Chapter 4

"What do you mean, there wasn't one?"

Dani had spoken to Dot.

Sal answered instead.

"We handled it ourselves."

The older officer put down his pen.

"What does that mean?"

"She was told to leave."

"Was she arrested?"

"No."

"Charged?"

"No."

Gina sat beside the desk.

"We didn't want to ruin a young woman's life."

Dani looked at her mother's torn sleeve.

Dot moved closer.

Sal opened the lowest file drawer.

"Old personnel records stayed here."

"My father kept everything."

He pulled out a folder marked MAR-MAY.

The cardboard edges had gone soft.

Gina uncrossed her legs.

"Those files are private."

"It's my mother's file," Dani said.

"You're not your mother."

"No."

Dani held out her hand.

"But I'm standing where she stood."

Sal found Renata's folder.

He laid it on the desk.

The officer did not take it.

"Tonight's complaint comes first," he said.

"If you find something relevant, preserve it."

He left his card beside the report number.

The officers still needed the waiter's account.

They went downstairs without taking Dani.

Gina watched them leave.

Then Sal opened the folder.

A photograph was clipped inside.

Renata wore a dark work vest.

Her hair had come loose near one ear.

Dani touched the desk beside it.

Not the picture.

Dot pulled the chair closer.

This time, Dani sat.

Sal turned a page.

A typed incident statement followed the photograph.

January 2001.

Dani read the first lines.

Sal's father's medallion had disappeared.

Renata had been accused.

A search had found nothing.

"Nothing?" Dani asked.

Gina leaned forward.

"She'd already passed it to somebody."

"Who?"

"We never found out."

Sal read farther.

The heirloom had later been returned.

There was no receipt.

No name.

No statement from whoever brought it back.

Only Gina's signature at the bottom.

Dani looked up.

"You wrote this."

"I ran the staff then, too."

"Where did it come back from?"

"A secondhand store."

"Which one?"

"It was twenty-four years ago."

Sal kept his eyes on the page.

"You told me the owner recognized it."

"He did."

"You said he saw Renata bring it in."

Gina pressed her lips together.

"That's what he told me."

"His name isn't here."

"I didn't write down every word."

Dot stood behind Dani's chair.

"You wouldn't let her talk to him."

Gina looked at her.

"She wanted the address."

"I don't remember that."

"I do."

Dani turned in the chair.

"You knew my mom?"

Dot nodded.

"We worked this counter together."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I knew you as Dani Lane."

"Lane was my dad's name."

Dot swallowed.

"I didn't know whose girl you were."

"The staffing company has my legal name."

Gina looked down at her hands.

Sal saw it.

"So did the invoice you approved," he said.

"I approve dozens of invoices."

Dani faced the file again.

Her mother's address was written beneath the photograph.

An apartment over a hardware store.

There was an emergency contact.

BEN LANE.

Sal tapped the name once.

"Your father?"

"Yes."

"She was pregnant when she left."

Dani looked at the January date.

"I was born in February."

Gina shifted in her chair.

"She had somewhere to go."

"She slept on my aunt's couch," Dani said.

"Until my dad got us an apartment."

Sal's hand flattened against the file.

Dani turned another page.

An attendance card.

A tax form.

Then a thin carbon copy folded twice.

The heading named the Grand Meridian.

Below it were words about ownership.

She read them slowly.

"What is this?"

Sal looked at the page.

His face went still.

"A transfer."

"Of what?"

"Her interest in the business."

Dani looked back at the heading.

The paper said Renata had given up half the Grand Meridian.