Chapter 2 - The Man Behind the Kitchen Door
Molly read the message twice.
Then a third time.
The words did not change.
Molly, he is inside my apartment.
“Victor.”
Her voice came out smaller than she intended.
Victor turned from the back door.
She handed him the phone.
He read the message.
His jaw tightened.
“When did she send this?”
“Now.”
“Call her.”
Molly did.
The phone rang once.
Then disconnected.
She tried again.
Straight to voicemail.
Victor looked at one of his men.
“Elias.”
A tall man near the kitchen entrance stepped forward.
Victor handed him Molly’s phone.
“Get the address.”
Molly gave it before Elias could ask.
He repeated it into his own phone and walked away.
Victor pointed toward another man.
“You go with him.”
Both left through the front entrance.
Molly stared after them.
“You’re sending your people to my mother?”
“Yes.”
“What if whoever is there—”
“They’ll get there faster than police.”
That answer did not comfort her.
Nothing about Victor Hastings should have comforted anyone.
Yet Molly was beginning to understand something strange.
The most frightening person in the restaurant was not necessarily the biggest threat.
Behind them, the delivery door stopped moving.
Victor’s remaining man approached cautiously.
He pulled it open.
The hallway was empty.
A service cart stood ten feet away.
On top sat one brown envelope.
Victor did not touch it.
Molly’s name was written across the front.
Adrian whispered something.
Victor turned.
“What did you say?”
The chef shook his head.
Molly had heard him.
“It’s early.”
Victor looked at her.
“What?”
“He said, ‘It’s early.’”
Adrian cursed under his breath.
Victor stepped toward him.
“What was supposed to happen at eleven-thirty?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“No.”
Victor looked at the envelope.
Then at Adrian.
“Was that for her?”
No answer.
Molly’s anger finally overtook her fear.
She crossed the kitchen.
Adrian backed into the stainless-steel counter.
“You knew my mother’s address.”
“Molly—”
“You knew my shift ended at eleven.”
“Molly, listen to me.”
“You wrote my name on that list?”
“I didn’t write anything.”
“Then who did?”
Adrian looked toward Victor.
That small movement did not go unnoticed.
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“Someone close to me?”
Adrian swallowed.
Molly felt the entire story changing again.
This was not simply a chef trying to hurt a powerful customer.
Someone had chosen Victor.
Someone had chosen Molly.
Someone had chosen her mother.
And the connection had been built before tonight.
Victor gestured to the envelope.
“Open it.”
His man used a dinner knife.
Inside was a photograph.
Molly recognized it immediately.
Her mother leaving a grocery store three days earlier.
The picture had been taken from across the street.
Behind it was another photograph.
Molly walking home from work.
Another.
Molly entering Crystal House.
Another.
Victor Hastings stepping from a black sedan.
Molly looked at Victor.
“They were watching both of us.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
His man removed one final item.
A printed note.
LET HIM FINISH DINNER.
THEN GO HOME.
SAY NOTHING.
YOUR MOTHER LIVES.
Molly stared at it.
The room seemed far away.
Victor took the note.
“They expected you to see something.”
“The fork.”
“Yes.”
“They knew I would notice?”
“Or they planned for you to.”
Molly looked at Adrian.
The chef looked exhausted now.
Defeated.
Victor placed the note on the counter.
“Talk.”
Adrian remained silent.
Victor’s patience ended.
He moved so quickly Molly took a step back.
He did not hit Adrian.
He simply grabbed the chef’s jacket and pulled him close.
“Someone is in her mother’s apartment.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Then it’s already too late.”
Molly went cold.
Victor’s grip tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“I never wanted her involved.”
“You threatened her.”
“I was told to.”
“By whom?”
Adrian’s mouth trembled.
Victor released him.
For the first time, Molly saw Adrian look less like a conspirator and more like a trapped man.
“I owe money,” he said.
Victor laughed without humor.
“That’s your explanation?”
“Not to you.”
“To whom?”
Adrian looked at Molly.
“My son.”
Molly stopped.
Adrian had a twenty-two-year-old son named Ethan.
She had met him once when he came to the restaurant.
Quiet kid.
College sweatshirt.
Polite.
Adrian wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Ethan got into trouble. Gambling. Then worse people found him. I tried to pay it. The debt kept growing.”
Victor’s gaze sharpened.
“What people?”
“I didn’t know their names.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“They never gave names. Calls. Messages. Instructions.”
“And they told you to poison my fork?”
Adrian flinched.
“Don’t call it that.”
“What would you call it?”
Adrian stared at the floor.
“They said it would make you sick.”
Victor’s voice turned colder.
“You believed them?”
“No.”
The honesty hung in the room.
Adrian continued.
“I knew they wanted you dead.”
Molly felt nauseated.
Victor did not react.
“Why the forks?”
“I was given them this afternoon.”
“By whom?”
“A delivery driver.”
“What company?”
“There wasn’t one.”
Victor’s man asked, “Description?”
“Baseball cap. Gray jacket. Maybe forty. I never saw his whole face.”
Victor said, “Security cameras.”
Claudia Renner stepped forward.
“We have cameras at every entrance.”
“Get the footage.”
She hurried away.
Molly looked at Adrian.
“And me?”
Adrian’s eyes filled with shame.
“I was supposed to make sure you served his table.”
“Why?”
“They asked which waitress notices everything.”
Molly stared.
“What?”
“I told them you were the best server here. You catch mistakes. You remember orders. You notice things.”
“You gave them my name?”
“I didn’t know what they wanted.”
“But afterward you knew.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
Adrian’s eyes went toward the note.
“Because they showed me pictures of Ethan.”
Molly’s anger weakened.
Not vanished.
But changed.
Victor noticed.
“Don’t feel sorry for him.”
Molly turned.
“He was protecting his son.”
“He put your mother in danger.”
Victor’s words landed hard.
Molly had no answer.
His phone rang.
Elias.
Victor answered immediately.
“Yes.”
He listened.
Molly watched his face.
Nothing.
No emotion.
That scared her.
“Is she alive?”
Molly grabbed his arm.
Victor raised one finger, asking her to wait.
Then he said, “Put her on.”
He held the phone out.
Molly took it.
“Mom?”
“Molly?”
Her mother was crying.
Molly nearly collapsed.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Two men came. They said you sent them.”
“What happened?”
“There was another man here.”
Molly gripped the counter.
“What man?”
“I don’t know. He ran out the fire stairs when your friends came.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No. He just sat in my kitchen.”
Molly closed her eyes.
“Mom, listen. Stay with those men.”
“Molly, what is happening?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Her mother lowered her voice.
“He left something.”
“What?”
“On your old bedroom dresser.”
Molly opened her eyes.
“What did he leave?”
“A key.”
Victor was watching.
“What kind?”
“A brass key. Old-fashioned.”
Victor’s face changed.
Very slightly.
Molly noticed.
“So?”
Her mother continued.
“There’s a number attached.”
“What number?”
“317.”
Victor took the phone.
“Mrs. Higgins, don’t touch that key. Elias will bring you somewhere safe.”
He hung up.
Molly stared at him.
“You know what 317 means.”
Victor did not answer.
“Victor.”
He looked toward the dining room.
Every guest had been quietly escorted out.
Staff stood along the walls.
Crystal House now looked less like a restaurant than a crime scene.
“Three-seventeen was a room number.”
“Where?”
“The Marlowe Hotel.”
Molly had heard of it.
Everyone had.
It closed twelve years earlier after a fire damaged three floors.
The building still stood abandoned near the river.
“What happened in Room 317?”
Victor looked at Adrian.
The chef looked confused.
This part was new to him.
Victor walked toward the window.
“My father died there.”
Molly stared.
“I thought your father died in a car accident.”
“That’s what the papers said.”
“What really happened?”
Victor did not answer.
His phone buzzed.
A security video arrived from Claudia.
The footage showed the restaurant’s loading entrance at 3:14 that afternoon.
A man in a gray jacket approached.
He carried a white food-service box.
His cap obscured most of his face.
He handed the box to Adrian.
Then turned toward the camera.
For one frame, his face became visible.
Victor froze the video.
Molly looked.
She did not recognize the man.
Victor did.
His entire body became still.
“Who is that?”
Victor enlarged the image.
“No.”
“What?”
Victor stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Molly’s phone vibrated again.
This time the message came from an unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
It showed Evelyn sitting safely in the back seat of Victor’s car with Elias beside her.
Taken less than a minute earlier.
Someone was still watching them.
Beneath the image were six words.
THE WRONG WOMAN WAS TAKEN HOME.
Molly frowned.
Then another photograph arrived.
This one showed a woman tied to a chair inside a dark room.
Molly recognized her immediately.
Claudia Renner.
The restaurant owner.
Molly spun toward the dining room.
Claudia had been there moments earlier.
Now she was gone.
Victor looked toward the security office.
Its door stood open.
Then the restaurant lights went out.
May you like
In the darkness, a man’s voice came through Victor’s phone.
“Room 317. Midnight. Bring Molly.”
