Chapter 5 - The Morning After
The Ruiz apartment was on the third floor of a brick building where the radiator knocked like a prisoner every time the heat came on at six in the morning.
Elena sat at the tiny formica kitchen table, a mug of black coffee between her hands. Opposite her, Leo was sitting with his geometry textbook open, a stubby pencil resting behind his ear. He was fifteen, had his mother's dark hair and his father's broad shoulders, and spent most of his free time trying not to look like he was worried about money.
"You're not going in for the breakfast shift?" Leo asked, without looking up from his paper.
"No," Elena said, taking a slow sip of the coffee. "Not today."
Leo set his pencil down. He looked at her apron—usually hanging over the back of the kitchen chair—which was missing.
"Did Marcus cut your hours again?"
"Marcus fired me, Leo."
Leo went completely still. "Why? You worked sixty hours last week!"
"It doesn't matter why," Elena said, her voice leaving no room for a fight. "We have enough in the jar for groceries this week. And I have... an meeting at nine."
She pulled the thick cream card from her pocket and laid it on the table between them.
Leo picked it up. He ran his thumb over the raised black lettering, his eyes going wide as he read the address.
"Vance International?" he whispered. "Elena... this is the building with the indoor waterfall in the lobby. The one near the park."
"I know."
"What kind of job is it?"
"I don't know," Elena admitted, looking out the kitchen window at the grey clouds hanging low over the alleyways. "Maybe cleaning offices. Maybe running errands."
"She gave you this card because you gave her soup?"
"She gave me this card," Elena corrected gently, "because she was alone, and nobody else in that room saw her."
At eight-fifteen, Elena dressed in her only clean black slacks, a white button-down shirt she usually saved for church, and her plain dark coat. She walked three blocks to the train station, her knees cold against the biting wind, her heart beating a fast, nervous rhythm against her ribs.
When she stepped out of the subway station onto Michigan Avenue at eight-forty-five, the city looked entirely different than it did from the window of The Copper Spoon.
The Vance International Tower rose eighty stories into the grey sky, a needle of dark glass and brushed steel that looked like it had been carved out of a single block of ice.
Elena walked through the massive revolving doors into the lobby.
The floor was white Italian marble so polished she could see her own worn leather shoes reflected in it. A security desk made of solid dark walnut stretched thirty feet across the center of the room, behind which stood four guards in matching dark suits with brass lapel pins.
Elena approached the desk, her fingers tightly clutching the cream card in her coat pocket.
"Excuse me," she said to the lead guard—a tall man with silver hair and a sharp jawline. "I have a... an appointment with Arthur?"
The guard didn't look annoyed. He looked down at a digital tablet on his desk, typed three letters, and then froze.
He looked up at Elena, his eyes sweeping over her plain black coat and simple shoes with sudden, intense scrutiny.
"Elena Ruiz?" he asked, his voice dropping an octave into pure, formal politeness.
"Yes."
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The guard immediately hit a button on his console. A brass gate clicked open beside the desk.
"Elevator bank B, Miss Ruiz," the guard said, leaning forward to gesture toward a set of silver doors at the rear of the lobby. "Express to the seventy-eighth floor. Mr. Vance is waiting for you."
