Chương 4
“That came out wrong.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Anna—”
She pulled the locker key from her ring.
It stuck briefly.
Her hands were still trembling.
She finally twisted it free and placed it in his palm.
“You should tell Luis to save his schedule screenshots.”
Craig frowned.
“Why?”
“Because you’ll probably claim he wasn’t working either.”
She walked away before he answered.
Her sister Leah was waiting in a battered blue Honda at the curb.
Anna opened the passenger door.
Leah took one look at her.
“What the hell happened to your face?”
“My face?”
“You look like you watched someone get murdered.”
“Almost.”
Leah gripped the steering wheel.
“That is not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
The drive to Queens took forty minutes.
Leah talked for thirty-seven of them.
She alternated between fury, disbelief, practical questions and accusations that Anna had “a medical inability to mind her own business.”
Anna leaned her head against the window.
At one red light, Leah said, “You sent me a video of a stranger’s wrist with no explanation.”
“I wrote ‘keep this.’”
“Yes. Which is exactly the kind of message people send before disappearing in documentaries.”
“I was busy.”
“You were apparently intercepting assassination food.”
“Can you not call it that?”
“What should I call it?”
“I don’t know. Dinner.”
Leah made a sound.
“You are impossible.”
They reached the apartment building at 2:06.
A black SUV was parked across the street.
Leah saw it.
“Is that his?”
“I told him no.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I don’t know.”
They sat in the car.
The SUV’s headlights were off.
A man in a dark jacket sat behind the wheel.
Leah whispered, “Should we call the police?”
Anna considered it.
Then the man lifted a paper coffee cup and took a drink.
Something about the ordinary motion made the situation more unnerving.
Anna called the number on Vincent’s card.
He answered on the second ring.
“You see them.”
Not a question.
“I said no.”
“I heard you.”
“Then why are they outside my building?”
“Because Daniel knows where you work.”
“He knows where I work, not where I live.”
A pause.
Anna sat upright.
“How do you know where I live?”
Vincent answered after half a beat too long.
“I asked your manager for your emergency contact information.”
“You did what?”
“He gave it to my security team.”
Leah mouthed, What?
Anna held up a hand.
“That is extremely not okay.”
“Agreed.”
“You did it.”
“I said it wasn’t okay. I didn’t say I regretted it.”
“You don’t get to decide where guards follow me.”
“No. You do.”
“Then send them away.”
Another pause.
“All right.”
Anna had expected an argument.
The immediate agreement disarmed her.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Across the street, the SUV’s engine started.
Vincent continued, “They’ll leave. If you want them back, call.”
The SUV pulled away.
Anna looked at Leah.
Leah looked impressed despite herself.
On the phone, Vincent said, “Lock the door.”
“Bossy.”
“Correct.”
He ended the call.
Leah waited.
Anna waited.
Finally Leah said, “I hate that his voice is probably attractive.”
Anna turned toward her.
“You heard nothing.”
“I heard enough.”
“You are thirty-one years old.”
“And still gifted.”
Anna laughed again, this time normally.
It hurt her chest.
She did not understand why until they were upstairs.
The apartment smelled faintly of laundry detergent and the basil plant Leah kept killing and replacing every few months.
Anna took off her shoes.
She stood in the kitchen with one hand on the counter.
Leah was filling a glass with water when Anna said, “I almost didn’t do it.”
Leah turned.
“The wrist thing?”
Anna nodded.
“I saw the plate switch, and I thought maybe it was nothing. Then I thought if I embarrassed him, Craig would fire me. Then I thought maybe the guy was part of Vincent’s team. Maybe rich people switch plates for reasons. Allergies. Security. Whatever.”
Leah put the glass down.
Anna stared at the sink.
“I walked three steps toward the table and stopped. Luis almost served it before I moved again.”
“You moved.”
“Eventually.”
“You moved in time.”
Anna looked at her sister.
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Leah came closer.
“You don’t have to turn every good thing you do into a trial about what you almost failed to do.”
Anna’s mouth tightened.
Leah knew which wound she was touching.
Neither of them said their mother’s name.
Five years earlier, Anna had ignored three calls from a number she did not recognize because she was working a wedding shift in Brooklyn.
The number had belonged to St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Their mother had collapsed on a subway platform.
By the time Anna listened to the voicemail, Leah was already there.
Their mother died the next morning.
Nobody had blamed Anna.
That had not stopped her.
She had become the kind of person who checked missed calls twice and noticed strangers walking into kitchens.
Sometimes that was useful.
Sometimes it exhausted everyone around her.
At 3:11 a.m., Anna received a message from Detective Torres.
The preliminary lab screen indicated the food contained a concentrated cardiac medication not used anywhere in the restaurant.
The amount was potentially lethal.
Anna read the message twice.
Then she sat on the kitchen floor.
Leah sat beside her.
Neither spoke.
The refrigerator motor clicked on.
Someone upstairs dropped something heavy.
A bus sighed at the corner.
Ordinary noises continued as if there were no such thing as a poisoned plate.
At 3:24, Vincent called.
Anna answered.
“You heard?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Torres told you?”
“She texted.”
“Good.”
Anna leaned against the cabinet.
“Was Daniel arrested?”
“No.”
“What?”
“Not yet.”
She sat straighter.
“Why?”
“Because the video shows him switching the plate. It doesn’t show him adding the drug. His attorney claims he replaced my meal because he suspected the original had been tampered with.”
Anna stared at the wall.
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes enough sense to create doubt.”
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“Why didn’t he say that at the restaurant?”
“He did. After you left.”
