Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28104 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 141(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28104 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 141(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
"You docked her sick pay twice in March," Valerio said, "then ordered her in with a hundred-and-two fever to clean four floors alone. In January you posted her to nights for six weeks after she asked about overtime rates. Two Decembers ago, you gave the holiday bonus to everyone on her crew except her, and told her, in front of that crew, that she should be grateful for the flexibility." He hadn't raised his voice. He hadn't sat down. "Would you like me to continue? I have dates."
Somewhere under the office fluorescents, Dominguez's smile finally died of its injuries.
"Sir, whatever she's told you—"
"She's told me nothing." Something Italian moved through the back of Valerio's voice, brief as a fin breaking water, and Dominguez flinched without knowing why. "That's rather the point of her, Mr. Dominguez. She never told anyone. You counted on that."
"I run a tight ship, that's all, I treat everyone the same—"
"Here's what the same looks like now." Valerio set a folder on the desk. "Every employee in this building receives their stolen overtime, back-dated three years, with interest, by Friday. Connie Elgin is your replacement, effective this conversation. You'll be offered a position on the night crew, the fourth floor of the Chainsaw building has apparently gone begging, or you'll be offered the door and a very thorough audit. And before either of those things, you will apologize to my wife. You'll mean it, or Minna will explain to you what happens next, and Minna bills by the hour."
The silence that followed had texture.
And then Dominguez did the one thing that saved him, though not in the way he intended. He panicked, and panicking men itemize.
"It wasn't personal! It was never personal, I got a call, all right? Years back. A woman. Said she was calling about a welfare concern, about her—" His finger jabbed toward Aislinn and thought better of it mid-jab. "Said the family had a history, said the school was keeping an eye, said it would be better for everyone if she stayed, how did she put it, stayed humble. Motivated. There were, sometimes there were envelopes, at Christmas, I never asked—"
Aislinn had stopped breathing. "The school?"
"That's what she said! Calling in regard to the school, concerned parties at the school, I figured it was one of those rich mothers, the ones who run the bake sale like a cartel, I didn't ask questions—"
"No," Valerio said. "You took envelopes instead."
They got the rest out of him in pieces, and the pieces were small. A woman's voice, no name, calls that came a few times a year, always polite, always knowing, envelopes when he'd done especially well by doing especially badly. He'd assumed a jealous parent, the party mothers, Amybeth Schnapp's coven. It had never once occurred to him to wonder why anyone would pay money, real money, year after year, to keep one quiet cleaning woman tired.
The apology, when it finally came, was ugly and wet and possibly even real, and Aislinn accepted it the way she accepted all weather, and then went out to the floor while the men finished, because Connie was on shift, and Connie didn't know yet.
Valerio found them ten minutes later, Connie crying into Aislinn's shoulder with a promotion letter crushed in one fist, half the morning crew crowded around asking if the back-pay thing was a joke, and the woman he loved in the middle of them all, beaming, no gown required, and he stood by the mop sinks of a company he'd bought before breakfast and let himself watch.
It was on the drive back, with the freight yards sliding past, that she finally said it.
"Who does that, Valerio?" Her voice was small. "Who pays money, for years, to keep somebody poor?"
He looked out at the gray morning for a moment before he answered.
"Someone patient."
Chapter Eleven
MRS. KIMBERLY HAD MADE it exactly forty-one miles.
They found her at her sister's bungalow off the interstate on Tuesday afternoon, Louis freshly collected from school and left in the car with the driver, a juice box, and instructions to guard both, and when the old woman opened the door and saw who was standing on the welcome mat, she made the kettle sound again and tried to close it.
The door met Valerio's hand and stopped being a door in any meaningful sense.
"Mrs. Kimberly," Aislinn said quickly, stepping in front of him, because they'd discussed this in the car, they'd agreed on an order of operations, and looming came second. "Please. Nobody's here to hurt you. I just want to understand."
It had taken his people less than a day to find her. It took Aislinn's face less than a minute to break her.
The old woman sat them at her sister's kitchen table, put out three cups with shaking hands, gave up on the tea entirely halfway through, and cried into her own sleeve while the whole thing spilled out of her in one long unraveling thread. The calls had started four years ago. A woman's voice, very polite, very sure. She was to keep an eye on the nice little family in 3B, that was all, just an eye. When Aislinn worked late. Who came by. What the boy got up to. Whether they seemed like they were settling in, or getting comfortable, or making friends.