Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO CAME BACK WITHOUT AN APOLOGY
The bus doors opened between me and the man in the gray cap. For three seconds I couldn't move. Then the driver asked whether I was getting on, and I climbed aboard without taking my eyes off the bakery across the street.
The man lowered his phone. He turned slightly. I saw the line of his jaw, the narrow bridge of his nose, and the little white scar beside his mouth from the time Rosie had accidentally struck him with a toy truck. My husband had grown a beard and lost weight, but I recognized the man who once told me he would always come home for dinner.
“Gavin,” I whispered.
The bus pulled away. I took the nearest seat and pressed my face toward the window. He watched us leave. He didn't chase the bus or wave or make any effort to stop me. Somehow that was worse. Four years had passed, and he still expected the world to move around his decisions.
I called Avery Chen's office from the bus. This time I spoke directly to the attorney, who listened without interrupting while I explained the photograph, the false bank account, and Gavin's sudden appearance.
“You don't have to meet him,” she said. “Not today, not tomorrow, not for his convenience. If he has information, we can ask for it through counsel.”
“He's Rosie's father.”
“That's a legal relationship with responsibilities. It is not permission to stalk you.”
I looked at the wet streets moving past. “I spent so long waiting for him to call.”
“I'm sorry,” Avery said. “But you don't owe him gratitude for finally doing it.”
That afternoon I found Rosie at Mrs. Alvarez's table assembling a paper crown from grocery circulars. She'd written QUEEN OF SOUP on the front because she'd helped stir lunch. I pressed my face into her hair, breathing in crayons and laundry soap. She pulled back to examine me.
“Did something bad happen?”
“I lost my job at the bakery.”
Her eyes widened. “Are we going to lose our house?”
“Not today. And I'm already looking for another job.”
She thought about that. “I can sell drawings.”
“No.”
“Some artists get money.”
“Then you're going to practice until you can charge a fortune. But not because we're hungry. You draw because you love it.”
I wasn't sure life would let me keep that promise. I made it anyway.
The next morning I went to the community center for my interview. Teresa Moretti was there, sitting at a table covered in books whose corners had softened from hundreds of small hands. The program coordinator, a cheerful woman named Delia Price, asked about my experience with children, schedules, and difficult parents. I talked about reading to Rosie while waiting for buses and the way she asked me to change endings she didn't like. I demonstrated how I would lead a group through a book about a lost penguin.
When I finished, Delia smiled. “Your references were excellent.”
“Which references?”
“Mrs. Alvarez. And the manager of your daughter's school breakfast program.”
I had nearly forgotten that I'd helped there when another mother was sick. Nobody had ever counted that as experience before.
Delia explained the shifts, training, hourly rate, tax forms, and child-safety rules. They could accommodate school pickup twice a week. I would receive a copy of the employment contract before agreeing to anything. If I wanted it, the job was mine.
I put my hands over my mouth.
“I haven't accepted yet,” she said quickly. “You can take a day.”
“No. I'm just—” My voice broke. “Nobody's offered me a job with a contract before.”
Teresa said nothing. She simply slid the tissues closer.
After the interview, she walked beside me to the exit. The building's hallway smelled of paper, crayons, and wet winter boots.
“My son wants to see you,” she said. “Not about the position. About Winterlight.”
“I have a lawyer.”
“Good. Bring her.”
I looked at Teresa. “Did you know families were supposed to receive money they never got?”
She stopped walking. “No. I knew the foundation had been losing efficiency. My son blamed poor administration and promised a review. I accepted that explanation because I wanted to believe a program with my name on it was still doing what I started it to do.”
“Why start it?”
She looked through the window toward a row of children waiting for their parents. “My husband used to say money was proof that somebody deserved more of everything. I spent most of my marriage trying to show him he was wrong.”
“Was he a kind man?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“No,” she said. “But he could be kind when he wanted people to remember it. My son inherited more from him than either of us likes admitting.”
She turned to me. “Don't mistake Dominic's interest for safety by itself, Molly. Insist on rules. He needs people who can tell him no.”
For a woman whose son frightened an entire city, the warning sounded remarkably like something my own mother would have said.
At three o'clock I went to Avery's office. She was younger than I'd expected, with short black hair and a desk so crowded with files there was barely room for the tea she offered me. She read June's envelope, examined the threat photographs, and asked me to explain how Gavin had used my documents. She never promised that we'd win. She described wage claims, identity-theft reports, preservation letters, and the difference between investigating a suspect and proving a crime.
“Your former employer can't erase your work history by firing you,” she said. “Do you have schedules, messages, pay stubs?”
“I have all of them.”
“All?”
“Every shift change. Every paycheck. Every time I borrowed five dollars for Rosie's lunch and paid it back. I keep receipts because I can't afford to forget where anything went.”
Avery leaned back. “Then you may have better records than Novak.”
I almost laughed. For three years, the receipts I'd saved to prove I was not careless had embarrassed me. I kept them in a cookie tin because I didn't have a filing cabinet. Now they might be worth more than any story Novak could invent.
While Avery copied the papers, my phone vibrated. Gavin.
I showed her the screen. She shook her head and handed me a notepad.
“If you answer, put it on speaker and tell him I'm present. But you're not required to.”
I answered.
“Molly, I need to explain.”
“My attorney is here.”
Silence. Then: “You don't need one.”
“That is the first thing you've said today that makes me glad I have her.”
He sighed with the exaggerated patience he used when I questioned bills. “I never meant to hurt Rosie.”
“You knew her age. You knew where she lived. You had four years to send even one card.”
“You think it was easy?”
“I don't care whether leaving us was easy.”
His breathing changed. “Victor said he could keep the money moving through the charity accounts. At first it was only a few addresses. I didn't understand what he was doing.”
Avery wrote something on the pad and turned it toward me: ASK WHICH MONEY.
“What money, Gavin?”
“The disbursements. The emergency grants. They weren't supposed to hurt anyone because the foundation had so much. Victor said the families were getting help somewhere else.”
“Rosie didn't.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew we had no heat. I called you until your voicemail filled up.”
He didn't answer.
Avery leaned forward. “Mr. Carter, this is attorney Avery Chen. We're requesting that you preserve all documents and communications related to these accounts. Do not contact my client directly again.”
“Listen,” Gavin said. “Victor isn't going to sit still while you tell stories about him. Moretti owns the foundation, but Victor knows where the signatures came from. He can make it look like Molly took everything.”
Then he hung up.
Avery stared at the phone. “That wasn't an apology.”
“No,” I said. “It was a warning from a man who still thought I was someone else's responsibility.”
When I got home, Rosie showed me a school worksheet. The question at the top read: WHAT WOULD YOU BUY IF YOU FOUND ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS? She had drawn a new heater, a jar of peanut butter, and the red shoes in the corner, much smaller than the other things.
I tucked the paper into my cookie tin beside the receipts.
That night Dominic called from a number Teresa had given me. He didn't ask where I lived. He said he'd spoken to the foundation's outside auditor, and that Avery would receive a formal invitation to inspect records relevant to my application.
“Victor Sloane is your employee,” I said.
“Yes.”
“If he stole from us, you were supposed to stop him.”
A pause. “You're right.”
The answer unsettled me more than an excuse would have.
“You don't know if he did.”
“I know I didn't examine what he put in front of me as carefully as I should have.”
“That's not the same thing as stealing.”
“No,” Dominic said. “But it can make stealing easy.”
I looked at Rosie's drawing of the heater. “Then don't ask me to forgive you before you find out what happened.”
“I wasn't going to.”
Before the call ended, he said there was something else. His security team had reviewed footage from outside Bergman's at his mother's request after my report about the photographer. They had identified the gray-capped man as Gavin Carter. Another man had been with him, standing beyond the frame.
“Who?” I asked.
“Victor Sloane.”
May you like
The two men hadn't merely followed us. They had stood outside a department store together, watching my six-year-old daughter draw a pair of shoes.
And Dominic Moretti, for all his wealth and guards and ruthless reputation, had apparently only just discovered that the danger was coming from someone he paid.
