Chapter 2 - THE NAME HE SHOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN
Emily did not sleep.
At 2:13 a.m., she was still sitting at her kitchen table with Daniel Reeves’s card beneath the yellow light.
Ask about your father.
She turned it over.
Daniel Reeves.
The name meant nothing.
She searched it online.
Dozens of Daniel Reeves appeared.
Doctors.
Contractors.
Teachers.
A retired baseball coach in Kentucky.
None looked like the man from Table 14.
At 3:05, she finally opened an old storage box from the hall closet.
Inside were photographs her mother had left behind.
Emily’s father, Robert Carter, had died when she was ten.
Officially, it had been a construction accident.
He had fallen six stories from a partially completed building downtown.
Emily remembered almost nothing about that day except her mother sitting on the kitchen floor and saying, “Your daddy isn’t coming home.”
She found a photograph of him standing beside an old brick storefront.
On the back, her mother had written:
Robert - Walnut Street - 2005.
Emily stared.
Walnut Street.
The Golden Spoon was on Walnut.
She reached for Daniel’s card again.
At 6:41 a.m., pounding shook her apartment door.
Emily froze.
Tyler was asleep on the couch after catching a late bus home from school.
“Emily?”
He sat up.
Another knock.
Then a man called through the door.
“Ms. Carter? I’m with Reeves Holdings.”
Emily’s pulse quickened.
She opened the door two inches, chain still fastened.
A man in a navy overcoat stood in the hallway.
He held a leather folder.
“Yes?”
“Ms. Carter, my name is Mark Ellison. Mr. Daniel Reeves asked me to deliver this personally.”
Emily stared at him.
“Daniel from the restaurant?”
The man paused.
“Yes.”
She unhooked the chain.
“What is Reeves Holdings?”
Mark looked surprised.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
He handed her the folder.
Inside was a letter.
Emily,
Thank you for treating me like a man instead of a problem.
Please come to 400 West Fourth Street at 9:00 a.m.
There is something you deserve to know.
Daniel.
Beneath the letter sat a newspaper clipping.
EMPIRE BUILDER DANIEL REEVES BUYS RIVERFRONT DISTRICT FOR $310 MILLION.
Emily stopped breathing.
The photograph beside the headline showed Daniel twenty years younger.
Same eyes.
Same face.
Same quiet expression.
Tyler leaned over her shoulder.
“Who is that?”
“The man I bought dinner for.”
Tyler blinked.
“You bought dinner for a billionaire?”
Apparently.
Mark cleared his throat.
“Mr. Reeves’s car is waiting downstairs.”
Emily looked toward the window.
A black Mercedes idled at the curb.
Tyler whistled.
“Em.”
“I’m not getting into a billionaire’s car.”
“Why?”
“Because billionaires don’t show up at your apartment at sunrise unless something is wrong.”
Mark spoke carefully.
“Mr. Reeves expected you might feel that way.”
He removed another envelope.
“This is for your brother.”
Tyler frowned.
He opened it.
Inside was a receipt.
PAID IN FULL.
Cincinnati Community College.
Outstanding tuition balance: $4,280.
Tyler’s mouth fell open.
Emily’s anger exploded.
“No.”
She grabbed the receipt.
“No. Absolutely not.”
Mark stiffened.
“Ms. Carter—”
“He doesn’t get to do this.”
“He believed—”
“I fed him twenty-two dollars. That doesn’t buy the right to interfere with my family.”
Mark almost smiled.
“He said you’d say that.”
Emily looked at him sharply.
“What else did he say?”
Mark removed one final object from the folder.
An old brass key.
Emily recognized it immediately.
Her father had carried one exactly like it on his keychain.
She picked it up.
Stamped into the metal were two numbers.
The same number as Daniel’s table.
Emily looked at Mark.
“What does this open?”
His expression changed.
“I was instructed not to answer.”
“Why?”
“Because Mr. Reeves said you needed to see it yourself.”
Emily felt cold despite the heated apartment.
“Where?”
Mark looked directly at her.
“The basement of the Golden Spoon.”
May you like
Then he said the words that made her grip the folder tighter.
“Your father owned that building before Daniel Reeves did.”
