Chapter 9 - THE WOMAN AT TABLE SEVEN
Z
Three months after Daniel Hayes went to prison, Gabriel finally learned how dangerous peace could be.
Not because anybody shot at him.
Not because another bomb went off beneath one of his warehouses.
Not because someone poisoned his food.
Peace was dangerous because it made him careless enough to believe the worst was over.
I should have known better too.
Benny’s reopened on a Thursday.
By Sunday, people had stopped coming just to stare at the place where Gabriel Hayes had once nearly died from his own paranoia.
By the following month, life almost felt normal.
I worked four twelve-hour shifts a week at St. Anne’s Medical Center.
On my days off, I still helped Benny when the diner got busy.
Not because I needed the money anymore.
Gabriel had tried to pay my tuition.
I said no.
Then he tried to pay my rent.
I said no again.
Then he quietly bought the entire apartment building because, according to him, the plumbing was “unacceptable.”
I found out when my landlord suddenly stopped avoiding my calls.
Gabriel claimed it was an investment.
I told him if my rent changed by even one dollar, I would move.
It didn’t.
That was our relationship.
If that was what it was.
Nobody had defined it.
Gabriel slept at my apartment occasionally, though “slept” was a generous word for a man who woke up whenever the pipes clicked.
I spent nights at his townhouse sometimes, where he pretended he didn’t position two guards downstairs whenever I stayed.
He held my hand in public.
He kissed me when nobody was watching.
He called me when I worked night shifts just to ask whether I had eaten.
But he never said love.
Neither did I.
Maybe both of us had learned too well what happened when dangerous people discovered what mattered to you.
Which made what happened on Sunday worse.
The woman entered Benny’s at 4:17 p.m.
I remember because I had just checked the clock before pouring coffee for a construction worker.
She looked ordinary.
Mid-thirties.
Brown coat.
Dark hair.
No expensive jewelry.
No security following her.
She chose table seven.
Gabriel’s table.
I noticed because nobody chose that booth anymore unless Gabriel wasn’t around.
Not because he owned it.
Because people were superstitious.
I walked over.
“Coffee?”
The woman looked at my name tag.
NORAH.
Her smile changed.
“There you are.”
I stopped.
“Do I know you?”
“No.”
She removed one glove.
A thin white scar crossed the center of her palm.
“But I knew your mother.”
That sentence still had power over me.
Even after Rosa.
Even after Samuel.
My mother had become a collection of things people waited years to tell me.
“What’s your name?”
“Evelyn.”
“Evelyn what?”
She looked toward the front window.
“Sit down.”
“I’m working.”
“You won’t be after you hear what I came to say.”
I didn’t sit.
I had learned something from Gabriel.
Never let strangers choose the pace of a conversation.
Evelyn noticed.
“You’ve changed.”
“You said we never met.”
“We haven’t.”
“Then how would you know?”
Her expression softened.
“Because Elizabeth used to send photographs.”
My stomach tightened.
“To who?”
“To my father.”
Before I could ask another question, the diner door opened.
Two of Gabriel’s men entered.
They came every afternoon now.
Coffee.
Pie.
Surveillance disguised as hunger.
Evelyn saw them.
Her face went pale.
“I have to go.”
I grabbed her wrist.
“No.”
She looked down at my hand.
“Let go.”
“Not until you tell me who your father is.”
One of Gabriel’s men noticed us.
He started walking over.
Evelyn leaned close.
“Ask Gabriel about Marcus Vale.”
Then she pulled free.
The bell above the diner door rang.
She disappeared into afternoon traffic before Gabriel’s men reached me.
“Miss Bennett?”
“I’m fine.”
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know.”
That was technically true.
I finished my shift.
Then I called Gabriel.
He answered on the first ring.
“You’re off early.”
“How do you know?”
Pause.
“Lucky guess.”
“You still have someone watching the diner.”
“Watching the neighborhood.”
“Gabriel.”
“What happened?”
His voice changed instantly.
I hated how quickly he could hear fear in silence.
“A woman came in.”
“What woman?”
“She said she knew my mother.”
Silence.
Then:
“I’m coming.”
“You don’t need—”
The line went dead.
Twelve minutes later, a black sedan pulled up outside.
Gabriel walked in wearing a dark suit with no tie.
He came directly toward me.
“What did she look like?”
I told him.
“What did she say?”
“That Mom sent photographs to her father.”
Gabriel frowned.
Then I said the name.
“Marcus Vale.”
He froze.
Not dramatically.
That would have been easier.
Gabriel simply stopped breathing.
I stared at him.
“You know him.”
Leo entered behind him.
He heard the name.
His face changed too.
“Boss.”
Gabriel didn’t answer.
“Who is Marcus Vale?”
Gabriel looked toward the diner windows.
“We’re leaving.”
“No.”
“Norah.”
“You don’t get to drag me away every time somebody says something you don’t like.”
His jaw tightened.
“Marcus Vale is not somebody.”
“Then tell me who he is.”
Gabriel looked at Leo.
Leo looked away.
That frightened me more than anything.
Finally Gabriel sat across from me in the booth.
“Marcus Vale worked with my father.”
“I’ve heard that sentence before.”
“Not like Daniel.”
“Then how?”
Gabriel folded his hands.
“Michael and Marcus were partners before Daniel.”
“In what?”
“Smuggling. Money laundering. Port contracts.”
“Criminal partners.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“They turned on each other.”
“Everybody turned on everybody in your family.”
“Pretty much.”
I waited.
Gabriel looked uncomfortable.
That was rare.
“Marcus disappeared twenty-five years ago.”
“Dead?”
“We thought so.”
“Thought?”
“No body.”
Of course.
Nobody in Gabriel’s world ever died conveniently.
“What does this have to do with my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
I knew him well enough to hear the lie.
“Gabriel.”
He looked at me.
“What?”
“You know something.”
“No.”
“Try again.”
Leo shifted near the counter.
Gabriel glared at him.
Leo suddenly became very interested in pie.
Finally Gabriel spoke.
“Your mother visited Marcus Vale in prison once.”
I stared.
“You said he disappeared.”
“He disappeared after prison.”
“When was this?”
“Before you were born.”
My pulse changed.
“How do you know?”
“Daniel kept records.”
I pushed back from the table.
“You had those records for three months.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“It didn’t seem relevant.”
“My mother secretly visited one of your father’s criminal partners while she was pregnant with me and you decided that wasn’t relevant?”
“I didn’t know she was pregnant then.”
“You knew the date.”
He didn’t answer.
I laughed once.
“You knew.”
“Norah.”
“You knew.”
Gabriel reached for my hand.
I pulled away.
That hurt him.
Good.
“You promised.”
“I promised what?”
“No more deciding which truths I’m allowed to know.”
His face tightened.
“I was trying to protect—”
“Don’t.”
The word stopped him.
“Do not finish that sentence.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then Benny approached holding an envelope.
“Norah.”
“What?”
“This was under the sugar jar at table seven.”
My anger disappeared.
I took it.
Inside was a photograph.
My mother.
Pregnant.
Standing beside a man I had never seen.
Tall.
Dark hair.
A distinctive scar along his chin.
On the back, one sentence had been written.
SAMUEL BENNETT IS NOT NORAH’S FATHER.
My fingers went numb.
Gabriel read it over my shoulder.
“What?”
I turned toward him.
“You said Marcus disappeared twenty-five years ago.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Twenty-five years next month.”
I looked again at the photograph.
The date stamped on the corner was twenty-four years ago.
My mother was visibly pregnant.
And beside her stood Marcus Vale.
That night, Gabriel called Samuel.
Samuel came immediately.
I placed the photograph on the table.
He stared at it for almost a minute.
“Is it true?”
He didn’t answer.
“Samuel.”
His eyes rose to mine.
“I believed you were mine.”
“Believed?”
“When Elizabeth told me she was pregnant, she said you were my daughter.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Samuel sat down.
“I never had a DNA test.”
I felt sick.
Gabriel stood behind me.
Not touching.
He had finally learned.
I appreciated that more than I wanted to.
Samuel turned the photo over.
“Where did you get this?”
“A woman named Evelyn.”
Samuel went pale.
“What?”
“Evelyn.”
“What did she look like?”
I described her.
Samuel closed his eyes.
“No.”
“What?”
He stood.
“We need to leave.”
Gabriel’s hand moved toward his coat.
“Who is she?”
Samuel looked at both of us.
“Evelyn Vale.”
I stared.
“Marcus’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“What does she want?”
Samuel looked at the photograph again.
Then at me.
“Probably what her father spent twenty-four years waiting for.”
“What?”
Samuel swallowed.
“You.”
May you like
The lights in Benny’s went out.
Every window shattered at once.
