Chapter 3 - A Message from the Dead
Z
Chloe finished her shift at eleven forty.
Her feet ached, her tips were disappointing, and Gerard informed her that she had made a powerful enemy by embarrassing Carmine Moretti.
“Next time, keep your head down,” he warned.
“Next time, don't leave a scared child under a table.”
Gerard looked away.
Chloe retrieved her coat and found Dominic waiting near the restaurant's private entrance.
He had removed his jacket. His tie hung loose around his neck, and a small blue crayon rested between his fingers.
“Mia gave this to me,” he said.
“That's good.”
“She wants you to come to the house tomorrow.”
Chloe considered the request.
“Does she know I'll have to go home afterward?”
“Yes.”
“And does she understand that I won't always be available?”
“I explained that.”
“Did you sign it?”
Dominic looked at the crayon.
“No.”
“Then you didn't explain it in her language.”
His mouth tightened, but he didn't argue.
Chloe took out her phone and typed a message.
“Here's a local organization that offers family sign-language classes. They work with parents, siblings, and children. Start there.”
Dominic accepted the information.
“Will you come tomorrow?”
“If Mia wants me to.”
“She does.”
“Then I'll come after my morning shift.”
Dominic offered to send a car.
Chloe refused.
She had spent years protecting her independence because she had seen what happened when a favor became a debt.
Dominic did not insist.
Before she left, he asked one final question.
“Why did you help her?”
Chloe zipped her coat.
“Because she was scared, and nobody was listening.”
“That simple?”
“Most important things are.”
She walked into the rain.
Dominic watched until she disappeared around the corner.
Then Leo approached with a phone in his hand.
“We have a problem.”
“Carmine?”
“Not exactly.”
Leo showed him a message sent from an anonymous account.
The attached photograph showed Chloe outside the Onyx Room, taken only minutes earlier.
Beneath it was a sentence.
Ask your new waitress what Isabella promised to reveal before she died.
Dominic read it twice.
His wife had died in a crash on a wet road outside Chicago. The police report had called it an accident. The driver of the other vehicle had disappeared before officers arrived.
Dominic had paid investigators to examine every detail.
They had found nothing conclusive.
Now someone was connecting Isabella's death to a waitress who had never met his wife.
“Trace the message,” Dominic ordered.
“We're trying.”
“Quietly.”
Leo hesitated.
“Do you think Chloe knows something?”
Dominic remembered the way she had refused his money, refused his car, and refused to let him turn Mia's trust into a transaction.
“I think someone wants me to believe she does.”
He slipped the blue crayon into his pocket.
Across town, Chloe entered the small apartment she shared with her younger brother, Toby.
He was waiting at the kitchen table, his hearing aids resting beside a bowl of cereal.
“You're late,” he signed.
“Busy night.”
He studied her face.
Then he pointed toward his cheek.
Chloe frowned.
“What?”
Toby repeated the sign for danger.
She sat beside him.
“I'm okay.”
He shook his head.
He knew her too well to believe the answer.
Chloe told him about Mia, the frightened child beneath the restaurant table, and the father who didn't know how to reach her.
Toby listened carefully.
Then he signed something that made Chloe smile despite her exhaustion.
Teach him.
“I might.”
Toby leaned forward and signed again.
Not the father.
The girl.
Chloe kissed his forehead.
“Always.”
When she finally went to bed, she didn't see the message waiting on her phone.
May you like
It came from an unknown number.
You should never have approached Mia Russo. Her mother died because she tried to protect that family. Now you have a chance to make the same mistake.
