Chapter 5 - The Diner With the Red Booth
Roman hated Sadie’s plan.
That alone made her trust it slightly more.
“You cannot walk into the diner,” he said.
They were back in the estate library. Sadie sat at the long table with her father’s notebook in front of her. Ben sat opposite, eating a sandwich as if he had not nearly gotten his sister killed three nights earlier.
Sadie tapped a date in the notebook.
“Every Tuesday for six months, Dad wrote the same letters beside Vane’s payments. RBD.”
Roman leaned over the page.
“Could be an account.”
“It’s not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I worked at the Red Brick Diner for seven years.”
Ben stopped chewing.
“Oh.”
Sadie pointed.
“Look at the dates. Tuesday nights. Dad used to pick up Mom after bingo on Tuesdays. Red Brick was on the route home.”
Carter crossed his arms.
“You think he met someone there.”
“I think somebody at the diner may remember.”
“Fifteen years ago?”
“Lena bought the place from her uncle twelve years ago. Her uncle kept everything. Receipts, photographs, broken appliances, menus from 1989. The man believed throwing away paper invited audits.”
Roman looked unconvinced.
Sadie continued.
“And if Tommy searched my apartment but not the diner, he may not know what RBD means.”
Ben swallowed.
“He knows now.”
Everyone looked at him.
Ben put down the sandwich.
“I mentioned Sadie worked there.”
Sadie closed her eyes.
“When?”
“At the card room.”
“Why?”
“He asked what you did.”
“Why were you discussing me with a loan shark?”
“I was making conversation.”
Roman stared at him.
Ben looked defensive.
“I understand now that it was poor conversation.”
Sadie stood too quickly.
Pain flashed through her ribs.
Roman’s hand moved instinctively toward her, then stopped before touching.
She noticed.
“Fine,” she said. “Then we go before Tommy does.”
They reached the Red Brick Diner just before noon.
Roman wanted the business cleared first.
Sadie refused.
“If black SUVs surround the place, everyone in Oakhaven will know by dinner.”
“They already know my cars.”
“Exactly.”
So Carter parked two blocks away.
Roman wore a dark coat instead of a suit jacket and somehow still looked like a man who owned the sidewalk.
Sadie entered first.
A bell jingled above the door.
Burnt coffee.
Old grease.
The smell nearly made her cry.
Maria dropped a tray.
“Sadie?”
Every head turned.
Maria Alvarez crossed the diner faster than her bad knees should have allowed and wrapped Sadie in a careful embrace.
Then she saw the bruises.
Her face changed.
“Who did this?”
Sadie glanced toward the door.
Roman entered.
Maria grabbed a coffee pot like a weapon.
“No.”
Sadie blinked.
“Maria—”
“I watch television.”
Roman stopped.
“I’m not here to hurt her.”
Maria raised the pot.
“That sentence has never made anybody less suspicious.”
Sadie laughed and immediately clutched her ribs.
Roman looked at Maria.
“I like her.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
Sadie interrupted before an international incident began in booth three.
“Where’s Lena?”
“In the office.”
Lena emerged seconds later, cried, swore, threatened Tommy Sullivan’s future ability to reproduce, and finally listened.
When Sadie showed her the notebook, Lena went quiet.
“RBD,” she said.
“You remember?”
“Not that. But Uncle Ray used initials on private-party receipts.”
Roman leaned closer.
“Private party?”
“Back booth. Tuesday nights. Men who didn’t want names on tabs.”
Sadie felt a chill.
“Do you still have the receipts?”
Lena looked offended.
“Have you met my family?”
The storage room behind the kitchen contained forty years of boxes.
Carter made one phone call.
Three men arrived wearing gloves.
Sadie rolled her eyes.
“Of course you have professional box-searching people.”
“They are accountants.”
“That is somehow worse.”
For forty minutes they sorted old receipts.
Then Maria shouted from the doorway.
“Found Tuesday.”
A yellowed envelope contained carbon copies from fifteen years earlier.
The same order appeared repeatedly.
Two coffees.
One lemon pie.
One black tea.
Three men.
No names.
But the payment line included corporate card numbers.
Carter photographed them.
Roman sent the numbers to someone.
Ten minutes later his phone rang.
He listened.
His eyes changed.
“What?” Sadie asked.
“One card belonged to Marcus Vane.”
“And the others?”
“One belonged to the transportation department.”
Sadie’s pulse accelerated.
“The third?”
Roman looked toward the window.
“Anthony Hail.”
His father.
Silence settled over the diner office.
Sadie stared at him.
“Your father was meeting Vane.”
“Yes.”
“After he promised my father protection.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“Apparently.”
Before Sadie could answer, glass exploded in the dining room.
Someone screamed.
Roman moved instantly.
He pulled Sadie behind the office wall as another window shattered.
No gunshots.
Bricks.
One landed among the tables wrapped in red paper.
Carter was already moving toward the front door.
Roman caught his shoulder.
“No. That is what they want.”
A car engine roared outside.
Then disappeared.
Maria shouted, “Everybody okay?”
Sadie pushed away from the wall.
Roman blocked her.
“Stay.”
“My friends are out there.”
“So are my men.”
“Move.”
He did.
The brick had broken a sugar dispenser and nothing else.
Nobody was injured.
Wrapped around it was a photograph.
Ben.
Taken that morning.
At the Hail Estate.
Sadie’s blood went cold.
On the back, written in black marker:
YOU LEFT THE DOOR OPEN.
Roman took out his phone.
“Carter.”
“I’m calling.”
“Lock the estate.”
Sadie stared at the photograph.
“How did they get this?”
Roman’s face became frighteningly calm.
“They have someone inside my security perimeter.”
Sadie looked at him.
For the first time, Roman Hail did not look in control.
They drove back in silence.
The estate gates were closed when they arrived.
Men searched vehicles.
Every employee had been moved into the main hall.
Ben stood near the staircase with Dr. Evans.
Alive.
Sadie crossed the room and hugged him hard enough to hurt herself.
Roman spoke with Carter.
Security footage had been altered.
A camera facing the east lawn showed eighteen missing minutes.
Only four people possessed access high enough to erase footage.
Roman.
Carter.
The estate systems manager.
And Roman’s longtime attorney, Julian Cross.
Sadie looked across the crowded hall.
A silver-haired man in a navy suit stood near the fireplace.
He noticed her watching.
Then smiled.
Sadie’s skin prickled.
“Who is that?”
Roman followed her gaze.
“Julian.”
The attorney lifted his glass slightly toward them.
Sadie thought of the photograph.
The erased camera.
Her father’s letter.
Then she noticed something else.
Julian’s cuff links were stamped with a tiny symbol.
A circle crossed by three lines.
The same symbol appeared beside several payments in Daniel Mercer’s notebook.
Sadie grabbed Roman’s sleeve.
“I’ve seen that mark.”
“Where?”
She opened her father’s notebook to the final page.
Roman stared.
May you like
For fifteen years, the symbol had waited in faded ink.
Now it was standing across the room wearing a smile.
