Chapter 3: What the Son Didn't Say
I turned the phone face-down on the counter.
Adrian's eyes had already seen the screen.
"You read it," I said.
"I saw enough."
"Then you know who sent it."
He didn't answer immediately.
He picked up his business card, turned it once between two fingers, and set it back down facing me.
"Emily.
I need you to listen to me very carefully."
"I'm listening."
"That message did not come from my father."
"Then who?"
"Someone who knew you'd be standing in this diner tonight.
Someone who knew my father would come here.
Someone who knew what would happen before it happened."
Dana had stopped pretending to wipe the counter.
Reuben was watching from the kitchen doorway.
"That's a very long list of things someone shouldn't know," I said.
"Yes." Adrian's voice was flat.
"It is."
I picked up the phone and read the message again.
*You should have kept your head down, Emily Carter.
Now it's too late.* The timestamp read 9:47 PM.
Vincent Moretti had walked out of this diner at 9:43.
Four minutes.
Whoever sent this had been watching from the moment it started.
"I don't know your father," I said.
"I don't know you.
I've never set foot inside anything called the Moretti Group.
So explain to me why someone is sending messages to a diner waitress who just told a billionaire his coffee was fine."
Adrian sat down on the stool across from me.
Not like he owned the place.
Like he was tired.
"Because you're not just a diner waitress."
"Excuse me?"
"Your mother's name is Carol Carter.
Before she got sick, she worked for fourteen years as a financial compliance officer at a firm called Hargrove Capital." He paused.
"Hargrove Capital was acquired by the Moretti Group eleven years ago.
Your mother was one of three employees who refused to sign the new non-disclosure agreement during the transition."
The floor felt slightly unsteady.
"She never told me that."
"She wouldn't have.
The other two employees who refused — one relocated to Seattle and hasn't worked in finance since.
The other had a car accident eight months after the acquisition." Adrian looked at me steadily.
"He didn't survive it."
Dana set down her cloth very slowly.
"You're saying my mother's illness—"
"I'm saying I don't know.
I'm saying I've been trying to find out for two years.
And I'm saying that whoever sent you that message tonight knows I came here, which means they're watching me too."
I sat down.
My legs had made the decision before my brain did.
"Why would you tell me this?" I said.
"If what you're saying is true, telling me puts me in more danger, not less."
"You were already in danger the moment my father walked through that door." Adrian leaned forward slightly.
"Emily.
He didn't come to this diner for the coffee.
He came because someone told him to.
And I need to know who gave him that instruction."
"Vincent Moretti takes instructions from someone?"
"One person." Adrian's expression didn't change.
"His attorney.
A man named Gerald Foss."
The name landed in the diner like something dropped from a height.
Reuben stepped back through the kitchen door without a word.
"I know that name," Dana said quietly.
We both looked at her.
Her face had gone the color of old paper.
"Dana," I said.
"How do you know that name?"
She looked at me.
Then at the door.
Then back at me.
May you like
"Because he was here last week," she said.
"Asking about you."
