Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO SET THE TRAP
Dominic kept one arm over Maggie until the last piece of glass stopped moving.
She became aware of him in fragments.
The weight of his body between hers and the windows.
The smell of rain and wool from his coat.
The hard rhythm of his breathing.
His hand spread across the back of her head, keeping her below the booth.
Then Maggie became aware of something else.
She was furious.
“Get off me.”
Dominic looked down.
“You were just hit with a window.”
“The window was hit. I was underneath you.”
“That was the idea.”
“Maggie!”
Eli’s voice came from behind the counter.
She shoved Dominic’s arm aside and rose carefully.
“Everybody stay away from the glass!” she shouted. “Eli, you okay?”
His face appeared above the register.
“I think so.”
“Check your hands. Check your face.”
“I’m good.”
Around the diner, customers were beginning to sit up.
Mrs. Donnelly had a shallow cut on her forearm. A truck driver at table four had blood on one knuckle. One of the bricks had destroyed the pie case but missed the waitress standing beside it by inches.
Maggie looked at the damage.
The Bluebird’s front windows had survived eighteen Pennsylvania winters, a runaway shopping cart, one bar fight that somehow migrated three blocks, and a drunk college student wearing a pirate costume.
Now the whole front of the diner was open to the morning air.
Dominic picked up the note.
“Do not touch anything else,” he said.
Maggie rounded on him.
“I own the everything else.”
“And someone just attacked it.”
“So I noticed.”
He reached for his phone.
Maggie pointed at him.
“If you call twelve men in dark coats before I call the police, I am hitting you with something heavier than a biscuit.”
Dominic paused.
“I was going to call the police.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Really?”
“No.”
“Thank you for the honesty.”
She called 911 herself.
Seven minutes later, the first patrol car arrived.
Nine minutes after that, the Bluebird had become a crime scene.
The detective who took control introduced herself as Lena Ortiz.
She was in her late thirties, compact, sharp-eyed, and had the particular expression of someone who had spent years listening to men explain things she already understood.
Her gaze landed on Dominic and stayed there.
“Of course,” she said.
Dominic did not seem offended.
“Detective.”
“You two know each other?” Maggie asked.
Ortiz pulled on gloves.
“Mr. Vescari and I share an interest in several unsolved cases.”
“I am sure the cases appreciate the attention,” Dominic said.
Maggie looked between them.
“No. Absolutely not. Whatever weird law-and-order flirting this is, do it outside.”
Ortiz stared at her.
Dominic looked almost offended for real this time.
“We are not flirting.”
“Great. Then it should be easy to stop.”
For the next hour, Maggie answered questions while crime scene technicians photographed glass, bricks, tire marks, and the typed note.
Ortiz asked about the video.
About Grant Mercer.
About Crowe Development.
About Dominic.
Especially about Dominic.
“He was here when Mercer came in?” Ortiz asked.
“Yes.”
“And Mercer threatened you?”
“He called ownership burdensome.”
“That can be interpreted several ways.”
“So can throwing a brick through a window, but I’m comfortable choosing one.”
Ortiz almost smiled.
“What happened after Mercer left?”
“About thirty seconds later, the windows exploded.”
“Convenient.”
“For who?”
“That’s what I’m trying to determine.”
Maggie followed her gaze toward Dominic.
He was near the broken storefront speaking quietly to Anthony Russo, who had arrived with two other men and then stopped on the sidewalk after Maggie told them they were not entering unless they ordered breakfast.
Anthony had ordered three bacon sandwiches.
He was currently holding all of them.
“You think Dominic did this?” Maggie asked.
“I think Dominic Vescari has spent thirty years benefiting from people being afraid to ask what he did.”
“Then ask him.”
“I have.”
“And?”
“He has very good lawyers.”
Maggie folded her arms.
“That’s not an answer.”
Ortiz studied her.
“Be careful, Ms. Callahan.”
“About what?”
“About mistaking restraint for innocence.”
Maggie looked toward Dominic again.
“No danger of that.”
By ten o’clock, reporters had arrived.
By eleven, someone had put the original apology video beside footage of the smashed windows and added dramatic music.
By noon, Maggie wanted to throw the entire internet into the Schuylkill River.
She closed the Bluebird for the day.
Eli protested.
“You need help boarding up.”
“You need school.”
“I can miss first period.”
“It’s noon.”
“Oh.”
“Go.”
He looked at the shattered windows.
“Maggie, what if they come back?”
The question hit harder than the brick had.
She softened.
“Then they’ll find out I keep a rolling pin under the counter.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. It’s maple.”
Eli did not laugh.
Maggie touched his shoulder.
“I’m going to be okay.”
“Promise?”
She hated promises that involved other people’s behavior.
“I promise I’ll be smart.”
He accepted that.
Barely.
After he left, Maggie spent two hours sweeping glass.
Dominic returned at three carrying work gloves.
She looked at them.
Then at him.
“No.”
“I did not ask a question.”
“You are not boarding my windows.”
“Why?”
“Because you look like you’ve never used a cordless drill.”
Dominic held up a DeWalt.
Maggie blinked.
“You brought your own?”
“My father was a carpenter before he became other things.”
“Other things.”
“Yes.”
“That is doing heroic work in that sentence.”
He set two sheets of plywood against the wall.
“Where do you keep extension cords?”
Maggie considered arguing.
Then she noticed he had taken off the expensive coat.
His sleeves were rolled up.
There was a pale scar along his left forearm, wide and irregular, disappearing beneath his shirt.
Not a knife cut.
A burn.
She did not ask.
“Back room,” she said.
They worked until dusk.
Dominic measured twice.
Maggie learned he did, in fact, know how to use a drill.
Dominic learned Maggie believed measuring tape was for people who lacked intuition.
They argued about plywood placement.
They argued about whether the old frame needed shims.
They argued about whether he was allowed to pay for the replacement glass.
“No,” Maggie said for the sixth time.
“It was my presence that made you a target.”
“My mouth made me a target.”
“That does not improve the argument.”
“It improves most arguments.”
He looked at her from the top of the step stool.
“You enjoy this.”
“What?”
“Disagreeing with me.”
Maggie considered.
“I enjoy you surviving it.”
That time Dominic laughed.
Not much.
A breath more than a sound.
But it changed his whole face.
For half a second, Maggie saw what he might have looked like at twenty-five, before every line around his mouth learned discipline.
It unsettled her more than his reputation had.
At seven, they sat in booth twelve eating grilled cheese because the kitchen was half shut down and Maggie refused to cook anything requiring more than one pan.
Dominic had taken two bites when he said, “You should close for a week.”
“No.”
“Maggie.”
“People depend on this place.”
“People can eat elsewhere.”
“Not all of them.”
He frowned.
She nodded toward the street.
“Mrs. Donnelly’s son lives in Arizona and calls once a month. She eats breakfast here five days a week because otherwise she doesn’t talk to anybody until dinner.”
Dominic said nothing.
“Mr. Fenwick’s pension check comes on the third. By the twenty-fifth, I stop charging him.”
She took another bite.
“And Eli’s family needs his shifts.”
“You pay him more than minimum wage.”
“How do you know?”
“I notice things.”
“So do I.”
Their eyes held.
Maggie thought of the burn scar.
Dominic thought of the sleepless shadows beneath her eyes.
Neither asked.
At eight, he left.
At eight fifteen, Maggie finally climbed upstairs.
Her phone rang before she reached the top step.
Unknown number.
She nearly ignored it.
Then answered.
“Bluebird Grill.”
There was breathing on the line.
A man whispered, “Don’t hang up.”
Maggie stopped.
She knew the voice.
“Curtis?”
Silence.
Then: “I didn’t send the picture.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
“I didn’t throw the bricks either.”
“Where are you?”
“I made a mistake.”
“You took money to scare a kid.”
“I was supposed to provoke Vescari. That’s all.”
“Who paid you?”
“Mercer.”
“I know.”
Curtis cursed under his breath.
“You don’t know enough.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“I can’t on the phone.”
“Why would I meet you?”
“Because Crowe doesn’t want your diner.”
Maggie’s heart slowed.
“What?”
“He wants what’s under it.”
A scrape sounded through the line.
Curtis’s breathing changed.
“Listen to me. St. Agnes. Ask Vescari about St. Agnes.”
“What is St. Agnes?”
“Come alone. Holy Cross parking lot. Twenty minutes.”
The call ended.
Maggie stared at the screen.
She knew going alone was stupid.
So she did not.
She called Eli.
He answered on the second ring.
“Maggie?”
“I need you to do something weird.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“If I do not call you in thirty minutes, call Dominic Vescari.”
A pause.
“How am I supposed to have Dominic Vescari’s number?”
Maggie looked at the business card he had finally left beside the register.
“I’m texting it.”
“Maggie, what are you doing?”
“Being smart enough to make somebody else worry.”
She drove to Holy Cross.
The church lot was nearly empty.
Curtis’s car sat beneath a dead streetlamp.
Maggie parked twenty yards away.
She did not get out.
She called his number.
His phone lit up inside the car.
No movement.
Maggie waited.
Then she saw the driver’s door was open.
“Damn it.”
She took the tire iron from her trunk.
The lot smelled like wet asphalt and fallen leaves.
She found Curtis behind the church dumpster.
He was sitting against the brick wall, one hand pressed to his side.
Blood covered his fingers.
“Oh, God.”
“Don’t,” he rasped.
Maggie crouched.
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No cops.”
“You’re bleeding through your shirt.”
Curtis grabbed her wrist.
“Take this.”
He pushed a small flash drive into her palm.
“What is it?”
“Insurance.”
“Against who?”
Curtis’s eyes moved past her.
Fear transformed his face.
Headlights turned into the lot.
A black SUV.
Maggie stood.
Curtis whispered, “Crowe isn’t buying the Bluebird.”
May you like
The SUV accelerated.
“He’s burying it.”
