looked like the blank, black lining.
Every year when Dana got her new school uniforms, Beth took it to a particular tailor, a Ukrainian immigrant who made a quiet specialty of creating pockets for people who did not want security guards, or anybody else, to know just what they might be carrying.
“Mad money?”
Dana flipped open the other side.
“Text time?”
“Four thirty, on the dot,” Dana recited. “Today and every day.”
“Love you, Dangerface.”
“Love you, Mom. Bye.”
Dana kissed her on the forehead to avoid smudging her meeting-day makeup and charged out the door.
For years, Beth had walked Dana down to the lobby and waited with her until the car came. Like a lot of the parents at Pullman Preparatory Academy, Beth hired a car service to handle Dana’s transportation to and from school. At least, like the parents who didn’t have their own drivers.
Now, in a concession to Dana’s simmering need for independence and after about a week of screaming fights, Beth waited upstairs. But she still watched, and she was not the only one.
The landline rang. Beth scooped it up off the hook. “Beth Fraser.”
“Kendi at the desk, Ms. Fraser. Dana and Chelsea are in the car. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No, thank you, Kendi. Not today.” She said good-bye and hung up. She checked out the window and saw the black Metro car pull out of the drive and into the street.
Time to get a move on. Beth grabbed her briefcase, her tote bag, her keys. She checked her phone to see that her car service was on the way. She also checked her makeup in the mirror by the door. A demonstration day always meant dressing to her personal heights—suit, stockings, and sky-high heels.
What are you looking for, Beth? She smoothed down the front of her gray Chanel jacket. What’s got you on edge?
Because she was too anxious for a normal morning. Even Doug’s phone call was perfectly normal—frustrating as all hell, but normal. Probably it was today’s presentation from AllHome Healthtech. She had been trying for two weeks to impress on her boss that this particular start-up was a waste of time. Rafael wanted to let it play out, though, and he was more than just her employer. He was the one friend she’d kept from her ragged teenage years in Nowhere, Indiana. He’d pulled her out of her grandmother’s trailer and presented her with the chance at a career. If Rafi wanted to waste a morning with this demonstration, they’d waste a morning. Maybe he knew something she didn’t.
Her cell phone rang—an unidentified number with a San Francisco area code. Beth stuffed the phone into her red briefcase. Let it go to voice mail. If it was important, they’d leave a message. She was running late, and between Doug, Rafael, and her own restlessness, she had more than enough on her mental plate.
In the side pocket of her briefcase, her phone rang, and rang again, and stopped.
CHAPTER TWO
“I hate to say I told you so, Rafi…” Beth settled onto the black leather sofa in his office and kicked her shoes off under the glass-topped coffee table. “But…”
“But you told me so. Yes, yes, yes. Mea culpa.” Rafael Gutierrez opened his full-size fridge and pulled out two bottles of Pellegrino sparkling water. His office was a cool, black-and-white room with a window wall that looked over Wabash Avenue toward the Sears Tower. The skyscraper had actually been renamed the Willis Tower, but nobody bothered to remember that.
Rafael was a square-built man. His family had come to the States from Mexico and Ecuador, and he’d grown up on an edge even sharper than the one Beth knew. A black unibrow made an emphatic line above his brown eyes. He wore his black hair a little long and combed straight back so that it waved around his ears and against his neck. This helped de-emphasize a tattoo that had seemed like a good idea in another place and time.
“You have to admit AllHome is a good idea.” Rafi handed Beth a water bottle like a peace offering and dropped onto one of the square leather chairs. “A specialized, virtual home-health-care assistant. It’s got legs.”
“For somebody who knows what they’re doing.”
Beth’s gaze flicked to the vintage chrome wall clock with its sweeping red second hand. Fifteen minutes until Dana’s check-in text was due. Beth pulled her phone out and laid it facedown on the chair arm.
“When we took on TrakChange, we had to hold their hand every step of