Chapter 2 - The Man Beside Him
The younger man smiled.
It was the kind of smile people used when a waiter brought the wrong wine.
“Grief does strange things to people, Vincent.”
“My mother wasn’t a thing.”
The words came out before I could swallow them.
His smile disappeared.
Vincent looked at him.
“Adrian.
Sit down.”
Nobody in the room moved until Adrian lowered himself into his chair.
Then Vincent turned back to me.
“Your name.”
“Nora Brooks.”
“Do you have a photograph of her?”
I pulled out my phone.
The screen had a crack through one corner.
My mother smiled from a hospital bed in the last picture I had taken.
She’d hated it.
Delete that.
I look like a tired mop.
I hadn’t deleted it.
Vincent held the phone without touching the screen.
“She had a scar here,” he said, pointing beneath his own chin.
“From a broken mixing bowl.”
“She always said that.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I was there when she fell off a bicycle.”
Adrian stood again.
“This conversation should happen somewhere private.”
“For once,” Vincent said, “we agree.”
He offered me his hand.
I stepped backward.
“No.”
The word surprised him.
“I’m not going anywhere alone with you.”
A woman in a charcoal suit moved from the wall.
“Then you won’t,” she said.
She looked about fifty.
No jewelry.
Flat shoes.
Eyes that seemed to count every exit.
“I’m Ruth Mercer.
I run his security.
Choose someone you trust.”
Across the dining room, June stood holding a water pitcher.
I pointed at her.
Ten minutes later, June sat beside me in a private office with the door open.
Ruth stood outside it.
Adrian had not been invited.
Vincent placed the photograph between us.
“Your mother worked here before this was a private club.”
“She told me she worked in a restaurant.”
“She ran the kitchen.
Later she helped with the books.”
“And you?”
“I owned it.”
“You still do?”
“A share.”
He looked older under the office lights.
“I loved her.”
My laugh sounded ugly.
“Funny.
She never mentioned you.”
He accepted that without flinching.
“She disappeared.
Adrian brought me news of a highway accident.
There was a report.
A death notice.”
“Did you see her?”
His silence answered.
June’s knee pressed against mine.
Vincent slid a card across the desk.
“I want to find out what happened.”
I left it there.
“My mother kept one letter from a man named Vincent.”
His eyes lifted.
May you like
“What letter?”
“The one where you paid her to get rid of me.”
