Chapter 5: What Vasquez Already Knew
Mara was on her feet before she finished reading.
"My sister." She held the phone out to Reyes.
"Someone's outside her building."
Reyes took the phone, read it, and was already calling before she finished speaking.
He turned away from her, voice low and clipped, giving an address she hadn't told him — which meant Julian had already made the call, already sent someone, already kept the promise he'd made in the restaurant.
She stood in the middle of the room and waited.
It was the hardest thing she had done all night.
Reyes lowered the phone.
"Our man is already on her street.
He's moving to her door now."
"She doesn't know him."
"He'll tell her Julian Cross sent him.
She'll call you to confirm."
"And if she doesn't open the door?"
"Then she's smart and she stays inside and our man stays outside and nothing happens to her." Reyes set the phone on the table and slid it back toward her.
"Your sister is covered.
Sit down."
Mara sat down.
Her phone rang thirty seconds later.
Her sister's name on the screen.
"Dani," she said.
"There's a man at my door saying someone named Julian Cross sent him." Her sister's voice was careful and controlled, which meant she was frightened.
Dani went careful when she was frightened.
They had both learned that from the same father.
"Mara.
What is happening."
"I need you to let him in.
I'll explain everything when I can.
Right now I need you to trust me."
A silence.
"Is this because of your job?"
"Yes."
"Are you safe?"
"Yes."
Another silence.
Longer.
"Okay," Dani said.
"Okay.
I'm opening the door."
The call ended.
Mara set the phone down.
Her hands were still steady.
She was grateful for that, at least.
Reyes was watching her.
"You're good at this," he said.
Not warmly.
Observationally.
"I'm good at not falling apart in front of people," she said.
"It's not the same thing."
He almost said something.
He didn't.
The door opened and Julian came back in.
He looked different — not visibly altered, but something in the quality of his stillness had shifted.
Tighter.
Like a room after a window has been closed.
"Vasquez knows it was a woman," he said.
Mara looked at him.
"He doesn't have your name yet.
But he has a description.
Female server, dark hair, the one who came to Table Nine." Julian sat down.
"He got it from the man we removed tonight.
Which means the man talked."
"How quickly?"
"Quickly enough." Julian put his phone on the table.
"Vasquez is not patient with people who fail him.
The man at Table Nine had incentive to give him something useful fast."
"So he gave him me."
"He gave him a description.
Carver's has twelve female servers.
Dark hair narrows it to four." Julian looked at her directly.
"But you were the one who approached Table Nine.
The hostess saw it.
The busboy saw it.
It won't take long to narrow it to one."
Reyes said: "We need to move her."
"I know."
"If Vasquez gets her name before we —"
"I know, Reyes."
Mara said: "What does Vasquez want with you?
Not tonight specifically.
In general.
What is this about?"
The two men looked at each other.
"There's a federal case," Julian said.
"Building for two years.
Vasquez believes I've been cooperating with the investigators."
"Have you?"
A pause.
"That's complicated," he said.
"It's a yes or no question."
"Very few things in my life are yes or no questions."
"This one is."
He looked at her for a long moment.
"Yes," he said.
"In exchange for certain considerations regarding my own exposure."
She absorbed that.
"So you're a witness."
"I'm a source.
There's a distinction."
"Not to Vasquez."
"No," he said.
"Not to Vasquez."
She understood the shape of it now.
Julian Cross, whatever he was, had made a deal with federal investigators.
Vasquez had found out or suspected.
Tonight was meant to end the problem before it reached a courtroom.
And Mara had interrupted it with seven words and a check folder, which meant she was now tangled in a federal case, a criminal organization, and a leak inside Julian's own circle — all before midnight on a Thursday.
"The federal investigators," she said.
"Do they know about tonight?"
"They will by morning."
"Will they protect me?"
Julian said: "That depends on what you're willing to do."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you saw the man at Table Nine clearly.
You read him in a way my own security team didn't.
You noticed the angle of the chair, the hand position, the eleven minutes without an order." He leaned forward slightly.
"The investigators are going to want to talk to you.
And when they do, they're going to ask whether you'd be willing to do more than talk."
The room was very quiet.
"More than talk," she said.
"Carver's is a place Vasquez's people use.
Have used for years.
The right server, in the right position, reading the right room —"
"No," she said.
"Mara —"
"I said no." Her voice was level.
"I'm not an asset.
I'm a waitress who didn't want someone to get sh0t in a restaurant where I've worked for seven years.
That's the whole of it."
Julian sat back.
"All right," he said.
"That's it?
All right?"
"You said no.
I heard you." He picked up his phone.
"But I want you to think about one thing before you close the door on it entirely."
"What?"
"Vasquez already has your description.
By tomorrow he'll have your name.
By tomorrow night he'll have your address." He looked at her steadily.
"The deadbolt on your apartment door is not going to be enough.
And the only thing that changes that equation is if you become more useful to the people who can protect you than you are to the people who want to find you."
Mara said nothing.
Her phone lit up on the table.
A text from Dani.
*He seems okay.
We're inside.
Are you coming here?*
She looked at the message.
She looked at Julian.
She looked at the closed blinds on the window and thought about the street outside and the city beyond it and the apartment with the good deadbolt that was no longer good enough.
She typed back: *Stay inside.
I'll call you soon.
I love you.*
May you like
She set the phone down.
"Tell me," she said, "exactly what they would need me to do."
