“So change up your approach.” She waved her spoon in the air, like conjuring a novel was no big deal. “The contract doesn’t specify how the whole thing plays out, as long as you get it done by next month. You can do that, right?”
I stuffed in a bite of sandwich to keep from having to answer that. If I really pushed it, I could finish a rough draft in eight weeks. Six tops.
“How hard can it be? You’ve done it before.”
“Yes, but this one’s going to be messy.” I tested a mouthful of soup. It tasted like cardboard. Like everything else had tasted since my divorce. “I could kill for some hot sauce,” I muttered, checking the table beside me. Salt, pepper, sugar, and napkins. No hot sauce. But the woman hardly noticed. She was staring at my open bag on the floor. I tucked my wallet farther inside and folded the handles down, concealing the contents from view. When she continued to stare, I threw her a frosty look.
“I don’t understand what’s so hard. You’ve got a beautiful, sweet, sympathetic woman who needs to be rescued from a really bad guy. The bad guy gets handled, our sympathetic woman reveals the depths of her gratitude, everyone lives happily ever after, and you get a big fat check.”
I tore the end off my baguette. “About the check—”
“Absolutely not.” Sylvia waved her spoon at me. “I can’t go back to them and ask for another advance.”
“I know. But there’s a lot of research involved in this one,” I said in a low voice. “We’re talking seedy nightclubs, instruments of torture, secret code words … This is completely outside my area of expertise. I’m usually very neat. You know, conservative. Nothing too far out there. But this…” I severed the end of my cheesecake. “This one’s different, Syl. If I pull this off, I could become the next big name in the business.”
“Whatever you do, make it quick. Let’s bury this one and move on to the next.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to rush this. I need this to be a big hit. These two- and three-thousand-dollar advances aren’t worth the time or the effort. Whatever deal comes next needs to kick-start my career, or I’m out,” I declared around a mouthful of cheesecake. “If this one goes well, I’m not taking a penny less than fifteen thousand for the next one.”
“Fine. Knock ’em dead with this one, and we’ll talk about the next one.” Sylvia’s phone vibrated on the table. She narrowed her eyes at the number on the screen. “Excuse me. I have to take this,” she said, wriggling out from between the tables. As I twisted to let Sylvia pass, the woman at the table beside me caught my eye. Fork poised over her bowl of cold mac and cheese, she stared at me for an awkwardly long moment that made me wonder if she’d recognized me despite all the makeup and the wig-scarf. Or maybe it was the wig-scarf she recognized. No one had ever asked me for an autograph before. If she asked me to sign her napkin, I’d probably choke. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed when her gaze fell away and she reached for her purse.
I turned back to my sandwich, checking my phone for missed messages between bites. One from Steven, wondering how much longer I’d be. Two more from credit card companies reminding me I was past due. And an email from my editor, asking how the new book was coming. I had the odd feeling I was being watched, but the woman beside me was bent over a pen and a slip of paper.
After a few minutes, Sylvia’s heels clicked back into the dining room. My heart sank when she didn’t bother to sit down.
“I’m sorry, my dear. I have to go,” she said, reaching for her messenger bag. “I need to grab the train back to the city. I’ve got a major offer coming in for another client, and it’s got a drop-dead date in forty-eight hours. I’ve got to move fast before the deal’s off the table.” She slung the bag over her shoulder. “I wish we had more time to chat.”
“No, it’s fine,” I assured her. I was not okay. This was not okay. “It was totally my fault.”
“Yes, it was,” she agreed, slipping on her designer sunglasses and leaving me with her dishes. “Now get to work on that hit, and let me know when it’s done.”
I stood up and pasted on a smile as we exchanged awkward cheek-to-cheek kisses that made us seem like friends who didn’t actually want to touch each other. Her cell phone was pressed to her ear before she was out the door.
I sank back down in my chair. The woman who’d been seated beside me was gone and I glanced down, relieved to find my diaper bag and wallet still resting on the floor. I cleared Sylvia’s tray, sorting her dishes and utensils into the bins by the waste receptacle. When I returned to my table, a scrap of folded paper was tucked under my plate. I looked around for the woman who’d been scribbling beside me but saw no sign of her. I unfolded the note.
$50,000 CASH
HARRIS MICKLER
49 NORTH LIVINGSTON ST
ARLINGTON
And a phone number.
I crumpled up the note and held it over the bin. But the dollar sign—and all the zeroes that followed—piqued my curiosity. Who was Harris Mickler? Why did he have so much cash? And why had the woman sitting beside me left the paper on my tray when she could have just as easily disposed of it herself?
I tucked the strange note in my pocket and gathered my bag. The midday sun glared off the windshields of the sea of cars outside, and I groped blindly in my bag for my keys, struggling to remember where I’d parked. I still hadn’t found them by the time I reached the dry cleaner, and I stood beside my locked van, swearing into the abyss of my bag. A few of Delia’s stray hairs tickled my wrist as my fingers snagged on the sticky roll of duct tape I’d used to fix her hair. Something bit me as I shoved it aside. With a yelp, I whipped my hand from the bag.
A thin line of blood beaded along my fingers. Carefully, I plucked aside the blood-stained burp rag I’d used to clean my daughter’s forehead that morning. Below it, I found the dull kitchen knife I’d thrown in with it, along with the keys to my van.
I pressed the burp rag to the shallow cut and turned the AC on high while I waited for the bleeding to stop. The air outside was cool, autumn-crisp, but the van was boiling in the noon sun and my hair was already damp with sweat under the itchy scarf. I peeled it off, dropping it into the diaper bag along with the dark sunglasses. A heavily made-up woman with a tight mom-bun stared back at me from the rearview mirror. I swiped off the deep burgundy lipstick on the burp rag, feeling like an impostor. Who was I kidding? There was no way I’d finish this book in a month. Every day I spent pretending to make a living as a writer only put me one day closer to losing my kids. I should have called Sylvia right then and there and told her as much.
I dragged my phone from my pocket. The strange note slipped out with it. I pried it open.
Fifty thousand dollars.
I looked back at my cell. Then again at the note, curiosity making me linger on the phone number written at the bottom.
I could always say I’d misdialed and hang up, right? The phone beeped as I keyed in the number. A woman answered on the first ring.
“Hello?” Her quiet voice wavered.
I opened my mouth, but nothing intelligent came out. “Hello?”
“You found my note.”