Chương 2
Vincent picked up his wineglass but did not drink.
“What happened before you started recording?”
“He came through the private hall.”
“From where?”
“The west dining room. Your party used it earlier.”
Vincent had hosted six people there before moving alone to the window table. Anna had carried water into the room twice. The men had spoken softly. Expensive suits, controlled laughter, everyone behaving as if no one in the room had ever waited for permission from another human being.
She had recognized Vincent because people in restaurants recognized certain customers even when they pretended they did not.
His name appeared in newspapers often enough.
Logistics companies. Construction. Commercial property. Charity events. Union disputes. Government contracts. Rumors that never became charges. Charges that became dismissals. Photographs where he stood beside politicians who later claimed not to know him well.
He was not famous in the way actors were famous.
He was known.
There was a difference.
“Who was in the private room?” Anna asked.
Vincent tilted his head slightly.
“You’re asking me questions now?”
“I’m trying to figure out whether somebody is about to poison the whole restaurant.”
“That would be inefficient.”
Anna stared at him.
Vincent seemed to realize how the sentence sounded.
“I meant if the target was me.”
“That’s comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
The swinging kitchen door opened.
One bodyguard appeared.
He did not bring anyone with him.
He walked directly to Vincent and bent near his shoulder.
“We need the manager to close the kitchen.”
Vincent looked at Craig.
Craig started coming toward them before being called.
“I don’t want a scene,” Vincent said.
Craig nodded too quickly. “Absolutely. Of course. We can say equipment failure.”
“No.”
Craig blinked.
Vincent pointed toward the plate.
“You’re going to say there is a possible contamination issue. You’re going to stop food service. Nobody eats anything that left that kitchen in the last ten minutes.”
Craig’s face tightened. “Mr. Moretti, if we announce—”
“If you don’t announce it, and somebody else gets sick, what exactly do you think happens to your restaurant?”
Craig’s mouth closed.
Vincent looked at the bodyguard.
“Call emergency services. Tell them suspected intentional contamination. Preserve the plate.”
The guard nodded.
Anna looked at Vincent differently.
He noticed.
“What?”
“I thought you were going to take it somewhere yourself.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You watch too many crime shows.”
“I work doubles. I don’t have time for crime shows.”
“Then you imagine too much.”
“Maybe.”
The kitchen door swung again.
The second bodyguard came through with a man in a gray suit.
He did not drag him.
The man walked on his own.
That was somehow worse.
He was in his early forties, broad through the shoulders, with short blond hair and the impatient face of someone accustomed to clearing rooms rather than waiting in them.
Anna recognized the watch before she recognized anything else.
Steel case.
Dark blue face.
Distinctive red second hand.
Her stomach tightened.
The man saw her phone.
Then he saw Vincent.
He stopped.
The nearest bodyguard closed the distance behind him.
Vincent rose.
Not quickly.
The entire restaurant seemed to notice this time.
Conversations thinned. Chairs shifted. The pianist finished the phrase he was playing and, perhaps sensing the room, moved into something quieter.
The man in gray looked at Vincent with an expression Anna could not read.
“Vincent.”
Vincent glanced at the watch.
Then back at his face.
“That watch belongs to my head of security.”
Anna felt something inside the room change.
Not volume.
Pressure.
The man in gray—Vincent’s head of security—looked at her again.
“That girl doesn’t know what she saw.”
Anna’s fear arrived as heat beneath her collar.
Vincent spoke without looking away from him.
“Lock the doors.”
The bodyguards moved.
Craig made a small choking sound.
Vincent added, “Nobody leaves until police get here.”
The man in gray let out a breath that almost became a laugh.
“You’re calling police?”
Vincent’s eyes were colder now.
“Yes, Daniel.”
That appeared to surprise Daniel more than the accusation.
The first bodyguard locked the private hall entrance. The second spoke to the host near the front. Nobody touched a weapon. Nobody needed to. The room was full of phones and witnesses and people already beginning to understand that dinner had become evidence.
Daniel looked around.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Then you’ll enjoy proving it.”
Vincent turned to Anna.
“Send that video to yourself somewhere else.”
“I already did.”
“To where?”
“My email.”
“Anyone else?”
“My sister.”
Vincent’s gaze sharpened.
“Why?”
“Because I was scared somebody would take my phone.”
Daniel’s mouth moved slightly.
Anna saw it.
So did Vincent.
That was the moment she understood the difference between being afraid of a dangerous man and being afraid beside one.
Vincent did not threaten Daniel.
He did not raise his voice.
He simply looked at him and said, “Don’t.”
Daniel looked away first.
Twenty minutes later, the first paramedics arrived, followed by police.
By then the restaurant had become a strange, expensive waiting room.
Guests complained.
One man threatened a lawsuit because the front doors had been kept closed for six minutes before police took control of the scene.
A woman near the windows demanded to know whether her scallops had been poisoned and then became offended when no one could reassure her immediately.
Craig moved from table to table apologizing with the fixed expression of a man mentally calculating lost revenue.
Anna stood beside the service station with her arms folded over her apron.
Her hands had begun shaking.
That annoyed her.
They had not shaken when she grabbed Vincent.
They had not shaken when Daniel looked at her.
Now, with uniformed officers asking people to remain seated and the danger apparently reduced to procedure, her fingers trembled so badly she tucked them beneath her elbows.
May you like
A detective named Maria Torres took Anna into the private dining room.
Torres was in her mid-forties, with dark hair streaked at the temples and the exhausted patience of someone who had heard too many people explain why rules should not apply to them.
