She Threw Poisoned Hot Coffee at The Millionaire

CHAPTER 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE CAR

I froze with one foot in the rain.

Nobody had said my mother's name in years. Not like that. Not with the voice of someone who had known her.

The woman in the back seat wore a camel coat and pearl earrings. She looked about seventy. Tired, elegant, and sick of secrets. Dom sat beside her, his soaked shirt hidden now under a dark overcoat. He watched me, unreadable.

"How do you know my mother?" I asked.

"Please," the woman said. "Get in before someone sees."

That was not comforting.

Still, I got in.

The driver shut the door. The city sounds vanished. Inside, it smelled like leather and rain.

The woman handed me the photograph. It was old and bent at the corners. My mother was maybe twenty, laughing beside a younger version of the woman in the car. They stood in front of a lake I didn't recognize.

"My name is Vivian Bozack," she said. "Elena worked for my family when she first came to this country."

Worked for.

Not friend. Not sister.

Worked for.

I stared at her. "My mother cleaned houses."

Vivian nodded. "Yes. Mine was one of them."

That landed harder than I expected.

Dom spoke for the first time. "How did you know the coffee was poisoned?"

I looked at him. "Because your guy switched cups when he thought nobody was watching."

"The man in the leather jacket?" Vivian asked sharply.

I nodded. "He poured from a little silver vial into the cup near the wall, then moved the cups when another customer asked me for napkins."

Dom's jaw tightened.

Vivian closed her eyes for one second. "Marek."

So the leather-jacket man had a name.

"I want to go home," I said.

"You can," Dom said. "After one more question."

I hated how calm he sounded.

"What question?"

Vivian leaned toward me. "Did your mother ever leave you a letter? A note? Anything she told you to keep hidden?"

I almost said no.

Then I remembered the salt-stained recipe box in my apartment kitchen. The one my mother made me promise never to throw away.

Before I could answer, Dom's phone buzzed. He looked down, and for the first time, something changed in his face.

He turned the screen toward Vivian.

Marek was gone.

And the text sent from Marek's phone said: She knows about the pocket. Find the girl first.