Chapter 2 - THE EVICTION NOTICE
I reached our apartment in Washington Heights at 1:48 a.m.
Two men were standing outside.
Neither looked like a landlord.
One held an envelope.
The other photographed our door.
“What are you doing?”
They turned.
“Anna Martinez?”
“Yes.”
The man handed me the envelope.
“Notice of termination.”
My heart stopped.
Our building had been sold.
To Caldwell Urban Development.
We had thirty days to leave.
“That isn't legal.”
“Talk to management.”
Mateo appeared behind me.
He was nineteen and studying architecture at City College while working weekends at a grocery store.
“Anna?”
“Go inside.”
The men left.
Mateo looked at the notice.
“Caldwell?”
I thought about Ethan.
Coincidence was possible.
But rich men had taught me something that night.
They didn't need to hit you twice.
They could make paperwork do it.
The next morning my manager called.
I was fired.
“Richard Caldwell threatened to cancel every corporate event his companies hold with us.”
“So you fired me?”
“I'm sorry.”
“No, you're scared.”
Silence.
“Yes.”
At noon, someone knocked.
Victor DeLuca stood outside my apartment.
I almost slammed the door.
“How did you find me?”
“Your employer gave my office your address.”
“That is extremely creepy.”
“Yes.”
That answer irritated me more.
He handed me a business card.
“I heard you were fired.”
“How?”
“Manhattan.”
Fair.
“And now you're here to rescue me?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I came because Caldwell bought this building yesterday.”
I stopped.
“Yesterday?”
“Eleven seventeen in the morning.”
Before the restaurant incident.
So the eviction wasn't revenge.
Victor looked toward the notice.
“May I?”
I handed it over.
He read it.
“Your entire block is being cleared.”
“For what?”
“A development called Caldwell Square.”
I laughed.
“There already is a square.”
“They're improving it.”
“By removing the people?”
“Usually how improvement works in Manhattan.”
I stared at him.
“You sound like you approve.”
“I didn't say that.”
“Men like you don't have to.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“What does that mean?”
“You own buildings too.”
“Yes.”
“So what's the difference between you and Richard Caldwell?”
He thought about it.
Then said:
“I don't know yet.”
That was the first honest thing a rich man had said to me in twenty-four hours.
Victor offered me a job.
Not charity.
Temporary work cataloging tenant complaints for a legal foundation he funded.
“I don't need a favor.”
“I need someone who knows this neighborhood.”
“You have lawyers.”
“I have lawyers who think Washington Heights is where they send their dry cleaning.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
I accepted.
Mostly because the pay was twice what I made waiting tables.
Three days later, I found the first strange file.
Apartment 5C.
Tenant: Rosa Alvarez.
Age seventy-four.
Status: voluntarily relocated.
Impossible.
Mrs. Alvarez lived downstairs from us.
She hadn't relocated.
She had died six months earlier.
I pulled another.
Apartment 2A.
Voluntarily relocated.
The tenant still lived there.
Another.
Another.
Twenty-seven signatures.
All approving relocation payments.
All apparently forged.
Then I found my mother's name.
Elena Martinez.
My mother had been dead for eight years.
According to Caldwell Properties, she had signed a relocation agreement three weeks ago.
I stared at the signature.
Someone was using dead people to steal Manhattan property.
May you like
And my family was already inside the scheme.
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