Chapter 2 - THE WAITRESS WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Christian Vance did not take me to a police station.
He took me to a private medical suite on the sixty-fifth floor.
A doctor examined the cut across my forearm while two security guards waited outside.
Christian stood beside the window, his white shirt stained with wine and a thin streak of blood.
"You're hurt," I said.
He looked down.
"Not mine."
I wasn't sure whether that was supposed to reassure me.
The doctor finished cleaning my arm.
"Superficial," she said. "Keep the dressing dry."
Christian thanked her.
When she left, silence settled between us.
Then he asked, "Who taught you that warning?"
"What warning?"
"The taps."
I looked away.
"My father."
"What did he do?"
"He worked in security."
"For whom?"
"People who didn't like questions."
Christian studied me.
"Name?"
I hesitated.
"Thomas Cole."
Something changed in his expression.
Not recognition exactly.
More like a man hearing a door open in a house he thought had been abandoned.
"Thomas Cole from Boston?"
My stomach tightened.
"You knew him?"
Christian didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, "He worked for a man named Raymond Sloane."
The name hit me like a slap.
My father had warned me never to say it aloud.
"That was a long time ago," I whispered.
Christian stepped closer.
"Your father died eleven years ago."
I stared.
"How do you know that?"
"Because I read the investigation."
My pulse quickened.
"There wasn't an investigation."
"There was."
"No. They called it a warehouse accident."
Christian looked at me carefully.
"That's what the public was told."
I felt suddenly dizzy.
For eleven years, I'd believed my father had died because a loading platform collapsed.
My mother had received a settlement.
Then, six months later, she'd disappeared.
I had spent the rest of my childhood moving between relatives and temporary apartments.
Christian pulled a chair toward me.
"Sit."
"I'm fine."
"Maya."
Something in his voice made me look up.
He wasn't ordering me.
He was asking.
I sat.
Christian lowered himself into the opposite chair.
"Your father was investigating financial transfers connected to the Sterling family."
I stared.
"Victoria's family?"
He nodded.
"Among others."
I shook my head.
"Why would a security contractor investigate billionaires?"
Christian looked toward the door.
"Because he found something he wasn't supposed to find."
My mouth went dry.
"What?"
Christian hesitated.
Then said, "A ledger."
I stopped breathing.
My father had kept a small black notebook.
I remembered him writing in it at the kitchen table.
I remembered the night he made me memorize a string of numbers.
And I remembered him saying:
If anyone asks, sweetheart, you never saw this.
Christian watched my face.
"You know something."
I stood.
"I need to leave."
He rose immediately.
"Maya—"
"No."
My voice cracked.
"I've spent eleven years trying to forget that night."
Christian stopped.
I looked at him.
"You don't get to bring it back because your fiancée tried to kill you."
His jaw tightened.
"Victoria isn't my fiancée anymore."
"Congratulations."
I reached for my coat.
He didn't stop me.
Instead, he said quietly:
"Your father saved my life once."
My hand froze.
I turned.
Christian's expression was unreadable.
"I was seventeen," he said. "A car exploded outside a restaurant in Boston. Thomas Cole pulled me away before the second device went off."
I stared.
"He never told me."
"He didn't want you involved."
Christian paused.
"And now someone is trying to finish what started eleven years ago."
He placed a photograph on the table.
It showed my father standing beside a younger Christian.
Between them was a woman with dark hair.
My mother.
But she wasn't looking at the camera.
She was looking at Christian.
May you like
And beneath the photograph, someone had written three words.
SHE KNOWS EVERYTHING.
