Chapter 2 - Twenty Percent
“You keep the diner.”
June stared at Cormac.
“That’s your threat?”
“It isn’t a threat.”
“You locked me inside my own restaurant.”
Cormac glanced at the dead bolt.
“To keep this conversation private.”
“Normal people use curtains.”
Something changed in his expression.
Not a smile exactly.
But close.
Cormac unlocked the door.
“There. You’re free to leave.”
June folded her arms.
“This is my diner. Why would I leave?”
This time he definitely almost smiled.
June hated that she noticed.
He returned to the counter and tapped the contract.
“Raymond borrowed money from people who eventually sold his debt to people associated with me. By the time I discovered the loan existed, interest had turned stupidity into catastrophe.”
“My husband wasn’t stupid.”
Cormac said nothing.
June looked away.
Fine.
Ray had been stupid.
She simply wasn’t ready for a stranger to say it.
“What happens if I refuse?”
“The debt remains.”
“And the diner?”
“Legally vulnerable.”
There it was.
The knife beneath the polite language.
June looked around the restaurant.
Ray had bought the place when they were twenty-five. The floors had been replaced twice. The booths once. June had painted the kitchen herself during the winter of 2014 because Ray claimed contractors were highway robbers.
She had spent half her life here.
“You could just take it.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you?”
Cormac’s gaze traveled toward the kitchen.
“Because property is easy to acquire.”
Then his eyes returned to her.
“People who can cook are harder.”
June laughed once.
It came out bitter.
“You have two million dollars to collect, and you’re complimenting my meatloaf?”
“Your braised short ribs.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“Raymond served them at a charity dinner three years ago. You made them.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked.”
The simplicity of the answer disturbed her more than boasting would have.
June opened the contract again.
Forty events.
Her staff would be paid separately. Ingredients reimbursed. Transportation covered.
The numbers were surprisingly fair.
Suspiciously fair.
“What kind of events?”
“Dinners. Fundraisers. Private meetings.”
“Criminal meetings?”
“People still eat during criminal meetings.”
June stared.
Cormac remained completely serious.
Despite herself, she laughed.
His expression softened for half a second.
Then the front door rattled.
Someone outside was trying the handle.
Cormac's two men moved instantly.
June looked toward the window.
A black sedan had stopped across the street.
A man stood beside it, watching the diner.
Cormac's entire demeanor changed.
“Get away from the window.”
“I’ve lived in Chicago my entire life. I know how windows work.”
“June.”
The use of her first name stopped her.
A sharp crack split the morning.
The front window exploded.
Cormac hit her before she understood what had happened.
Not struck her.
Covered her.
His body drove hers behind the counter as glass showered across the diner.
A second gunshot punched through the coffee machine.
June heard shouting outside.
Cormac had one arm around her shoulders.
His other hand held a pistol.
“Are you hit?”
She couldn't answer.
“June.”
“No.”
Cormac rose slightly.
“Stay down.”
Then he moved.
The next thirty seconds became noise.
Running footsteps.
A car engine.
Men shouting.
Then silence.
June remained crouched beside a bucket of sugar.
Her hands were shaking.
She hated that.
Cormac returned.
A thin line of blood ran from his temple where glass had cut him.
“The shooter’s gone.”
June stood slowly.
Her beautiful front window was destroyed.
Coffee covered the floor.
A bullet had buried itself in the menu board.
She turned toward Cormac.
“You brought this here.”
His jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Someone shot at you.”
“They weren’t shooting at me.”
June froze.
Cormac picked something up from the floor.
A small white envelope had been pushed beneath the door before the shooting.
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
June recognized it immediately.
Ray.
Her husband was standing beside a man June had never seen.
On the back were four handwritten words.
ASK THE WIDOW WHERE.
June's throat closed.
“I don't know what that means.”
Cormac studied her face.
Apparently he believed her.
That frightened her even more.
“Raymond didn't borrow two point four million dollars to save this diner,” Cormac said.
June stared at the photograph.
“Then why did he borrow it?”
“That,” Cormac said quietly, “is what somebody just tried to kill you to keep us from discovering.”
The police arrived twenty minutes later.
Cormac disappeared before them.
June gave a carefully edited statement.
A car drove past.
Someone fired.
She hadn't seen anything.
By nine thirty, plywood covered the broken window.
By ten, June was cooking eggs.
Routine was the closest thing she had to armor.
At 11:17, Cormac returned alone.
He sat at the counter.
June put coffee in front of him.
“I didn't ask for this.”
“You didn't have to.”
She watched him drink.
“Why are you helping me?”
Cormac set down the cup.
“I'm protecting an investment.”
“I'm forty-eight, Mr. Riley. I've heard enough lies from men to recognize one.”
His eyes lifted.
Something heavy passed between them.
“You keep saying your age like it's an apology.”
June stiffened.
“I didn't.”
“You do without using the words.”
She turned toward the grill.
“Ray used to joke that if he ever died, nobody would want a middle-aged widow who smelled like onions.”
Silence.
June wished immediately she hadn't said it.
Cormac stood.
He came around the counter.
She backed instinctively toward the pantry door.
He stopped before touching her.
At fifty-three, Cormac Riley was not handsome in the polished way Ray had once been. His face carried scars. Gray threaded his beard. His hands looked like they had solved more problems violently than gently.
But his eyes were unexpectedly calm.
“Your husband was wrong about several things.”
June swallowed.
“Including?”
Cormac leaned one hand against the wooden door beside her head.
“Apparently everything.”
Her heartbeat betrayed her.
Then his phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
The softness disappeared.
“What?”
June watched his jaw harden.
“Where?”
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
Cormac looked at her.
“We found Raymond's storage unit.”
June's breath caught.
Cormac continued.
“It was emptied this morning.”
“Then you found nothing.”
“Not exactly.”
He held up his phone.
A security image showed the man from the photograph leaving the storage facility.
The timestamp was twenty-seven minutes after the shooting.
June stared at him.
“Who is he?”
Cormac's answer changed everything.
“Detective Alan Mercer.”
June knew that name.
May you like
He had been the police officer who came to her diner six weeks earlier.
The man who had looked her in the eyes and told her Raymond Holloway had died of natural causes.
