The emergency lights came on three seconds later.
Red strips illuminated the hallway outside the conference room, turning everything unfamiliar.
I stood with Ava pressed against me.
Reed didn’t move.
Downstairs, someone shouted.
Then another voice yelled, “Back entrance!”
Reed’s expression changed instantly.
The man who had smiled at my daughter disappeared.
“Lock the door.”
“What happened?”
“Claire.”
Something in his voice made me obey.
He stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind him.
I turned the lock.
Ava whimpered against my shoulder.
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
But it wasn’t.
I knew enough about Callaway’s to understand that power outages did not make Reed Callaway’s employees yell about back entrances.
A crash echoed downstairs.
Then another.
I moved away from the door.
The conference room suddenly felt too small.
Ava’s portable crib had arrived ten minutes earlier, along with diapers, formula, wipes, and three stuffed animals Tommy claimed he had found “somewhere.”
I had no idea where they had actually come from.
Now those absurdly normal things sat beneath flashing emergency lights while something dangerous happened one floor below.
I looked at the photograph again.
Reed.
The woman.
The baby.
I should have listened to him.
I should have forgotten.
Instead, I wondered why the picture looked at least ten years old.
Why I had never heard that Reed Callaway had been married.
And why the baby’s knitted blanket looked almost identical to one Tommy had just brought upstairs for Ava.
A loud bang snapped me back to reality.
Someone tried the conference-room handle.
I froze.
“Ava, don’t make a sound.”
The handle moved again.
Then a voice.
“Claire?”
Tommy.
I unlocked the door.
He entered quickly and shut it behind him.
His usual relaxed expression was gone.
“What happened?”
“Transformer blew.”
“That sounded like more than a transformer.”
His jaw tightened.
“Somebody used the outage to come through the loading entrance.”
My heart pounded.
“Who?”
“Wrong people.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
“It answers enough.”
Before I could argue, Ava reached toward him.
Tommy looked down.
“You got terrible timing, peanut.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
The lights flickered back to life.
A minute later, Reed entered.
There was blood on his knuckles.
Not much.
Enough.
I stared.
He noticed.
“Kitchen accident.”
“Do you always punch the kitchen?”
Tommy coughed.
Reed gave me a look.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, my fear loosened slightly.
Then Reed turned serious.
“You’re leaving early.”
“I need the hours.”
“You’re being paid for the full shift.”
“I don’t need charity.”
His eyes narrowed.
“This isn’t charity. Someone breached my building. I don’t keep employees and infants around during security problems.”
My mouth went dry.
“Security problems?”
“Tommy will drive you home.”
“I can take the bus.”
“No.”
The single word ended the discussion.
Twenty minutes later, Ava and I were sitting in the back of a black SUV while Tommy drove through snow-covered streets.
The heater blasted warm air.
Ava slept against my chest.
I watched Chicago crawl past the windows.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” I said.
Tommy glanced at me through the mirror.
“That sounds like the beginning of asking something.”
“The photograph.”
His eyes moved back to the road.
“What photograph?”
“The one upstairs.”
Silence.
“Who were they?”
“Claire.”
“Everyone keeps saying my name instead of answering me.”
“That’s because you ask questions nobody wants to answer.”
The SUV stopped at a red light.
Tommy sighed.
“Her name was Natalie.”
I waited.
“Reed’s wife.”
“And the baby?”
Tommy’s hands tightened around the wheel.
“His son.”
Was.
Not is.
The word cut deeper than I expected.
“What happened?”
The light changed.
Tommy drove.
For almost a minute he said nothing.
Then quietly, “They died.”
I looked down at Ava.
“How?”
“Car bomb.”
The city outside seemed to disappear.
I stared at him.
Tommy’s face remained expressionless.
“That was twelve years ago. Reed was twenty-six. He wasn’t running anything then. His father was.”
My stomach turned.
“Was it meant for him?”
“For Reed’s father. Wrong car. Wrong morning.”
I understood the photograph now.
The fear in Reed’s eyes.
The way Ava holding his finger had stopped him cold.
Tommy glanced toward me.
“You didn’t hear any of this from me.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“Good.”
He hesitated.
“And Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t mistake what happened today for Reed being soft.”
I looked out the window.
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
But something in Tommy’s tone told me he wasn’t entirely convinced himself.
We reached my apartment building fifteen minutes later.
Tommy insisted on carrying the portable crib upstairs.
I protested until he ignored me.
Mrs. Perez opened her door when she heard us.
She stared at Tommy, then at the expensive crib.
“Madre de Dios.”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
She looked at his coat.
“At least your complicated has money.”
Tommy laughed so hard he nearly dropped the crib.
For the first time all day, I felt normal.
That feeling lasted until I opened my apartment door.
The place had been searched.
Drawers were open.
Couch cushions thrown onto the floor.
A cabinet door hung crooked.
Ava’s clothes had been dumped from a plastic storage bin.
I stopped breathing.
Tommy moved in front of me immediately.
“Stay here.”
He reached beneath his coat.
I saw the gun.
Everything inside me went cold.
He entered the apartment.
I backed into the hallway, holding Ava.
Mrs. Perez appeared behind me.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Tommy returned thirty seconds later.
His face told me enough.
“No one’s inside.”
I walked into the apartment.
Nothing valuable was gone.
There had never been much valuable to steal.
My old laptop sat untouched.
The television was still there.
Even the envelope containing fifty dollars of emergency cash was exactly where I had hidden it.
“They weren’t robbing me,” I whispered.
Tommy picked something off the floor.
A photograph.
Me holding newborn Ava outside the hospital.
It had been on the refrigerator.
Someone had placed it in the middle of my kitchen table.
Tommy stared at it.
Then he took out his phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Reed.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever came into Callaway’s today knew there was a baby upstairs.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
Tommy looked directly at me.
“And now somebody has been inside your apartment.”
Within twenty minutes, Reed Callaway was standing in my kitchen.
He had removed his coat.
His sleeves were rolled to his forearms.
His expression was harder than I had ever seen.
He examined the apartment without speaking.
Then his gaze settled on the photograph.
“Who knows Ava was with you today?”
“Everyone who saw us.”
“Before work.”
“Mrs. Perez. The people I called.”
“How many?”
“Six. Maybe seven.”
“Names.”
I stared at him.
“You think somebody I know did this?”
“I think somebody wanted information.”
“About what?”
“Me.”
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“Why would anyone use me to get to you? I serve steaks.”
“You became interesting today.”
“Because you let my baby stay in a conference room?”
“Because people saw me break a rule for you.”
The answer frightened me more than anything else had.
I looked at Ava.
“So what happens now?”
“You don’t stay here.”
“This is my home.”
“It’s compromised.”
“I can’t afford a hotel.”
“You won’t need one.”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t tell you where.”
“I know where this is going. Some guarded house. Some ridiculous mansion. Absolutely not.”
Tommy leaned against the counter.
“I like her.”
Reed ignored him.
“You have a child.”
“Yes, which is why I’m not moving into a gangster’s house.”
His expression darkened.
“I’m not asking you to trust what people say about me.”
“Then what are you asking?”
“Trust what happened to your apartment.”
That silenced me.
Because somebody had come inside.
Somebody had touched Ava’s clothes.
Somebody had moved our photograph.
I hated Reed’s world.
But tonight, somehow, his world had entered mine.
Mrs. Perez packed Ava’s diaper bag while I grabbed clothes.
Thirty minutes later, we were driving north.
I expected a mansion.
Instead, Reed took us to a quiet brick house in Lincoln Park.
Warm lights glowed behind curtains.
No gates.
No marble driveway.
Inside, it looked almost painfully ordinary.
Books.
A worn leather couch.
A piano.
Family photographs.
A wooden high chair was stored near the pantry.
I stared at it.
Reed followed my gaze.
“Natalie bought it before Daniel was born.”
His son had a name.
Daniel.
“I’m sorry.”
Reed looked away.
“Upstairs. Second bedroom.”
I carried Ava toward the stairs.
Then someone knocked on the front door.
Three slow knocks.
Two fast.
Reed froze.
Tommy pulled his gun.
I held Ava tighter.
Reed opened the door.
A man in a navy overcoat stood outside.
He looked about sixty.
Silver hair.
Cold eyes.
A thin scar across his jaw.
He glanced at me.
Then at Ava.
And smiled.
“So,” he said, “the rumors are true.”
Reed stepped between us.
“What do you want, Vincent?”
The man’s smile widened.
“I wanted to see the woman who made Reed Callaway forget his own rules.”