Chapter 4 - The Message About Elena
Maya almost deleted the text.
People did strange things when wealthy families appeared in the news.
Scammers.
Obsessive strangers.
People who imagined themselves connected to lives they had only read about.
She told herself that was all this was.
Then the sender texted again.
Ask Daniel why Elena wanted to leave the foundation before she died.
Maya's thumb hovered over the screen.
She knew almost nothing about Elena Hayes.
Only that she had been Noah's mother, Daniel's wife, and that her death had shattered them both.
Maya typed:
Who is this?
No response.
She waited.
Nothing.
By afternoon, she had bigger problems.
The photo outside the grocery store had spread online.
A television mounted inside the library café showed Daniel Hayes entering his company headquarters.
The headline underneath read:
HAYES FAMILY REUNITED AFTER CHILD'S DISAPPEARANCE
A reporter mentioned an "unidentified homeless woman."
Maya pulled her hood up.
Two women near the coffee counter were discussing the story.
"Apparently she was with him when they found him."
"You think she took him?"
"The family says no."
"Families say anything to protect reputations."
Maya left.
For the first time since becoming homeless, invisibility sounded wonderful.
She spent the afternoon applying for jobs at restaurants.
Three asked for a permanent address.
Two promised to call.
One manager looked at her clothes and said the position had suddenly been filled.
By sunset, rain began.
Maya found shelter beneath the overhang of an office building.
The security guard removed her twenty minutes later.
She walked six blocks to a bus terminal.
All the benches had metal dividers designed to keep people from lying down.
Maya sat anyway.
She pulled Noah's drawing from her backpack.
PLEASE COME BACK.
She hated how much it affected her.
Her phone buzzed.
Another unknown message.
But this time it was a different number.
This is Daniel. You left your scarf.
Maya looked at the thin scarf around her neck.
She replied.
No I didn't.
Three dots appeared.
Noah insisted I tell you that.
Maya laughed despite herself.
Tell Noah his criminal deception skills need work.
A minute passed.
He says he's eight. He has time.
Maya stared at the message.
Then another arrived.
Are you somewhere safe tonight?
Her smile disappeared.
She didn't reply.
Twenty minutes later:
You don't have to tell me where. Just yes or no.
Maya typed yes.
Then deleted it.
Typed no.
Deleted that too.
Finally:
I'm fine.
Daniel replied almost immediately.
That wasn't the question.
She put the phone away.
At the Hayes mansion, Daniel sat alone in his office staring at the unanswered conversation.
Margaret entered without knocking.
"You need sleep."
"So does Noah."
"He's asleep."
"No, he's pretending."
Margaret sat opposite him.
"This woman is becoming an attachment."
"Her name is Maya."
"I know her name."
"You keep calling her 'this woman.'"
Margaret sighed.
"I'm worried."
"About what?"
"About Noah."
"So am I."
"And about you."
Daniel laughed quietly.
"You don't need to be."
"Don't I?"
Margaret leaned forward.
"Daniel, you spent two years trying everything possible to bring that child back. Then a stranger appears and suddenly he speaks."
"That's not Maya's fault."
"I didn't say it was."
"You implied something."
"I'm saying grief makes people vulnerable."
Daniel stared at his mother.
"She's homeless, not manipulative."
"You barely know her."
"Neither do you."
Margaret went silent.
Daniel looked at Elena's photograph.
"I offered her a job."
Margaret closed her eyes.
"Of course you did."
"At Elena's foundation."
"Daniel."
"She's qualified for the liaison position."
"You decided that after one sandwich?"
"No."
"After one day?"
Daniel's jaw tightened.
Margaret softened.
"I know you want to understand why Noah spoke."
"That's not why."
"Then why?"
Daniel couldn't answer immediately.
Because something Maya had said stayed with him.
Accepting help shouldn't make a person somebody's emotional medicine.
She had been right.
He didn't want to hire Maya so she could repair Noah.
He wanted to hire her because for one hour outside a grocery store she had done what his entire world had forgotten how to do.
She saw someone struggling and didn't ask what she could gain.
"The foundation became a check I signed every quarter," Daniel said.
Margaret's expression shifted.
"Elena wouldn't have wanted that."
"No."
"Maybe Maya reminded me."
Margaret looked at him carefully.
"Of Elena?"
"No."
His answer came too quickly.
Margaret noticed.
Daniel did too.
He stood.
"I'm going upstairs."
At the bus terminal Maya slept for forty minutes before someone stole the grocery bag containing her spare socks.
She woke to the sound of a zipper.
"Hey!"
A teenager grabbed the bag and ran.
Maya chased him outside.
Rain hit her immediately.
She stopped after half a block.
The bag wasn't worth it.
Nothing inside was worth being hurt.
She stood beneath a traffic light, soaked.
Her phone rang.
Daniel.
Maya stared at it.
She answered.
"What?"
"You're outside."
Her head snapped up.
"What?"
"I can hear rain."
"So?"
"It's nearly midnight."
"Congratulations on understanding weather."
"Maya."
She shut her eyes.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to tell me you're somewhere indoors."
"Why?"
"Because it's cold."
"So are a lot of people."
"I can't call all of them."
"Exactly."
Daniel was quiet.
Then, "Noah had a nightmare."
Her anger dissolved slightly.
"Is he okay?"
"He asked for you."
Maya leaned against a wall.
"I can't become the only way he feels safe."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
Daniel sounded exhausted.
"I told him you have your own life."
Maya looked at the dark street.
That was generous wording.
"He asked whether you had somewhere to sleep."
She said nothing.
"I didn't lie."
"What did you say?"
"I said I didn't know."
Rain dripped from her hair.
Daniel continued.
"Then he told me I should find out."
Maya laughed weakly.
"Bossy kid."
"He gets that from his grandmother."
"I heard that," Margaret's voice said faintly in the background.
Maya smiled.
Daniel lowered his voice.
"Let me send a car."
"No."
"For one night."
"We already did one night."
"Then two."
"No."
"Fine. Don't come here."
She paused.
"What?"
"There's an extended-stay hotel owned by my company. Private entrance. You can pay later if that matters to you."
"Daniel—"
"I'm not offering the penthouse. I'm offering a room that's empty."
Maya closed her eyes.
Every survival instinct told her not to become dependent.
Every cold bone in her body begged otherwise.
Then she remembered the anonymous message.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Anything."
"Did Elena want to leave the foundation before she died?"
Silence.
Not normal silence.
The kind that confirmed she'd touched something real.
Daniel's voice changed.
"Who told you that?"
Maya straightened.
"Someone texted me."
"What number?"
"Blocked now."
"Exactly what did they say?"
Maya repeated it.
Daniel didn't respond for several seconds.
"Daniel?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm not telling you."
"This isn't about the room anymore."
"What does that mean?"
"It means someone who knew Elena's private concerns is contacting you."
Maya felt the rain suddenly seem colder.
"Private?"
"Yes."
"Did she want to leave?"
Daniel's answer was reluctant.
"She wanted to change how it was being run."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"She died before we finished the conversation."
Pain sharpened his words.
Maya immediately regretted pressing.
"I'm sorry."
"So am I."
He took a breath.
"Please send me the screenshots."
Maya did.
Another message appeared before she could lower her phone.
Same unknown sender.
Daniel can't protect you. He couldn't protect Elena.
Then another.
Ask what happened to the missing money.
Maya stared at the words.
"Daniel."
"What?"
"There's another message."
She read it.
Silence returned.
This time Daniel whispered, "That's impossible."
"What's impossible?"
He didn't answer.
"Daniel?"
"The missing money wasn't public."
Maya's pulse quickened.
"What missing money?"
"Three months before Elena died, she discovered that someone had been taking funds from the foundation."
"How much?"
"Almost eight hundred thousand dollars."
Maya pressed her back against the wall.
"Did you find out who?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Daniel's voice turned heavy.
"Because the week after Elena told me she suspected someone, she died."
The rain seemed to fade behind the pounding in Maya's ears.
"And you never investigated?"
"I investigated everything."
"Then?"
"The trail disappeared."
A car slowed beside Maya.
She immediately stepped back.
It continued.
Daniel said, "Where are you?"
She finally gave him the intersection.
"Stay there."
"I'm not going to your house."
"Fine."
"Daniel."
"Maya, someone who knows confidential information about my dead wife is messaging a woman my son met yesterday."
His voice was controlled now.
Too controlled.
"I'm coming myself."
He hung up.
Twenty-five minutes later the Rolls-Royce appeared.
Daniel stepped out before the driver.
He removed his coat and handed it to Maya without asking.
She almost refused.
Then she looked at the threatening message again and put it on.
Inside the car Daniel studied the screenshots.
His face lost color.
"What?"
Maya asked.
He enlarged the final message.
Beneath the words was an attachment she hadn't noticed.
A photograph.
Elena Hayes leaving the foundation office.
The timestamp was from two days before her death.
Beside her stood a man whose face was partially hidden.
Daniel stared.
Maya whispered, "You know him."
Daniel's jaw tightened.
"Yes."
"Who is he?"
Daniel looked at her.
"My chief financial officer."
And at that exact moment, across the city, someone deleted a folder that had remained hidden for two years.
A folder labeled simply:
May you like
ELENA.
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