Chapter 2 - THE ROOM UPSTAIRS
Four hours earlier, I had carried fresh towels into the second-floor guest room.
The room wasn’t supposed to be occupied.
A gray overnight bag sat open on the bed.
Beside it lay a folder stamped with the name of Luca’s employee assistance fund.
I might have walked past.
Then I saw my own name.
OLIVIA HAYES.
Below it was a payment for eighteen thousand dollars.
Emergency housing assistance.
Approved.
Paid.
Received.
My rent was twelve days late.
I set down the towels and picked up the page.
There was my signature at the bottom.
Almost.
The O was wrong.
The person who had copied it had made the loop too round.
I turned the page.
Rosa Alvarez.
Twenty-two thousand dollars.
Daniel Reed.
Forty-one thousand.
Daniel had worked at Luca’s river warehouse.
Three months earlier, Rosa had cried in the kitchen after hearing he had died during a loading accident.
I took out my phone.
One picture.
Then another.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Vanessa stood in the doorway.
Her voice was calm enough that I almost apologized.
“This says I received money.”
She closed the door.
“You shouldn’t read private documents.”
“It has my signature.”
She crossed the room and held out her hand.
“Phone.”
I backed toward the dresser.
“I didn’t sign this.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
The slap came so fast I heard it before I felt it.
Her ring caught the skin beneath my eye.
My hip struck the dresser.
For a second, the room tilted.
Vanessa took my phone from my hand.
She found the pictures.
Deleted them.
Opened the recently deleted folder and removed them again.
Then she checked the rest of my camera roll.
My sister Nora smiling beside a cheap birthday cake.
A picture of our mother before the hospital.
A screenshot of my overdue rent.
Vanessa paused on that last one.
“You need this job.”
I pressed a hand to my cheek.
“You forged my name.”
She leaned close enough for me to smell her perfume.
“Tell Luca that, and I’ll tell him you stole my bracelet.
Which one of us do you think he’ll believe?”
Before leaving, she dropped my phone on the bed.
“Pantry door.
Four o’clock.
Learn it.”
Now, downstairs, twenty-six people waited for my answer.
Vanessa reached for Luca’s sleeve.
“She’s confused.”
For the first time all evening, I lifted my head.
“No,” I said.
My voice barely carried.
May you like
But it carried far enough.
“She hit me because I found my signature.”
