Chapter 4 — The Last Money in My Account

Evan looked up at the camera once more.

Then he smiled at Investigator Ortiz.

“Of course,” he said. “I’m happy to help.”

Ortiz led him away from my car. I could see them through the rain-streaked window of the empty restaurant next door, speaking beneath its awning. Evan kept his hands in his pockets. He nodded often.

He had always been good at looking cooperative when someone was watching.

My phone buzzed with a notification from the bank. I expected confirmation that the payroll transfers were scheduled. Instead, it was an alert about a withdrawal request from my personal savings account.

Request declined. Identity verification required.

I read it again.

The savings account held just over eighteen thousand dollars. It was the last money I had outside the business, and I had planned to use most of it to repay Claire.

I called the bank while Evan was still talking to Ortiz.

The representative verified my identity, then told me someone had attempted to transfer seventeen thousand dollars that morning.

“From what device?” I asked.

“I can flag the request and arrange a security review. I can’t identify the person for you over the phone.”

“Was it stopped?”

“Yes. Your new security settings required additional verification.”

I leaned against the car.

I had changed those settings less than three hours earlier.

When Ortiz finished with Evan, she walked over to me. He remained under the awning, typing on his phone.

“He says he was home when the fire started,” she said. “His mother called him afterward.”

“Is that all he said?”

“That’s what I can share right now.”

I told her about the attempted transfer. She suggested I save the alert and contact the bank’s fraud department. She made a note of the timing but didn’t pretend it proved who had tried to move the money.

Evan crossed the street before I could ask her anything else. He didn’t look at me.

I drove straight to the bank.

By late afternoon, my accounts were locked against online transfers until I could replace my credentials in person. The process took long enough that I missed two calls from Natalie and one from a number I didn’t recognize.

Her voicemail was brief.

“Your mother called me. Evan says you brought the investigator to question him. Daniel, please stop before you make this worse.”

I played it again in my parked car.

There was no mention of the people who had lost their jobs. No question about what the investigator had found.

I called her.

She answered immediately. “Thank God. Your mother’s been crying all afternoon.”

“Someone tried to take seventeen thousand dollars from my savings.”

Silence.

“Did Marianne ask you to call?” I said.

“I called because I’m worried about you.”

“Did she ask you?”

“She said you wouldn’t answer her.”

“You didn’t answer me.”

Natalie exhaled. “Your mother knows the passwords you used to have. That doesn’t mean she tried anything. You can ask her.”

“I’m asking you what you know.”

“I know you’re treating everyone who loves you like a suspect.”

For a second I could see our kitchen at home: her coat over the back of a chair, the coffee mug she always left beside the sink, the calendar where she had circled the date of our anniversary. I had planned to go back there that night.

“I asked you about Evan,” I said. “You texted me that you would explain.”

“I will. Face-to-face.”

“Then meet me somewhere public.”

“I’m not doing this as if I’m on trial.”

“Neither am I.”

She was quiet long enough that I thought she had hung up.

“Daniel, I’m carrying a baby.”

“I heard you.”

“You haven’t even asked how I’m feeling.”

“How are you feeling?”

Her answer came too quickly. “Like you’d rather prove me guilty than listen to me.”

I closed my eyes. “I can listen. Start with when you began seeing Evan.”

The call ended.

Rosa met me at a coffee shop two blocks from her apartment. She brought a folder of payroll printouts and a bag containing the smoke-stained reservation book she had retrieved with permission that morning.

“You look awful,” she said.

“That’s fair.”

She sat across from me. “I told everyone the pay is coming Friday. Luis asked if you’d checked the business interruption coverage. I said you were working on it.”

“I am.”

I told her I had arranged the shortfall with Claire. Rosa didn’t press for details. She opened the reservation book instead and pointed to Saturday morning.

“You had me hold a table for Natalie.”

I remembered. I had wanted to propose after the first rush, when the room was full of the people who had helped build it. Rosa had known about the ring.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I shook my head.

“She canceled the reservation Friday afternoon,” Rosa added. “She told me you two had decided to go somewhere private.”

“We hadn’t.”

Rosa turned the page. Natalie’s cancellation was written in blue ink beside the time of the call.

I photographed it. It might mean nothing. It might mean she knew there would be no Saturday brunch.

Rosa looked at me for a moment. “Do you want me to tell you what I think?”

“Only if you’ll still speak to me when I don’t like it.”

“You keep answering their calls as if one of them is eventually going to say something that makes this hurt less.”

I looked down at the photograph on my screen.

“She’s right,” I said, though Rosa hadn’t heard Natalie’s last accusation.

“You know I’m talking about your mother too.”

“I know.”

At home, I packed Natalie’s clothes into the large suitcase she used for work trips. I didn’t throw anything away. I left the suitcase by the door and sent a message asking her to collect it when I was out. Then I changed the door code and called the landlord about replacing the physical lock.

At nine that night, a stranger called.

“Mr. Mercer? My name is Paul Danner. I’m buying your house on Alder Street.”

I stood in the middle of the bedroom. “No, you aren’t.”

He hesitated. “The sale agreement was signed yesterday.”

“I didn’t sign anything.”

“Your mother did. She showed me an authorization.”

“What authorization?”

“Mr. Mercer, I paid a deposit.”

My mother had asked me for money beside the ashes of my restaurant. When I refused, she had gone looking for something else to give Evan.

“Send me every document you have,” I said.

“Who should I send it to?”

I looked at the suitcase by the door, then at the framed photograph of my father on the dresser.

“Send it to me,” I said. “I’m the owner.”