Chapter 2 - The Date I Was Never Supposed to Have
Anton called two days later.
Not texted.
Called.
That alone made him feel like someone from another century.
“I was told there’s a rule,” he said.
“What rule?”
“That waiting three days makes a man mysterious.”
“Who told you that?”
“My niece.”
“And did she also tell you mysterious men are exhausting?”
“She mentioned that afterward.”
I smiled into the phone.
He asked if I wanted coffee.
I said yes.
That became dinner three days later.
Then a walk along the Charles the following Sunday.
Then coffee again.
There was no dramatic seduction.
No luxury gifts.
No private jet.
No orchestra appearing beside the river.
Anton seemed almost aggressively uninterested in impressing me with money.
He wore expensive clothes, drove expensive cars, and knew restaurant owners who abandoned other customers to greet him, but he never pointed any of it out.
Instead he remembered things.
Ruth Bellamy hated tablets but loved her granddaughter enough to learn video calling.
Mr. Alvarez pretended he needed help ordering groceries online because he was lonely.
Edna Pike returned every mystery novel late but baked banana bread so good nobody charged her fines.
Anton remembered all of it.
That frightened me more than his reputation.
Because remembering meant listening.
And being listened to after years with Derek felt dangerously intimate.
Three weeks after our first dinner, Anton asked a question while we were sitting in a small bakery in the North End.
“Did your former fiancé ever attend your library programs?”
My coffee stopped halfway to my mouth.
“Derek?”
“Yes.”
“A few times.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know. Maybe six or seven events over the years.”
“What kind?”
The question was casual.
His eyes weren’t.
“Technology workshops. A retirement-planning seminar once.”
Anton became still.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
He looked toward the window.
Rain had followed us through most of October.
Boston seemed permanently silver.
“What exactly did he do?”
“Derek?”
“Yes.”
“He sold financial education programs.”
“To whom?”
“Businesses. Community organizations. Retirement groups.”
Anton’s jaw tightened.
“Did he ever offer your members private consultations?”
My stomach began to feel wrong.
“A few, I think.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grace.”
His voice remained gentle.
But something underneath it had changed.
“Why are you asking me this?”
Anton looked at me for several seconds.
“I don’t want to answer until I know whether I’m wrong.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“I know.”
“Is this about Derek?”
“Possibly.”
The bakery suddenly felt too warm.
I pushed my coffee away.
“What do you know?”
Anton rested both forearms on the table.
“I own a minority share in a property management company. Three months ago our auditors discovered irregular payments involving one of our outside consulting vendors.”
“That sounds extremely boring.”
“It was.”
“Until?”
“Until investigators found the same vendor connected to accounts belonging to older residents in three neighborhoods.”
My throat tightened.
“What kind of accounts?”
“Investment accounts. Retirement funds.”
The noise of the bakery faded.
“How much money?”
“Enough.”
“That’s not a number.”
“Millions.”
I stared at him.
“Are you saying Derek stole millions of dollars?”
“No.”
The speed of his answer mattered.
“I’m saying one company associated with people he worked with is part of an investigation. His name appeared in background material.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because appearing in paperwork isn’t guilt.”
“But you knew on our first date?”
“I knew Derek Shaw’s name.”
My chair scraped as I pushed back.
Anton immediately stopped talking.
“You knew who I was.”
“Not when Lucia arranged the date.”
“When?”
“When I saw your full name that afternoon.”
“And you still came.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“At first?”
He was honest enough to pause.
“Curiosity.”
That hurt.
He saw it.
“Grace—”
“So I was research.”
“No.”
“You literally just said curiosity.”
“I came because I recognized the connection. I stayed because you were nothing like what those files made me expect.”
“What did they make you expect?”
Anton’s expression hardened at himself.
“That came out badly.”
“You think?”
“I expected someone involved.”
My hands became cold.
“Involved in what?”
He reached inside his coat.
Then stopped.
“Not here.”
I stared at him.
“If you have something about me, I want to see it.”
“You will.”
“When?”
“Now.”
Anton paid the bill.
We drove to his office.
Not some underground room behind a nightclub.
An actual office.
His company occupied several floors of a restored brick building near the harbor.
The lobby was quiet on Sunday.
The security guard greeted him respectfully.
No one bowed.
No one kissed a ring.
That part of the legend, apparently, was disappointing.
Anton took me upstairs.
His office overlooked the water.
The room was surprisingly plain.
Dark wood.
Bookshelves.
A framed photograph of an older woman.
Family pictures.
One showed Anton twenty years younger holding a laughing little girl.
“My daughter,” he said when he noticed me looking.
I turned.
“You have a daughter?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Your profile didn’t mention that.”
“My aunt wrote my profile.”
“Right.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Anton opened a locked cabinet.
He removed a thin folder.
“I want to be very clear,” he said. “You are not accused of anything.”
“Wonderful beginning.”
He ignored the sarcasm.
“These are copies. The originals are with attorneys and investigators.”
He placed the folder on the desk.
My name appeared on the first page.
GRACE HOLLOWAY — COMMUNITY ACCESS CONTACT
My pulse jumped.
“What does that mean?”
“We don’t know.”
Below it was the name of my library branch.
Then a list.
Ruth Bellamy.
Samuel Ortega.
Edna Pike.
Howard Franklin.
Margaret Cho.
People I knew.
People whose kitchens I had sat in.
People whose grandchildren I had heard about.
Beside each name was a number.
Some were small.
$14,000.
$27,500.
Others made me dizzy.
$180,000.
$230,000.
I looked up.
“What are these?”
Anton’s voice became quiet.
“Estimated losses.”
I felt my knees weaken.
He moved toward me.
I raised one hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped immediately.
My eyes returned to the document.
“No.”
I shook my head.
“No. Ruth doesn’t have that kind of money.”
“She had retirement savings.”
“She would have told me.”
“Would she?”
That question hurt because the answer was probably no.
Many of the people I worked with were fiercely private about money.
Especially when they were embarrassed.
Especially when they believed they had made a mistake.
I turned another page.
There was a photograph.
It had been taken at the library’s annual spring luncheon.
I stood in the middle, smiling.
Ruth was beside me.
Derek stood behind us.
His hand rested on my shoulder.
Someone had drawn digital boxes around faces.
Names had been typed beneath them.
My name.
Derek’s name.
Ruth’s.
Samuel’s.
Edna’s.
I stopped breathing.
“What is this?”
“We found it in an internal presentation.”
“Presentation for what?”
Anton looked at me.
“We’re still determining that.”
“Don’t protect me.”
“I’m not.”
“Then tell me.”
His voice lowered.
“The working theory is that your program was used to identify potential targets.”
The room tilted.
“My program?”
“The trust your members placed in you may have been leveraged by someone else.”
I sat down.
Every memory of Derek suddenly rearranged itself.
His sudden interest in my technology workshops.
His offers to speak for free.
His questions about members.
Who owned homes?
Who lived alone?
Who had family nearby?
At the time, they had sounded like thoughtful questions.
Now they sounded like something else.
“How long have you had this?”
“Eleven days.”
“And you waited.”
“I wanted confirmation before destroying your life with a theory.”
“My life already got destroyed.”
Anton said nothing.
I looked again at the photograph.
Derek was smiling.
I remembered that day.
He had kissed my forehead after the luncheon and said he was proud of me.
Later that night, he had asked whether Ruth owned the brownstone where she lived.
I had answered without thinking.
Yes.
It had belonged to Ruth’s husband.
Mortgage paid.
At the time, the conversation had meant nothing.
Now it echoed.
“Anton.”
“Yes?”
I pointed to the sheet.
“These aren’t random names.”
“I assumed not.”
“They’re all people Derek met.”
Silence.
Every one.
I looked up.
Anton’s expression changed.
The suspicion he had been afraid to speak suddenly became something colder.
Certainty was still too strong a word.
But the distance between theory and truth had just become much smaller.
And for the first time since Derek walked out of my apartment carrying his coffee maker, I understood something.
He had never considered my quiet life worthless.
May you like
He had been studying it.
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