15. Chapter 14
Liv Strauss
The walk-in cooler at Rosario's Diner smelled like pickles and industrial cleaner, and I stood inside it longer than any reasonable person would stand inside a refrigerator, pretending to count the lettuce heads.
Three. There were three lettuce heads. I had counted them four times.
Rosa knocked on the door. "Liv, honey, you're turning blue."
"Just being thorough."
"You've been thorough for eleven minutes. Come make coffee."
I came out. The diner's morning rush had thinned to three regulars and an elderly couple splitting a short stack, and Rosa handed me a pot of decaf without comment.
I refilled the elderly couple's cups and smiled when the woman complimented my earrings, small silver hoops Piper had given me for my birthday two years ago.
The bell over the door chimed at 10:49 AM, and I looked up expecting another regular, and instead I saw Petra Varga walking toward the counter in her expensive heels.
She sat on the stool directly in front of me.
"Coffee?" I asked, because I was working and she was sitting at my counter and that was the script.
"Please."
I poured. She wrapped her hands around the mug like she needed the warmth, which was strange because Petra always ran cold in a different way, all efficiency and polish. Today she looked like she had slept about as well as I had, which was not at all.
"I'm here because I owe you an apology."
I set down the pot. "For what?"
"The NDA. I sent it without reading it properly.
I saw standard revised agreement in the subject line and I forwarded it because I was managing three crises and I trusted legal to handle the language.
" She looked at her coffee instead of me.
"I didn't read the word simulated until after you'd already seen it.
By then you weren't answering anyone's calls. "
I leaned against the counter. The chrome edge pressed into my hip, cold through my apron. "That's not your fault."
"It's partly my fault. I'm his assistant.
I'm supposed to catch things before they reach people.
" She finally looked up. "He didn't write that language, Liv.
Legal did. Standard boilerplate for any arrangement that might be scrutinized by a committee.
He signed off on it at 6 AM without reading it either, because he was building a case against Marcus and he hadn't slept in thirty-six hours and he trusted the wrong people to protect you. "
I picked up a rag and started wiping the counter that didn't need wiping. "I saw the news about Marcus. The data policy violations."
"That's the public version. The private version is that Zoltan built a case so thorough that Marcus couldn't fight the termination without exposing his own misconduct.
No severance. No quiet exit. No pursuing other opportunities.
Marcus Webb is finished in this industry because Zoltan decided to finish him. "
"Good."
Petra tilted her head. "You don't sound surprised."
"I'm not. He already told me he handled it." I stopped wiping. "But there’s still the other thing."
"The background check."
Petra was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "He runs those checks on everyone who comes near Missy."
"I know. He told me."
"Did he tell you what happened with the last nanny?"
I stopped. "No."
Petra wrapped her hands tighter around the mug.
"Eight months after Eva died. Zoltan was barely functioning.
He hired a nanny through an agency, didn't run his usual checks because the agency had vetted her, and three weeks later he found out she'd been selling photos of Missy to tabloids.
Nothing dangerous, just candids, but he found the camera in her purse and he lost it.
Completely. Quietly. He fired her, sued the agency, and started running his own background checks on everyone who entered his house. "
I thought about Zoltan in that kitchen doorway, watching Missy do a puzzle, his hand flat against his jacket pocket. The specific stillness of a man who was afraid to blink.
"He should have told me," I said.
"Yes. He should have. He's terrible at telling people things." Petra almost smiled. "He's excellent at solving problems and removing threats and building systems that protect the people he cares about. He is genuinely awful at saying I'm scared or I need you or I don't know how to do this."
The elderly couple waved for their check. I walked over, processed their payment, accepted the three-dollar tip with a smile that felt like wearing someone else's face. When I came back, Petra was still sitting there, coffee untouched.
"Why are you really here?" I asked.
"Because Missy asked me where you went, and I didn't know what to tell her."
Something cracked in my chest. A small, specific fracture in the wall I had been building.
"What did you tell her?"
"That you were busy. That you'd come back soon." Petra set down her mug. "I don't know if that was true. I'm hoping you can tell me."
Petra stood, leaving cash on the counter for the coffee. "I'm not trying to force your hand. I'm just telling you where things stand. What you do with that information is up to you."
She walked out, heels clicking on the linoleum, and I stood behind the counter for a long time not moving.
Rosa came over eventually, refilled the coffee pot, set a hand on my shoulder.
"That looked heavy," she said.
"It was."
"You want to talk about it?"
"No."
"You want to take your break early?"
I looked at the clock. 11:23 AM. My shift ended at two. I had three more hours of coffee pots and small talk and tips that added up to almost enough.
"Yeah," I said. "I'll take fifteen."
I went out the back door into the alley behind the diner, where the dumpsters lived and the air smelled like grease and exhaust and the specific cologne of a city that never stopped moving.
I stood in that alley for eleven minutes. The grease smell settled into my clothes. A pigeon landed on the dumpster and stared at me like I was taking too long to make an obvious decision.
I thought about Missy's drawing. Papa. Liv. Me.
The pigeon flapped away. I went back inside.