Chapter 2 - The Waitress Who Disappeared
For five full seconds, nobody moved.
Grace had spent seven years working restaurants.
She knew kitchen sounds.
Ice machines clattered.
Pipes groaned.
Refrigeration units hummed.
Dishwashers rattled like they were preparing to achieve flight.
That sound had not been plumbing.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Then a pause.
And one final knock.
Teresa crossed herself.
Dominic looked toward the hallway.
“Rafael.”
The security man from the previous night appeared almost immediately.
“You heard it?”
“Yes.”
“Clear the lower storage room.”
Rafael nodded.
Dominic turned to Grace.
“You’re going home.”
Grace laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
“Absolutely not.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You’re not asking.”
“Neither am I.”
Teresa murmured, “Grace.”
Grace faced Dominic fully.
“Last night somebody texted me and told me not to come back.”
His face hardened.
“What?”
“They sent me a photograph of Elena Marsh’s badge.”
Dominic went still.
“And you waited until now?”
“I was deciding whether you were the person I was supposed to be afraid of.”
“What did you decide?”
“I haven’t.”
Rafael looked away, apparently deciding he did not want to be visibly present for that answer.
Dominic extended one hand.
“Phone.”
Grace did not move.
“Ask nicely.”
Teresa made a tiny choking sound.
Dominic’s eyes remained fixed on Grace.
“May I see the phone?”
“Yes.”
She handed it over.
He read the messages.
Grace watched his expression.
At first there was anger.
Then concentration.
Then something she had not expected.
Confusion.
He enlarged the photograph of Elena’s employee badge.
“Where was this taken?”
“I assumed here.”
“It wasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
Dominic showed her the image.
“The surface underneath.”
Grace looked closely.
Dark red leather.
A brass corner.
She shrugged.
Dominic walked to his desk and opened a drawer.
Inside was an old ledger bound in dark red leather with brass corners.
The materials were nearly identical.
“But the ledger is here,” Grace said.
“This one is.”
Her stomach tightened.
“How many are there?”
“Three.”
“And the others?”
“One was stolen eight months ago.”
“Elena?”
“I don’t know.”
Grace studied him.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it happens to be true.”
Dominic handed the phone back.
Teresa had been silent near the office door.
Grace turned to her.
“You knew Elena.”
Teresa’s eyes filled.
“She worked here for two nights.”
“Why did she leave?”
“She didn’t.”
Dominic looked sharply at Teresa.
“Enough.”
“No.” Teresa’s voice trembled. “Maybe not enough. Maybe that’s the problem.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Teresa continued.
“Elena came here asking questions before she ever asked for a job.”
Grace felt a chill.
“What kind of questions?”
“About Dominic’s father.”
Dominic’s expression closed.
Teresa looked at him.
“You told me never to discuss it.”
“I told you because I was trying to protect you.”
“And how well has silence worked?”
Nobody answered.
The four knocks came again.
This time closer.
Grace turned toward the floor.
“What is down there?”
Dominic took his jacket from the chair.
“Storage rooms built during Prohibition. Some sealed decades ago. My father renovated the restaurant in the nineties and closed off one section.”
“Why?”
“He said the foundation was unsafe.”
“And you believed him?”
“I was sixteen.”
That answer changed something for Grace.
Until then she had pictured Dominic as if he had emerged fully formed from the dark wood of Romano’s—powerful, connected, already in control.
But once he had been sixteen.
Once he had believed whatever his father told him.
Rafael returned.
“Lower room is clear. The old wall has another opening behind the shelving.”
Dominic nodded.
“Flashlights?”
“Ready.”
Grace grabbed an apron from the hook.
Dominic looked at her.
“What are you doing?”
“Apparently beginning orientation.”
“No.”
“You told me nobody insults me.”
“That was not permission to follow me into a sealed basement.”
“You also said nobody touches me. So unless you plan to physically remove me, we have reached an impasse.”
Rafael coughed into his fist.
Dominic glared at him.
The security man became fascinated with the ceiling.
Dominic looked back at Grace.
“You have no survival instinct.”
“I have forty-three dollars and a landlord named Craig. My survival instincts are highly developed.”
Something shifted in Dominic’s eyes.
“Stay behind me.”
Grace followed him.
The stairway smelled of onions, detergent, and cold concrete.
The ordinary employee basement held shelves of paper goods, wine boxes, cleaning supplies, and lockers.
At the far end, two shelving units had been dragged aside.
Behind them was a rectangle hacked into an old plaster wall.
Cold air moved through it.
Grace wrapped her arms around herself.
Rafael shone a flashlight inside.
Brick stairs descended beyond the opening.
“Who made this hole?” Grace asked.
“Not us,” he said.
Dominic crouched.
He touched the broken plaster.
“Fresh.”
“How fresh?”
“Days.”
Grace remembered the anonymous photograph.
HE DOESN’T KNOW.
Her heartbeat quickened.
They descended.
Twenty steps.
Then twenty more.
The temperature dropped.
The staircase opened into a narrow corridor built from old brick.
Electrical wire had been added recently.
Grace saw the first bulb.
Then another.
Someone had been using the space.
They reached a steel door.
It stood open.
Dominic stopped.
On the floor inside lay a folding chair.
A battery lantern.
Empty water bottles.
Food wrappers.
And photographs.
Dozens of them.
Grace walked closer.
“Dominic.”
The photographs covered one wall.
Employees entering Romano’s.
Bartenders leaving.
Teresa carrying groceries.
Rafael locking the rear door.
Dominic stepping from a black sedan.
Then Grace saw herself.
Her lungs tightened.
There were three photographs of her.
One showed her entering the restaurant the previous night.
One showed her leaving.
The third showed her at the grocery store.
Dominic tore it from the wall.
The paper crumpled in his hand.
“Rafael.”
“I’m calling the police.”
Dominic looked at Grace.
“Now you’re going home.”
“No.”
His voice lowered.
“That was not a suggestion.”
Grace turned toward him.
“I was photographed outside my apartment neighborhood after leaving here. Going home alone is the least appealing option you’ve suggested.”
That stopped him.
She pointed toward the wall.
“Whoever did this already knows where I go.”
Dominic looked at Rafael.
“Get two men to her building.”
Grace stiffened.
“I don’t need—”
“Yes, you do.”
“You don’t get to decide—”
“Grace.”
“No.”
The word came out stronger than she expected.
Dominic’s expression hardened.
Grace stepped closer.
“I spent years having strangers decide what was best for me because they assumed I was too weak to choose for myself. I’m not replacing those people with you just because your shirts cost more.”
Rafael quietly turned away.
Dominic stared at her.
Then, unexpectedly, he nodded.
“Fine.”
Grace blinked.
“Fine?”
“You choose. But choose with all the information.”
He gestured toward the photographs.
“Someone has watched this restaurant for months. Possibly longer. One woman disappeared. Someone entered a sealed section of my building without my knowledge. They photographed you less than twelve hours after you walked through my door.”
He stepped closer.
“If you tell me you understand that and still want to walk home alone, I won’t stop you.”
Grace held his gaze.
She hated that he had made the reasonable argument.
“Two men,” she said.
“Outside. Not in my apartment.”
“Agreed.”
“And they do not speak to my neighbors.”
“Agreed.”
“And if one of them tells Craig I’m involved in organized crime, I’m making you explain it.”
That almost-smile again.
“Deal.”
Grace returned to the wall.
One photograph was different.
It showed Elena.
She stood inside Romano’s basement, looking directly toward the camera.
And she was holding a note.
Grace leaned closer.
“What does that say?”
Rafael removed the photograph carefully.
The words were small.
He angled the flashlight.
IF YOU FIND THIS ROOM, CHECK TABLE 14.
Grace looked at Dominic.
“Do you have a table fourteen?”
“Yes.”
They climbed back upstairs.
Table 14 sat beneath a framed photograph of Chicago in 1968.
Grace dropped to one knee.
Nothing beneath the tabletop.
Nothing under the chair.
Then she noticed one floorboard was a different shade.
Dominic helped lift it.
Beneath was a small plastic pouch.
Inside lay a flash drive and a handwritten letter.
Grace unfolded it.
Dominic read over her shoulder.
If you are reading this, I was right.
Someone inside Romano’s has been using the old basement.
Dominic does not know.
Do not tell anyone until you find out who has access to the red ledger.
E.M.
Grace looked up.
“Red ledger.”
Dominic’s eyes shifted toward his office.
He crossed the room fast.
Grace followed.
The drawer was open.
The red ledger was gone.
Teresa stood beside the desk.
“I didn’t touch it.”
Dominic checked the window.
Locked.
Rafael checked the hallway.
No one.
Grace looked at the open drawer.
Then she saw something pale caught beneath the desk.
She crouched and pulled it free.
A restaurant order ticket.
On the back, written in hurried blue ink, were six words:
GRACE IS NEXT. THIRD NIGHT. MIDNIGHT.
Grace stared at the message.
“This is my second night.”
Dominic looked at the clock.
11:07 p.m.
May you like
Forty-three minutes later, the restaurant lights went out.
And somewhere in the darkness behind the bar, a woman whispered Grace Bennett’s name.
