.”
“That sounds fake.”
“It might be real.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I believe she is capable of arranging real consulting work and capable of using the same company to hide payments.”
“Helpful.”
“Yes.”
“Why would Elise pay Craig’s gambling debt?”
“She claims she didn’t know about the debt.”
“Of course.”
“She says she hired him to advise on restaurant operations for a hotel project.”
“Did he do the work?”
“Some.”
Anna exhaled.
Every suspicious fact came with a plausible shadow.
“Was Elise at the restaurant when your plate was poisoned?”
“Yes.”
“You said she took a call in the lounge.”
“She did.”
“How long?”
“Fourteen minutes.”
“Where’s the lounge?”
“Adjacent to the kitchen corridor.”
Anna closed her eyes.
“Does she have a motive?”
Vincent did not answer.
That meant yes.
“What?”
“Elise and I have disagreed about a sale.”
“What sale?”
“One of my companies.”
“Worth?”
“Enough.”
“That is the most rich-person answer possible.”
He ignored that.
“She believes I should sell a controlling interest to a private fund. I refused.”
“And if you died?”
“My estate plan places temporary voting authority with a trust committee.”
“Who’s on it?”
“My attorney. Anthony. Elise.”
Anna sat very still.
“Elise gets more power if you die.”
“Temporarily.”
“That seems relevant.”
“It is.”
“Anthony too.”
“Yes.”
“Your cousin who supposedly left before you moved tables.”
“Yes.”
“Did he?”
Another pause.
“Front cameras show him leaving.”
“But?”
“His car remained in the garage another forty minutes.”
Anna stood.
“He came back.”
“Possibly through the service level.”
“That garage connects to the restaurant building?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t mention that.”
“I learned it this morning.”
Anna paced the hotel room.
“So now we have Daniel lying, Craig lying, Elise paying Craig, Anthony maybe sneaking back into the building and two poisoned plates.”
“Yes.”
“Is your whole life like this?”
“No.”
“That answer was too fast.”
Vincent sighed.
“Not usually this concentrated.”
Anna stopped by the window.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Silence.
She turned away from the city view.
“Vincent.”
“My father left the company structure badly divided when he died.”
“That sounds like polite language again.”
“He made promises to people that contradicted each other.”
“Like?”
“To Anthony, he implied the family would always control the core businesses together. To me, he left the controlling shares.”
“That would create resentment.”
“Yes.”
“And Elise?”
“She built much of the current operation. She believes I hold too much authority because my name is on documents rather than because I earned it.”
“Is she right?”
The question came before Anna could soften it.
Vincent said nothing for several seconds.
“Yes.”
Anna blinked.
He continued, “Partly.”
“That must hurt.”
“It irritates me.”
“Same thing for men who own construction companies.”
“Maybe.”
She smiled faintly.
“So people around you have reasons to want your power.”
“Yes.”
“Do they have reasons to want you dead?”
Vincent’s answer was quieter.
“That is what I’m trying to learn.”
Two nights later, somebody broke into Anna’s apartment.
The hotel had kept her away.
Leah had taken the cat to stay with a coworker.
Nothing valuable was stolen.
The television remained.
Leah’s laptop remained.
Cash in a kitchen drawer remained.
Anna’s old phone was gone.
The one she had used before replacing it eight months earlier.
It had been inside a shoebox in the bedroom closet.
Detective Torres stood in the doorway wearing gloves.
“Did it contain the video?”
“No.”
“Could it access your accounts?”
“Maybe old email.”
“Cloud storage?”
Anna felt sick.
“I don’t know.”
Leah said, “She changed her email password after the restaurant.”
Torres nodded.
“That helps.”
Anna looked around.
Drawers open.
Mattress shifted.
Closet emptied.
Someone had held her clothes.
Touched her mother’s old scarf.
Moved the box containing hospital papers Anna had never thrown away.
The violation was intimate in a way the slow car had not been.
She sat on the edge of the couch.
“I want them caught.”
Torres looked at her.
“I know.”
“No. I mean I want them caught now.”
“That part I can’t give you.”
Anna’s eyes burned.
She hated that too.
Vincent arrived thirty minutes later.
Torres almost threw him out.
“I told you not to come here.”
“You told my attorney.”
May you like
“Which means you were told.”
“Yes.”
