Chapter 10 - The Woman They Needed To Be Guilty
The first photograph they showed me was of Leo.
The second was of the broken crystal at Lumina.
The third was a bank statement in my name showing a deposit of two hundred fifty thousand dollars three weeks earlier.
I stared at the number until my eyes hurt.
"That is not my account."
Detective Pike sat across the interrogation table with his jacket folded neatly over the back of his chair.
"It has your name."
"So does the warrant you used to tear my stitches open."
His eyes flicked toward the fresh blood spreading through the back of my borrowed shirt.
He did not care.
"Routing number belongs to Great Lakes Federal."
"I bank at Community First."
"Convenient."
"True."
He slid another page toward me.
It showed text messages supposedly sent from my phone to an unknown number.
VIP CHILD CONFIRMED.
SERVER IN POSITION.
FLOOR READY.
My stomach turned.
"I never sent these."
"Your phone did."
"My laptop and passwords were stolen."
"After the incident."
"My employee account was compromised before it."
"By your former fiance."
"Yes."
Pike smiled.
"The same former fiance currently in the custody of Nico Valenti's men."
I stared at him.
"You already know where David is?"
"We know many things, Ms. Hayes."
The way he said it sounded like a threat.
"Do you know Chloe's real name?"
His smile vanished.
That told me more than an answer.
"Who?"
"Clara Bianchi."
He leaned back.
"I have no idea who that is."
"You're a terrible liar."
"And you're facing life in prison."
"Then I suppose we both have difficult evenings."
His palm hit the table.
I flinched despite myself.
"This is not a game."
"I know."
I leaned forward.
"A six-year-old child was almost killed."
"By you."
"I put my body over him."
"After arranging a dramatic rescue in a room full of witnesses."
For one second, I could not speak.
The accusation was so obscene it nearly became absurd.
"You think I had people throw crystal into my back so I could impress a mobster?"
Pike shrugged.
"People have done worse for less."
"Eleven pieces of glass were removed from my body."
"And now Nico Valenti knows your name."
There it was.
The story they wanted.
Poor waitress stages heroic rescue.
Poor waitress becomes indispensable to powerful man.
Poor waitress gets rich.
It was clean.
It was ugly.
And people would believe it because people liked greed more than complexity.
Pike slid a printed photograph across the table.
It showed me standing outside Bell Street Exchange.
My breath stopped.
The timestamp read seven weeks earlier.
"That is not me."
The woman had my height.
My hair color.
My coat.
Even my cheap canvas tote bag.
But the face was turned slightly away.
"You expect me to believe somebody dressed like you for a pawn shop visit?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because somebody has been photographing me for months."
"Proof?"
"Nico's people have the photographs."
Pike laughed.
"Of course they do."
I hated him more with every passing second.
"Call my lawyer."
"You have a lawyer?"
"I do now."
He smiled.
"Mr. Valenti's attorney is already downstairs trying to reach you."
"Then stop questioning me."
Pike leaned closer.
"You know what is interesting about powerful men, Emma?"
"I suspect you're about to tell me."
"They make ordinary people feel protected."
His voice lowered.
"Until protecting them becomes inconvenient."
"Is that what Vittorio told you?"
His face changed.
It lasted less than a second.
Enough.
I smiled.
"There you are."
He stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
"Interview terminated."
"Good."
"You think Valenti will burn his family for you?"
"I think you reacted to Vittorio's name."
His eyes turned cold.
"Be careful what you think you see."
"Waitresses are good at seeing things."
He left.
I sat alone for twelve minutes before the door opened again.
A woman in a cream suit entered carrying a leather briefcase.
She looked about fifty, calm enough to make the room feel smaller, and unimpressed by everything.
"Grace Holloway."
She sat.
"I represent Mr. Valenti."
"I figured."
"From this moment forward, you say nothing to police without me."
"Already learned that."
She noticed the blood on my shirt.
Her face tightened.
"Did they provide medical attention?"
"No."
She stood.
"They will."
There was something satisfying about watching another dangerous person become angry on my behalf.
Grace returned with a nurse and an internal affairs lieutenant twenty minutes later.
My wound was cleaned.
Photographs were taken.
Pike did not return.
"How bad is it?" I asked.
Grace closed her briefcase.
"The wound or the case?"
"Dealer's choice."
"Your stitches need two replaced."
"And the case?"
"Worse."
I exhaled.
"Of course."
"There is a bank account opened using your Social Security number."
"Stolen."
"Likely."
"Messages?"
"Spoofed or cloned, perhaps."
"Then why am I still here?"
"Because there is more."
She placed a photograph in front of me.
My employee badge from Lumina lay beside a vial of clear silicone gel.
"Where was that found?"
"Your storage locker at work."
I laughed in disbelief.
"That locker doesn't even lock properly."
"Which may help us."
"Julian knows that."
"Your manager?"
"Yes."
I thought of his immaculate vest.
His irritation when staff took too long.
His access to schedules, lockers, cameras, and every service corridor in Lumina.
"He could have planted it."
Grace wrote something down.
"Anyone else?"
"Half the staff."
"Less helpful."
She hesitated.
"There is also a witness statement."
I already knew.
"Julian."
"Yes."
My hands curled.
"What did he say?"
"He says he saw you near the VIP booth twenty minutes before service applying something to the brass strip with a cloth."
Rage hit so hard I became calm.
"He is lying."
"Can anyone place you elsewhere?"
I thought.
That night had been a blur of water, wine, orders, and aching feet.
Twenty minutes before the accident I had been somewhere.
Where?
Then I remembered.
"Table eleven."
Grace looked up.
"What?"
"Birthday party."
"Customers?"
"Six women."
I leaned forward.
"One of them livestreamed almost the entire dinner because her sister couldn't come."
Grace's eyes sharpened.
"Name?"
"I don't know."
"Reservation?"
"Julian would."
"If Julian is involved, he may alter it."
I closed my eyes.
"The cake."
"Emma."
"We wrote the name on the cake."
I searched my memory.
A pink cake box.
Gold candles.
A woman wearing silver earrings.
The staff singing badly.
"Marissa."
Grace was already typing.
"Marissa what?"
"I don't know."
"Age?"
"Maybe thirty."
"That narrows Chicago to only several hundred thousand women."
"She tagged Lumina."
Grace stopped.
"On the livestream?"
"Yes."
"Better."
Within an hour, her investigator found the video.
There I was.
At 8:47 p.m., carrying a cake through table eleven.
At 8:49, lighting candles.
At 8:52, pouring champagne.
At 8:55, laughing when the birthday woman made me take a piece of cake.
The accident happened at 9:04.
Julian claimed he saw me coating the floor at 8:50.
He had lied.
Grace smiled for the first time.
"That helps."
"Gets me out?"
Her smile faded.
"Not tonight."
The prosecutor requested emergency detention.
At two in the morning, a judge appeared by video.
Grace presented the livestream.
The prosecutor called it inconclusive because I could have applied the gel before or after.
I wanted to throw something.
The judge agreed there was enough probable cause to hold me until a morning hearing.
"You have got to be kidding me," I whispered.
Grace touched my arm.
"Do not react."
"They have fake texts, a fake account, a planted vial, and a manager we just proved lied."
"I know."
"How is this happening?"
Her eyes went toward the camera mounted in the corner.
"Because somebody wants it to."
They moved me to a holding cell.
By sunrise, my face was on every local news station.
A television outside the cell showed the headline.
WAITRESS HERO OR MAFIA CONSPIRATOR?
Then another channel went further.
SERVER ACCUSED OF STAGING ATTACK ON CRIME BOSS'S SON.
My heroic act had lasted less than twenty-four hours before strangers turned it into greed.
One commentator called me "a financially desperate woman with motive to manufacture access to wealth."
I stared at the screen.
They had found my overdue bills.
My unpaid medical debt from years earlier.
My eviction warning from last winter.
They had even found David's gambling history and somehow made his theft sound like evidence that I associated with criminals.
The humiliation burned hotter than anger.
A guard finally turned the television off.
"Sorry."
I looked at her.
"Not your fault."
The words surprised me.
Maybe because I suddenly understood how easy it was for blame to land on the nearest visible person.
At nine thirty, Grace returned.
"Nico wants to see you."
"Is that allowed?"
"No."
I almost smiled.
"Then how?"
"I have stopped asking."
They brought me to a small attorney room.
Nico was waiting alone.
He looked like he had not slept.
His shirt was wrinkled.
There was dried blood near one cuff that might not have been his.
For several seconds, we simply looked at each other.
Then he saw the fresh bandage under my collar.
His face changed.
"Who hurt you?"
"A wall, technically."
"Name."
"Walls don't usually have names."
"The officer."
"I don't know."
He put both hands on the table and closed his eyes.
"I am trying very hard not to make this worse."
"That sounds healthy."
He looked at me.
"Did you know about the bank account?"
The question cut deeper than it should have.
"No."
"Did you ever meet anyone at Bell Street before tonight?"
"No."
"Did your grandmother tell you anything about Vittorio, Bianca, Marco, or the Valenti family?"
"No."
He studied my face.
Anger rose.
"If you think I'm lying -"
"I don't."
I stopped.
"Then why ask?"
"Because I needed to hear you answer."
"Why?"
His eyes held mine.
"Because everyone else I trusted answered questions years too late."
The anger drained out of me.
"I am not everyone else."
"I know."
He sat across from me.
"The ring is in police evidence."
"Pike has it."
"For now."
"Don't steal evidence."
"I was thinking of filing a motion."
"That is less exciting."
"Grace is influencing me."
I smiled despite everything.
Then Nico's phone vibrated.
He looked at the message.
His expression hardened.
"What?"
He turned the screen toward me.
A new surveillance image had been sent anonymously to Grace.
The woman who looked like me stood inside Bell Street Exchange.
This time her face was visible.
I felt the blood leave my body.
She did not merely resemble me.
She had my face.
Same nose.
Same eyes.
Same small scar near my eyebrow.
Nico looked at me.
"Emma."
I could barely speak.
"That woman is not me."
Then I noticed the date on the image.
It was taken two years earlier.
May you like
Before David ever stole the ring.
