Chapter 2 - The Man in the Wool Coat Offered Help, but I Refused His Price
Enzo invited us into Brennan's after the breakfast rush.
He didn't bring his guards inside.
Bruno waited near the front window.
Hollis set the broken plate on the table.
Enzo examined the lease without touching his coffee.
"Cain signed this?" he asked.
Dale nodded.
"His name is at the bottom."
Enzo's jaw tightened.
He said his family held a minority interest in the development company.
He said that interest gave him access to its books.
It didn't give him the right to promise miracles.
I appreciated the distinction.
People with money usually promised everything.
Then they forgot your name.
"Why did you watch me at Sen?" I asked.
"I was waiting for a meeting," he said.
"And you let Cain throw me out?"
He looked directly at me.
"I should have intervened sooner."
The apology surprised me more than his car.
Hollis pushed the broken plate toward him.
"Can you fix this?"
Enzo shook his head.
"Not the plate."
Hollis's shoulders sank.
"But I can stop the lease while we investigate."
He called a lawyer in front of us.
He requested a written hold on enforcement.
No threats. No whispered instructions.
He asked for documents and a court date.
Then he offered me temporary work.
"Review the public records with our researcher."
"Why me?"
"You noticed a number nobody else noticed."
I stared at the damp receipt.
"And what do you want in return?"
"The truth," he said.
I almost laughed.
Truth was usually expensive for people like me.
Marisol arrived carrying a cardboard box.
Cain had sent her home without pay.
She'd refused to apologize for defending me.
She placed a printed schedule on our table.
"Look at these names," she said.
Three former employees had vanished from the schedule.
Each had questioned missing cash tips.
One name made my fingers go cold.
Evelyn Vance.
My mother's name.
She had disappeared twelve years earlier.
Marisol watched my face change.
"Adeline?"
I pointed at the page.
"Where did you get this?"
"From the old personnel archive."
Enzo stood so quickly his chair scraped.
"That archive was sealed years ago."
May you like
I looked between them.
"Then somebody needs to explain why my mother is in it."
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