Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN AT THE HARBOR
By the time Rose found the address, her feet had gone numb.
An old repair shop stood between a shuttered warehouse and a boarded-up bar.
Light showed beneath its side door.
She knocked with both fists.
“Please.”
A woman in her fifties opened it with the chain still fastened.
Her eyes dropped to the ruined wedding dress.
“Oh, honey.”
“Did you write the note?”
“Yes.”
“Then let me in.”
The woman slid the chain back.
“My name's Ada Price.”
Inside, she wrapped Rose in a work coat and pushed a chair toward a space heater.
She brought water, clean socks, and a pair of oversized sneakers.
Rose's hands shook too badly to tie them.
Ada knelt without making a speech about it.
That small kindness nearly broke her.
“Who's Daniel?” Rose asked.
“My husband.
He kept your father's shipping records.”
“Kept?”
“He died in a warehouse fire eighteen months ago.”
Rose remembered flowers arriving at the office.
Her father had told her an employee had been careless with a heater.
She had signed a sympathy card without knowing what else to say.
Ada placed a scorched photograph on the table.
Daniel stood beside a loading dock, smiling into the sun.
“Your father called it an accident.
Daniel called me that afternoon and said he'd found shipments that didn't match the books.”
Rose looked toward the door.
“Why come to me?”
“Because your signature is on the company that received the money.”
Ada opened a folder.
Rose saw her own name beneath a transfer authorization.
The signature looked right.
The date did not.
She had spent that week answering phones at a dental office.
“I never signed this.”
“I hoped you'd say that.”
A car slowed outside.
Rose stood so fast the chair scraped the floor.
“Did you tell anyone I was coming?”
“No.”
Through the blinds, she saw headlights sweep the window.
Then a second car pulled in behind the first.
Ada switched off the lamp.
A man's voice carried through the door.
“Rose.
Your father sent us.”
She recognized him.
Owen, Richard's driver, had taken her to every bridal fitting.
“There's no need to embarrass your family,” he called.
Ada reached for the shop phone.
Owen tried the handle.
Then something heavy struck the wood.
Rose backed toward the workbench.
May you like
Her father hadn't sent anyone to ask whether she was hurt.
He'd sent someone to collect her.
