Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE BLACK SEDAN
The black sedan did not move like a rideshare.
It moved like traffic was expected to make room for it.
The rear door opened before the stranger reached the curb.
A man in a charcoal overcoat stepped out first, scanning the diner windows, the parked cars, the alley beside Rose’s.
Then another man appeared from the passenger side.
Both were armed.
Not visibly.
But after six years in emergency medicine, I knew the shape of a shoulder holster beneath wool.
The stranger from the diner paused beside the open door.
Then he looked across the intersection.
At me.
Our eyes met through my windshield.
The light turned green.
Someone honked behind me.
I drove.
For three blocks, I told myself the sedan meant nothing.
Maybe he was a politician.
An executive.
Some ridiculous billionaire with an unfortunate evening.
Then I saw the sedan again in my rearview mirror.
Two cars back.
My stomach tightened.
I turned right.
It turned right.
I changed lanes.
It did too.
“Absolutely not.”
I reached for my phone.
Then the sedan slowed.
Pulled away.
Disappeared down another street.
By the time I reached my apartment in Highlandtown, I had almost convinced myself I imagined it.
Almost.
My apartment building was a tired four-story brick place with radiators that hissed like angry cats and a front door that had to be kicked near the bottom whenever the weather turned damp.
I parked beneath the flickering streetlamp.
The hallway smelled like someone’s laundry detergent and somebody else’s garlic.
I climbed three flights.
Before I put my key in the lock, the door opened.
My younger sister, Tara, stood there in sweatpants.
“You’re late.”
“I bought breakfast for a stranger.”
“That explains nothing.”
“It explains why I have no groceries.”
“That explains even less.”
I stepped inside.
Noah was asleep on the couch beneath his dinosaur blanket.
Seven years old.
Brown curls.
One sock missing.
His inhaler sat on the coffee table beside a stack of spelling worksheets.
My entire life fit in that room.
Tara lowered her voice.
“He coughed around midnight.”
“Wheezing?”
“A little.”
I crossed immediately and listened.
His breathing was even now.
No pulling beneath the ribs.
No blue lips.
I touched his forehead.
Normal.
“You use the rescue inhaler?”
“Two puffs.”
“Good.”
Tara watched me.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You have the face.”
“What face?”
“The face you make when a drunk patient tries to bite you.”
I looked toward the window.
No black sedan.
“I met a weird man.”
“At two in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Good start.”
I told her about the diner.
The missing wallet.
The nineteen dollars.
The sedan.
When I finished, Tara stared at me.
“You paid for a stranger’s dinner with Noah’s pharmacy money?”
“When you say it like that, I sound irresponsible.”
“You are irresponsible.”
“I know.”
“What was his name?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You gave him yours?”
“He read my badge.”
Tara closed her eyes.
“Dela.”
“I know.”
“Please stop helping mysterious attractive men.”
“I never said he was attractive.”
“You described the silver in his hair.”
“I describe symptoms professionally.”
“You said his coat fit well.”
“That could be medically relevant.”
She stared.
I sighed.
“He was attractive.”
“Of course he was.”
I pushed her toward the door.
“Go home.”
“I am home emotionally.”
“You live twelve minutes away.”
At 4:11 a.m., I finally slept.
At 6:32, someone knocked.
Not pounded.
Three measured knocks.
I woke immediately.
Tara was gone.
Noah remained asleep.
I grabbed the baseball bat behind my bedroom door.
There were disadvantages to being a single mother.
One was knowing nobody else was coming if someone broke in.
I approached the door.
“Who is it?”
A male voice answered.
“Delivery for Ms. Marsh.”
“I didn’t order anything.”
Silence.
Then, “From Mr. Varela.”
I frowned.
“Who?”
No answer.
I looked through the peephole.
A man in a dark suit stood in the hallway holding two paper grocery bags.
Behind him sat a large pharmacy bag.
My pulse jumped.
I opened the door only as far as the security chain allowed.
“Who is Mr. Varela?”
The man seemed surprised.
Then amused.
“The gentleman from Rose’s.”
My stomach dropped.
“How does he know where I live?”
The amusement disappeared.
“He asked me to deliver these.”
“That didn’t answer me.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Take them back.”
“Ms. Marsh—”
“Take them back.”
“There is also an envelope.”
“I definitely don’t want the envelope.”
He held it up.
Cream paper.
My name handwritten.
I stared at it.
Against better judgment, I opened the door enough to take the envelope.
The man set the bags down.
Then left.
I waited until I heard the building door close before opening the note.
Ms. Marsh,
You spent your last nineteen dollars on a man you believed had nothing.
That was either kindness or terrible financial judgment.
I am repaying the nineteen dollars.
The groceries are interest.
The pharmacy bag is not.
Your son should not have to wait until Friday for medication because I ate pie.
—A.V.
I stopped breathing.
My eyes moved slowly toward Noah.
Then the pharmacy bag.
I opened it.
His rescue inhaler.
Same prescription.
Paid in full.
Three refills.
I felt cold.
I looked back at the note.
Your son.
Noah’s name had not been on my badge.
I had never mentioned him.
At 7:03, I called the number written beneath the signature.
A man answered immediately.
“Ms. Marsh.”
The stranger.
“You know my address.”
“Yes.”
“You know my son.”
“I know his name.”
“That is not better.”
“No.”
“Who are you?”
A pause.
“Adrian Varela.”
The name meant nothing.
Then everything.
I had heard it in the emergency department.
Not from patients.
From police officers.
From men with gunshot wounds who suddenly developed amnesia when detectives arrived.
Adrian Varela.
Baltimore businessman.
Club owner.
Developer.
Philanthropist.
And, depending on which cop was talking, the most powerful organized-crime figure between Baltimore and Washington.
I gripped the phone.
“You’re Adrian Varela.”
“Yes.”
“The Adrian Varela.”
“I don’t know how many there are.”
I nearly hung up.
Instead I whispered, “Why were you alone in a diner with no wallet?”
“My vehicle was forced off the road earlier.”
“What?”
“My driver was injured. My wallet disappeared during the incident.”
“Someone tried to kill you?”
“Possibly.”
“You went for pie afterward?”
“I was hungry.”
I stared at the wall.
Criminal or not, that was such a man answer I almost became angry on principle.
“You had me followed.”
“For one hour.”
“You investigated me.”
“Yes.”
“That is insane.”
“I needed to know whether our meeting was accidental.”
“It was.”
“I believe that now.”
“How comforting.”
“Ms. Marsh—”
“Dela.”
He paused.
“Dela.”
I hated the way my name sounded in his voice.
Too calm.
Too familiar.
“Do not send anything else to my apartment.”
“Understood.”
“Do not follow me.”
“I cannot promise that.”
“Excuse me?”
His voice changed.
“The man who stole my wallet may have seen you pay my bill.”
“So?”
“So he may think you matter to me.”
“I don’t.”
Another pause.
“I know.”
That answer irritated me for reasons I refused to examine.
“Then there’s no problem.”
“There is.”
“What?”
“I found your name last night.”
I frowned.
“Where?”
“In a ledger I have kept locked for fourteen years.”
My skin prickled.
“What ledger?”
He did not answer immediately.
Then he said, “A list of people my family owed.”
I stared at Noah sleeping across the room.
“I’ve never met your family.”
“Your father did.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“My father died when I was sixteen.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because his name is in the ledger too.”
I sat down hard.
My father, Michael Marsh, had been a city maintenance supervisor.
Quiet.
Ordinary.
The kind of man who fixed leaky sinks himself because calling a landlord felt wasteful.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your father saved my life.”
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was impossible.
“My father didn’t know crime bosses.”
“I wasn’t a crime boss then.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
“And what happened?”
Adrian went silent.
Then:
“He pulled me out of a burning car.”
I remembered my father’s scar.
A pale rope across his forearm.
He told me once he got it working around machinery.
I had believed him.
“There’s more,” Adrian said.
“What?”
“My father put Michael Marsh’s family under protection after that night.”
I gripped the note.
“Protection from whom?”
“That’s what concerns me.”
I heard paper moving on his end.
Then Adrian’s voice became colder.
“Someone opened the ledger three weeks ago.”
My stomach dropped.
“How do you know?”
“Because one line was added.”
I could barely speak.
“What line?”
He answered quietly.
Beside my name, someone had written one word in red ink.
COLLECT.
May you like
And before I could ask what that meant, Noah began coughing behind me.
At the same moment, someone downstairs kicked open the front door of my apartment building.
