Chapter 5: What Abel Found
Abel Ferraro had been doing quiet work for the Santoro family for over twenty years.
He was not a private investigator.
He had no license, no office, no business card.
What he had was a network of people in this city who owed him small favors and who understood that small favors, carefully repaid, kept the world running smoothly.
By noon, he had spoken to the building supervisor at Marin's apartment complex on the northwest side.
By two, he had spoken to a woman named Cecilia who worked the morning shift at the diner two blocks from Marin's building and who had known Marin for three years.
By three-thirty, he was parked outside Saint Agnes Care Center, speaking through the passenger window to Donna, the night nurse, who had agreed to five minutes on her break.
"She comes in two, three times a week," Donna said.
"Always late.
Always after her shift."
"The bruises," Abel said.
Donna looked at her hands.
"I noticed them about six months ago.
I asked her once.
She said she'd fallen."
"Did you believe her?"
"No."
"Did you ask again?"
"She said it again.
Fallen." Donna paused.
"There's a man.
I've seen him in the parking lot twice when she's left.
Older.
Drives a dark blue pickup.
She doesn't look happy to see him."
"Did she ever tell you his name?"
"No.
But the second time I saw him, I wrote down his plate number." She handed Abel a folded receipt.
"I don't know why I did it.
I just did."
Abel looked at the plate number.
"You did the right thing," he said.
He ran the plate from his car using a contact at the DMV he had known for fifteen years.
The truck was registered to a man named Dennis Pryor.
Forty-four years old.
Two prior domestic disturbance calls at an address in Cicero, both closed without charges.
A restraining order filed eighteen months ago and then withdrawn.
Abel sat with that information for a moment.
Then he called Rafael.
"Her name is Marin Hollis," he said.
"The bruises are not from the restaurant."
Rafael was quiet.
"There's a man named Dennis Pryor.
He has history.
She filed a restraining order and pulled it back."
"Why did she pull it back?"
"I don't know yet.
But she's been managing this alone for a while."
Another silence.
"Does she know you looked into this?"
"No."
"Keep it that way for now." Rafael paused.
"What's your read on her?"
Abel thought about Cecilia at the diner, who had said Marin always tipped even when she clearly couldn't afford to.
He thought about Donna, who had written down a license plate on a receipt because something in her gut told her to.
He thought about a woman who worked sixteen-hour shifts in thick gloves and still stopped to say sorry when someone else walked into her.
"She's been carrying too much for too long," Abel said.
"And she's been doing it without asking anyone for anything."
Rafael said nothing for a moment.
"Come back to the tower," he said finally.
"I need to think."
---
Marin did not know any of this.
She arrived for her afternoon shift, changed in the staff room, and tied her hair back the way she always did.
Bernadette met her at the kitchen door and told her quietly that Miss Whitlock had not come in that day and was not expected.
Marin nodded and said nothing.
But something in her shoulders dropped slightly.
Just slightly.
The shift was different.
Quieter.
The floor manager, a careful man named Theo who had always been decent to her, assigned her to the main dining room instead of the back section she'd been confined to for months.
Better tips.
Better tables.
Better light.
She didn't ask why.
At eight-fifteen, her phone buzzed in her apron pocket.
She checked it quickly between tables.
Dennis.
*Where are you.
Call me.*
She put the phone back without answering.
At eight-forty, it buzzed again.
*I know you're working.
I'll be outside at close.*
Her hand steadied itself against the tray.
She finished the table, smiled at the guests, refilled the water glasses, and walked back to the kitchen.
In the corridor outside the walk-in cooler, out of sight of the dining room, she stood with her back against the wall and breathed.
Theo appeared at the end of the corridor.
"You okay?"
"Yes," she said.
"Sorry.
One second."
He looked at her for a moment.
Then he said, "Take your time," and went back to the floor.
Marin straightened up.
She had three more hours on her shift.
She would finish them.
She always finished them.
What she didn't know was that Rafael Santoro was sitting at the corner table in the main dining room at that exact moment, in a chair that faced the kitchen door, watching.
May you like
Not the way Celeste watched.
A different way entirely.
