Chapter 2 - THE ACCOUNT THAT BELONGED TO A DEAD WOMAN
2
The sound beneath the floor came again.
Bang.
Everyone inside Sterling's Bistro stopped moving.
The employees looked at one another.
Mom held me so tightly my cheek pressed against her apron.
Vincent Kane stared toward the kitchen.
“What's downstairs?”
Nobody answered.
Finally, Luis, one of the cooks, raised his hand halfway.
“Storage. Wine. Freezers.”
“Anything else?”
Luis looked toward the back hallway.
“There is another room.”
Mom frowned.
“What room?”
Luis shrugged.
“Sterling keeps it locked.”
Vincent turned toward Salvatore.
“Find David.”
Three men disappeared through the kitchen doors.
Vincent remained beside us.
It surprised me.
I had expected him to run after Sterling himself.
Instead, he crouched.
“Rory.”
“Yes?”
“You're going to do exactly what your mother says now.”
I frowned.
“Even if I have a better idea?”
For the first time, the corner of his mouth moved.
“Especially then.”
Mom did not smile.
“Mr. Kane, I want to take my daughter home.”
“So do I.”
“Then let us leave.”
He held up the blue payroll folder.
“If David Sterling has been routing money through Lakefront Employment Services, your home may be the first place someone looks for you.”
Mom stared at him.
“Why?”
Vincent didn't answer.
I tugged Mom's hand.
“Who's his brother?”
Vincent heard me.
His eyes shifted toward the window.
“My brother's name was Anthony Kane.”
“Was?”
“He died.”
“How?”
Mom whispered, “Rory.”
But Vincent answered.
“In a fire.”
A man shouted from the kitchen.
“Vincent!”
We followed as far as Mom would allow.
Salvatore stood beside the employee office.
Behind the desk, a filing cabinet had been moved away from the wall.
There was a narrow steel door behind it.
Open.
A staircase descended beneath the restaurant.
One of Vincent's men looked up.
“Sterling's gone.”
“How?”
“Service tunnel. Exit comes out in the alley behind the parking garage.”
Vincent cursed softly.
Then another sound came from below.
Not banging this time.
A woman's voice.
“Help!”
Mom stepped backward.
Vincent raised his hand.
“Everybody stays here.”
He and two men went down.
I counted steps in my head.
One.
Two.
Three.
By seventeen, I couldn't hear their shoes anymore.
By twenty-five, the woman screamed.
Mom covered my ears.
It didn't help.
After what felt like forever, Vincent returned.
His face was different.
The dangerous man from the restaurant was gone.
This man looked furious.
Behind him, Salvatore helped a woman up the stairs.
She wore a gray cleaning uniform.
Her wrists were red.
There was tape over one sleeve where someone had ripped a company badge away.
Luis gasped.
“Nadia?”
The woman collapsed into a chair.
Mom rushed to her.
“Nadia, what happened?”
She started crying.
“Mr. Sterling caught me taking pictures.”
“Pictures of what?”
Nadia looked at Vincent.
“The records.”
Vincent went very still.
“What records?”
Nadia pointed downstairs.
“There are hundreds.”
Boxes.
Payroll files.
Photocopies of driver's licenses.
Social Security cards.
Bank statements.
Applications for credit cards people had never requested.
And photographs.
So many photographs.
Employees entering their homes.
Children walking to school.
Spouses leaving for work.
It was not only wage theft.
Someone had built private files on every employee who challenged David Sterling.
Mom stared at Nadia.
“Why?”
Nadia rubbed her wrists.
“He told me people who ask too many questions need reminders.”
Vincent's expression hardened.
“Who is ‘he’?”
“Sterling.”
“Only Sterling?”
Nadia hesitated.
That was enough.
Vincent leaned closer.
“Who else?”
Before she answered, police sirens approached outside.
Mom exhaled with relief.
Vincent didn't.
His face became even colder.
“Who called them?”
One of his men said, “I didn't.”
Neither had any employee.
Three Chicago police cars stopped outside the restaurant.
Officers came through the front door fast.
The first officer was a broad man with a silver badge and tired eyes.
“Everybody stay where you are.”
Vincent looked at his badge.
“Lieutenant Mercer.”
The officer looked unsurprised.
“Kane.”
“You got here quickly.”
“Alarm call.”
“No alarm was triggered.”
Mercer stared at him.
“Maybe someone pressed a panic button.”
Vincent glanced toward the bar.
The button beneath the register still had its plastic cover.
Unpressed.
The room went quiet.
Mercer looked around.
“Where's Sterling?”
Vincent smiled without warmth.
“Interesting first question.”
Mercer didn't like that.
He ordered two officers toward the kitchen.
Then he pointed at Nadia.
“Who is she?”
Nadia shrank into the chair.
Vincent stepped between them.
“A woman who needs a hospital.”
“I'll decide that after I speak to her.”
“No.”
Every officer in the room stiffened.
Mom whispered my name.
Vincent didn't move.
Neither did Mercer.
Then a younger officer entered carrying a small laptop.
“Lieutenant.”
He showed Mercer the screen.
Whatever Mercer saw changed his expression.
Only for a moment.
But Vincent noticed.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Then show me.”
“This is police business.”
Vincent laughed softly.
“You came into a restaurant because of an alarm nobody triggered, asked where the owner was before anybody told you he was missing, and now you're hiding something from a computer found downstairs.”
Mercer's hand moved toward his belt.
Salvatore moved too.
Mom pulled me behind her.
Vincent raised one hand.
Nobody drew anything.
He looked at Mercer.
“Don't make a bad situation stupid.”
Mercer stared at him for several seconds.
Then he closed the laptop.
“We are taking control of the scene.”
Vincent nodded.
“Good.”
He handed the payroll folder to Mercer.
“Start there.”
Mercer opened it.
He saw Lakefront Employment Services.
And I watched his face change.
The same way Vincent's had.
“You know it too,” Vincent said.
Mercer shut the folder.
“No.”
“You're a terrible liar.”
Mercer turned to his officers.
“Clear the civilians.”
Mom grabbed her coat.
Vincent stopped her.
“Not yet.”
Mercer snapped, “She leaves.”
Vincent looked toward me.
Then at Mom.
“Ask him who owns the bank account where your wages went.”
Mom looked confused.
Mercer froze.
“What account?” Mom asked.
Vincent had copied the routing information from the payroll sheet into his phone.
One of his men had already searched corporate banking records through an accountant who apparently answered Vincent's calls very quickly.
Vincent showed Mom the screen.
“The account receiving your paycheck belongs to a woman named Elaine Mercer.”
The lieutenant's face drained of color.
Mom looked from the phone to the police officer.
“Your wife?”
Mercer swallowed.
“My mother.”
Nobody spoke.
Vincent continued.
“Elaine Mercer died twelve years ago.”
My mother covered her mouth.
Nadia whispered, “Oh my God.”
Lieutenant Mercer stared at the routing number.
“I've never seen this.”
Vincent studied him.
For once, I believed Mercer.
Not because I understood police officers or bank accounts.
Because grown-ups lied with their mouths.
But their eyes were worse at it.
His eyes looked terrified.
Mercer pulled out his phone.
“Everybody stop touching anything.”
He dialed.
No answer.
Dialed again.
Still nothing.
“Who are you calling?” Vincent asked.
“My sister.”
“Why?”
Mercer looked at the dead woman's account number.
“Because she handles my mother's estate.”
Then he suddenly looked toward the basement.
His breathing changed.
“What's your sister's name?” Mom asked.
Mercer barely got the words out.
“Rebecca Sterling.”
Mom stared.
“Sterling?”
Mercer closed his eyes.
“My sister is David Sterling's wife.”
A glass broke somewhere near the bar.
Nobody had touched it.
Maybe it simply slipped from where it had been balanced.
Or maybe the whole restaurant had finally realized what Vincent understood.
David Sterling had been stealing wages through an account belonging to his dead mother-in-law.
A police lieutenant's mother.
And that meant whatever was happening beneath Sterling's Bistro had been built inside two families at once.
Vincent's.
And Mercer's.
Then Salvatore came up the basement stairs holding a dusty photograph.
“Vincent.”
Vincent took it.
I was too short to see, so I stood on a chair.
The picture showed four men outside a warehouse.
A younger David Sterling.
A younger Lieutenant Mercer.
Anthony Kane, Vincent's dead brother.
And one more man.
Mom gasped.
The photograph slipped from Vincent's fingers.
Because the fourth man was my father.
Daniel Carter.
The man Mom told me had died before I was born.
May you like
On the back, someone had written a date.
One week after his funeral.
