Chapter 2 - A Father’s Phone
“Don’t take him downstairs.”
I hadn’t meant to speak so loudly.
Vincent looked at me.
“He needs the police,” I said. “And his son needs someone looking for him.”
Grant’s expression hardened.
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
“Neither do I. That’s why I’m calling.”
My phone was in my apron. Getting it out with one hand took two tries.
For a moment, I expected Vincent to stop me.
Instead, he looked at my wrist.
“Tell them we need an ambulance, too.”
Arthur sat in a dining chair while one guard remained beside him. Grant cleared the area around the plate and kept everyone away from it.
Owen hovered near the service doorway.
“I should contact the owners.”
“Stay,” Vincent said.
One quiet word. Owen stayed.
I spoke to the dispatcher, stumbling through the restaurant’s address, the suspected poisoning, the missing son. When she asked whether anyone had eaten the food, I looked at Vincent.
“No,” he said.
The relief almost weakened my knees.
Arthur’s phone vibrated again.
Grant asked him to place it on the table.
The screen displayed a message.
Why is the room empty?
Below it appeared another.
Remember who goes home if you follow instructions.
Arthur put both hands over his face.
Vincent looked toward the tall windows, then the kitchen doors.
Someone knew what was happening inside.
The dispatcher was still speaking in my ear.
I answered her questions while Grant moved his people through the restaurant, checking entrances and keeping staff together without letting anyone approach the table.
A paramedic arrived before I had time to decide whether I was going to faint.
She led me to a sink and began caring for my wrist. Away from the chandeliers, under the plain light of the service corridor, I finally started shaking.
“Did you swallow anything?” she asked.
“No.”
“Do you know what the substance was?”
“No.”
“Then tell the hospital exactly that.”
I nodded.
Arthur’s warning kept looping through my head.
Broken skin.
Very sick.
I hadn’t known. I had suspected, and then I had forced my fear into a sentence that sounded like knowledge.
Two detectives arrived while the paramedics were examining me.
The woman introduced herself as Detective Elena Ruiz. Her partner began separating witnesses.
Ruiz crouched beside my chair.
“Start with what you saw. We’ll come back to what you think it means.”
So I told her about the covered cup, the phone call, Arthur catching my hand.
When I repeated what I had said at the table, my face burned.
“I don’t actually know what happens if it gets into a cut.”
“Did the chef tell you that?”
“He told me not to get it on broken skin.”
“Good. Keep those two things separate.”
She didn’t sound disappointed in me.
That nearly made me cry.
Across the corridor, Arthur was speaking to her partner.
Ben was nineteen. He worked at an auto repair shop and took evening classes at community college. He lived with his father in a small apartment in Portage Park.
At five forty-three, Arthur had received a photograph of Ben sitting on a concrete floor, his wrists restrained in front of him.
Then came a call.
He had been told what to put on Vincent’s food, when to serve it, and what would happen if he contacted anyone.
“How did they get the substance to you?” Ruiz asked.
Arthur looked toward the kitchen.
“In my locker.”
“Who could access it?”
He swallowed.
“Staff. Management. Anybody who gets through the back.”
Owen folded his arms.
“The back entrance is controlled.”
Ruiz turned.
“Then we’ll need the access records.”
“Of course.”
“And the cameras.”
Owen’s eyes moved toward the office.
“Those run through an outside company.”
“We’ll need that company’s information.”
Vincent had remained near the doorway, speaking quietly with Grant. Now he approached Arthur.
“Did you know what it was?”
Arthur stared at the floor.
“They said it would kill you.”
Nobody spoke.
There was no way to soften that answer.
Arthur looked up.
“I’m not asking you to understand.”
Vincent stood still for several seconds.
Then he said, “Give them everything.”
The paramedic told me it was time to leave.
I wanted to argue. My wrist hurt, but Ben was somewhere afraid, and I had the irrational feeling that leaving would make me responsible for whatever happened next.
Ruiz must have seen it.
“You’ve done what you can here. We know how to reach you.”
As they guided me toward the ambulance, Arthur called my name.
He looked older than he had an hour earlier.
“I’m sorry.”
I didn’t know which part he meant.
I didn’t know how to answer.
Outside, the October air slipped under my damp sleeve.
Vincent followed us to the curb.
“Someone will make sure you get home safely.”
“I need to call my mother.”
“Then call her.”
I sat in the ambulance and stared at my phone.
There was a message from my mother asking whether I wanted her to save me soup.
Then another message appeared.
May you like
The sender wasn’t in my contacts.
You should have let him eat.
