Chapter 2 - The Name on Her File
Elias cleared the room so fast one guard nearly backed into the piano.
“Who was waiting?” he asked.
Giata stared at her hands. “I can’t see his face. Just headlights. And a ring.”
“What kind of ring?”
“I don’t know. It’s gone again.” She struck the arm of her wheelchair. “That’s what happens. I reach for something and my head slams a door.”
Elias crouched beside her. The city feared the man who owned half the South Side’s backroom deals. His sister only saw the boy who used to carry her across icy sidewalks.
“You don’t have to force it,” he said.
“Funny. That’s exactly what you’ve been doing to my life.”
In the hallway, Marisol waited beside Mrs. Constance. “Am I fired?”
“Not if she has anything to say about it,” the older woman murmured. “But you’ve upset a dangerous man.”
“I noticed.”
Elias emerged holding a thin personnel folder. “Marisol Reyes. Twenty-seven. Pilsen. Your father was Mateo Reyes.”
Marisol’s face went still.
“He drove the car that killed Lena Barlow,” Elias continued. “And almost killed my sister.”
“He was driving,” Marisol said. “That part is true.”
“He was drunk.”
“No.”
“The police report—”
“Was a lie.”
Two guards shifted forward. Elias raised one finger; they stayed put.
“Your agency didn’t mention the connection,” he said.
“I used my real name. Nobody asked.”
“Why take a job in my house?”
“Because my rent was due. Because my brother’s tuition doesn’t pay itself. And because I wanted to know why everyone in Chicago decided my father was a murderer without asking a single question.”
“That sounds like an investigation.”
“It started as one,” she admitted. “Then your sister asked me to dance.”
He studied her face for a long moment. Marisol held his gaze, though she could feel her pulse in her injured knee.
“You work downstairs,” he said finally. “You don’t touch her medicine, her food, or her mail. One mistake and you’re gone.”
“Understood.”
He turned away, then paused. “What song did you play?”
“Nothing special. An old tune my father whistled when he fixed cars.”
Elias looked back. “Whistle it.”
She did. Three bright notes, then four that seemed to stumble into each other.
May you like
At the end of the hallway, Mrs. Constance dropped her towels.
“That,” she said in a broken voice, “was the song Lena played the night she died.”
