Chapter 1 — The Girl at Table Twelve

“If her mother can’t keep her quiet, perhaps someone should take her outside.”

The man at table twelve said it loudly enough for the little girl to hear.

She hadn’t made a sound.

She was sitting beside an empty place setting, drawing in a notebook while the woman who had brought her spoke to the hostess a few yards away. Her shoes didn’t reach the floor. A blue bow held back one side of her hair.

At the neighboring table, four men watched her as though she had wandered into the restaurant carrying a disease.

The girl lowered her head.

A small crack came from her hand.

Her blue crayon had snapped.

I set down my tray.

“Her mother isn’t here,” I said. “And she’s been quieter than your table all evening.”

The man turned toward me.

His cuff links probably cost more than everything in my apartment.

“Excuse me?”

“If there’s a problem with your meal, I’ll fix it. Please leave the child alone.”

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then one of his companions gave an uncomfortable laugh and reached for the wine.

“Forget it, Richard.”

Richard looked at my name tag.

“Lennox. I’ll remember that.”

I was twenty-seven, working two jobs, and already behind on my electricity bill. I should have apologized.

Instead, I picked up a clean napkin and crossed to the girl.

“May I sit here for a minute?”

She glanced toward the woman near the entrance, then nodded.

Up close, she looked about seven. Her eyes were gray, and her mouth was held in the careful straight line of a child trying very hard not to cry in public.

I recognized the effort.

“What are you drawing?”

“A rabbit.”

The animal had a round head, a crooked body, and one ear shorter than the other.

Something tightened in my chest.

I pushed it away.

“That’s fortunate,” I said. “I’ve been looking for someone who knows how.”

She regarded me suspiciously.

“You don’t?”

“I thought I did. Unfortunately, several people have complained.”

I took my order pad out of my apron and drew a rabbit.

It looked like a potato being arrested.

The girl studied it.

“Why does it have five feet?”

“One is supposed to be a tail.”

“That one?”

“No. The other one.”

She looked again.

A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.

I glanced at the name written inside her sketchbook.

“Rosie, I’m going to be honest. This rabbit needs professional help.”

“You have to start with the head.”

“I did.”

“That’s the stomach.”

“Well, that explains a lot.”

She took the pencil from me.

For the next few minutes, Rosie showed me how to draw a head, where the nose belonged, and why rabbit ears shouldn’t look like bent forks.

I listened with exaggerated seriousness.

By my third attempt, she was laughing openly.

The woman who had brought her returned, carrying a glass of water.

“I’m so sorry,” she said to me. “I was asking them to move us somewhere less crowded.”

“Don’t move because of him.”

Her eyes flicked toward table twelve.

Then she looked down at Rosie’s smile, and her expression softened.

“I’m Mrs. Alden.”

“Lennox.”

“Daddy said he’d only be ten minutes,” Rosie told her.

“He’s finishing his call, sweetheart.”

I stood before my manager could come looking for me.

One piece of blue crayon lay beside Rosie’s shoe. The other had rolled beneath the table.

I picked up both.

“Would you like me to throw these away?”

She reached toward them, stopped, and tucked her hand into her lap.

“You can keep them.”

“Are you sure?”

A quick nod.

I slipped them into my apron.

Rosie caught my fingers.

“Will you come back?”

“I’m here until midnight.”

“That doesn’t mean you’ll come back.”

The seriousness of it stopped me.

“I’ll check on you before you leave,” I said. “I promise.”

A man’s voice spoke behind me.

“Rosie.”

The restaurant seemed to become quieter around that single word.

I turned.

He was tall, with black hair and shoulders that made his suit look like something designed to conceal a weapon. A narrow scar crossed his right temple.

His eyes were the same gray as Rosie’s.

Except there was nothing uncertain in them.

He glanced at her hand around mine.

Then at the order pad.

“Who drew that?”

“I did,” I said. “Under close supervision.”

He didn’t smile.

His gaze stayed on the rabbit with the crooked body and uneven ears.

“Where did you learn?”

“About thirty seconds ago.”

Rosie held up her own drawing.

“I taught her, Daddy.”

He looked at his daughter.

The change in his face was slight, but I saw it. His jaw eased. He touched the blue bow in her hair, straightening it with surprising care.

“Did you eat?”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“What about now?”

She considered.

“Maybe pancakes.”

“It’s nine o’clock.”

“They still work at nine.”

This time, his mouth moved.

Almost a smile.

“Mrs. Alden will see what the kitchen can do.”

His attention returned to me.

“What’s your name?”

It was printed on my chest.

He wanted me to say it.

“Lennox Pierce.”

He repeated neither part.

He simply looked at me for a moment longer than was comfortable.

Then my manager appeared.

“Mr. Blackwood. We have your private room ready.”

Blackwood.

My fingers went cold.

The man held out his hand to Rosie. She gathered her notebook and slid off the chair.

Before following him, she looked back at me.

“Don’t forget the head.”

“I’ll try not to.”

He heard her laugh.

And looked at me again.

When they disappeared into the private dining room, another server caught my elbow.

“Do you have a death wish?”

“What?”

“Table twelve is terrible enough. But getting involved with his daughter?”

I stared at the closed door.

“Jericho Blackwood?”

She nodded.

Everyone in Miami knew the name.

Hotels. Shipping. Security firms. Expensive political fundraisers.

And other things nobody discussed above a whisper.

I had spent five years making certain that name never touched my life again.

Now his daughter had held my hand.

My manager summoned me into his office an hour later.

I braced myself for unemployment.

Instead, he placed a cream-colored card on the desk.

“A family is looking for a companion for their child.”

“I’m a server.”

“They’re aware.”

The monthly salary was enough to erase my debts and leave money over.

The address was on Star Island.

I didn’t touch the card.

“Who asked?”

He looked annoyed by the question.

“Mr. Blackwood, obviously.”

“Did you give him my address?”

“Your employment details were requested for the offer.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“Lennox, people would kill for this opportunity.”

Some people would kill for considerably less.

I took the card and left.

At home, I checked the window latch, the thread tucked inside my closet door, and the strip of paper beneath the loose floorboard under my bed.

Nothing had been disturbed.

I lifted the board anyway.

The metal box beneath it contained cash, identity documents, an unloaded pistol, and a photograph I should have burned years ago.

Two young women stood outside a university library.

One was me, before I learned to answer to Lennox.

The other had pale hair, a bright smile, and an arm wrapped around my shoulders.

Celeste Blackwood.

Eleven months ago, I had read about her death on a cracked phone screen during my lunch break.

I had cried in a restaurant bathroom without making a sound.

Now I turned over the photograph.

Her handwriting covered the back.

No matter what happens, remember the rabbits.

I set Jericho’s card beside it.

For five years, I had believed Celeste when she told me her husband would kill me if he found me.

Tomorrow, I would have to decide whether she had been right.