Chapter 2: What I Decided Before He Walked Through the Door
I didn't answer Daniel right away.
I simply looked at him the way a mother looks at a child who has forgotten everything he was taught.
"That envelope," I said quietly, "was meant to be a gift."
Madeline pushed between us.
"What is she talking about?
Daniel, what is that?"
He didn't respond.
His face had gone pale in a way I hadn't seen since he was a boy who'd broken something he couldn't fix.
"It's nothing," he finally said.
But his voice came out wrong — too thin, too fast.
Madeline snatched at my bag.
I stepped back.
"Don't."
One word.
She froze.
The security guard stepped aside without being asked.
The young hostess at the desk had stopped pretending to look busy.
Three tables nearby had gone completely silent.
Then the front door opened.
Martin Ortega walked in carrying his leather briefcase, still in his overcoat from the cold outside.
He looked at the room, looked at me, and then looked at Madeline with an expression that needed no explanation.
"Mrs.
Brooks," he said calmly.
"I apologize for the delay."
Madeline's eyes moved from Martin to me to the envelope and back again.
May you like
For the first time all afternoon, she said nothing.
But what none of them knew yet — not Daniel, not Madeline, not even Martin — was what I had decided to do with that envelope in the sixty seconds before he walked through that door.
