Chapter 2 - The Photograph
By the end of my shift, everyone in the restaurant knew about Ava.
Nobody said anything directly.
But people stared.
Tommy brought a portable crib.
The pastry chef brought mashed bananas.
Someone found a stuffed giraffe.
By seven o'clock, Ava had acquired more attention than I had received in eleven months.
I should have been grateful.
Instead, I was terrified.
Because Reed had asked me questions.
Questions I had spent eight months avoiding.
At closing, I found him sitting alone in the private dining room.
A folder rested in front of him.
He looked up.
“Sit.”
I did.
He pushed a photograph across the table.
My blood froze.
It was Ava.
Sleeping.
Taken from outside my apartment.
“When was this taken?”
I stared at him.
“I don't know.”
“Who took it?”
“I don't know.”
Reed leaned back.
“Someone has been watching your daughter.”
My fingers tightened around the photograph.
“Why?”
“That is what I'm trying to find out.”
I looked at him.
“Is this connected to you?”
He didn't answer.
That answer terrified me more than anything else.
“Mr. Callaway…”
“Reed.”
I stared at him.
He had never told me to use his first name.
“Reed,” I corrected. “If someone is watching my daughter because of you, I need to know.”
He nodded.
“That is fair.”
He opened the folder.
Inside were several photographs.
Me leaving work.
Me carrying Ava.
Mrs. Perez walking her.
My apartment building.
Ava's stroller.
Then one photograph made my stomach turn.
Ava was sitting beside my kitchen window.
Someone had taken it from the alley.
“They were close,” Reed said.
I looked up.
“Who?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Then why are you showing me?”
“Because I need you to understand something.”
He leaned forward.
“Someone isn't watching you.”
His eyes hardened.
“They're watching her.”
I looked at the photograph again.
Ava was smiling.
Completely unaware.
My voice shook.
“Why?”
Reed's jaw tightened.
“Because she may be connected to a man named Gabriel Vance.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Who is he?”
“A dead man.”
I frowned.
“That doesn't help.”
“It wasn't supposed to.”
He closed the folder.
“Go home tonight with Tommy.”
“I can take the train.”
“No.”
“I've taken it every night for eleven months.”
“Not tonight.”
Something in his voice stopped me.
I nodded.
As I stood, he said:
“Mia.”
I turned.
“Where did Ava's father go?”
I hesitated.
“Phoenix.”
“Name?”
I looked away.
“Daniel Cross.”
Reed became completely still.
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
“Daniel Cross?”
“Yes.”
He stood.
“Go home.”
I didn't understand.
“Why?”
“Because I need to make a phone call.”
That night, Reed made three.
The first was to a private investigator.
The second was to a man in Phoenix.
The third was to Tommy.
“Find Daniel Cross.”
Tommy hesitated.
“We thought he was dead.”
Reed looked at him.
“So did I.”
Then he placed the photograph of Ava on his desk.
There was one detail nobody had noticed.
Ava wore a tiny silver bracelet.
On the inside was an engraving.
C.C.
Callaway.
Reed stared at it for a long time.
Then he remembered something from fourteen years earlier.
A little girl.
Brown hair.
Blue coat.
A playground behind a church in Evanston.
He had been nineteen.
She had been twelve.
She had cried because another child had stolen her red mitten.
Reed had given her his.
She had smiled.
“What's your name?”
“Mia.”
“My name is Reed.”
She had looked at him seriously.
“Then I'll remember you.”
He had laughed.
He never expected to see her again.
May you like
But now, fourteen years later, her daughter was sleeping in a crib two floors above his office.
And the initials on that bracelet belonged to his family.
