Chapter 2 - The Bakery at the End of the StreetThe next morning, I woke to three missed calls from Theo and a photograph of a bakery I had not visited in more than a decade.
The sign above the narrow storefront read BENNETT'S BREAD & PASTRIES. One of the letters had fallen crooked, the front window was cloudy with age, and a handwritten sign advertised day-old bread at half price.
It stood between a laundromat and a shuttered furniture store on a street that had long ago been forgotten by Chicago's developers.
According to Theo's report, Ellie lived above the bakery with her aunt, Maya.
Her mother, Clara Bennett, had died in a car accident fourteen months earlier.
No father was listed on the child's birth certificate.
Maya had worked at the bakery for years, first with her sister, then alone after Clara's death. The shop was three months behind on its mortgage. Its electricity had been threatened with disconnection twice. A local property company had recently offered to buy the building.
The company was owned by an investment group whose major shareholder was Calvin Marlowe.
I read that last detail three times.
“Has Marlowe been there?” I asked.
“Two men visited yesterday afternoon,” Theo replied. “They asked Maya about Clara. Specifically, they asked whether Clara had left any documents, photographs, or personal possessions.”
“And what did she say?”
“She told them to leave.”
I closed the folder.
“Get the car.”
“Where are we going?”
“To buy bread.”
Theo looked as though I had asked him to rob a kindergarten.
Twenty-five minutes later, my limousine stopped outside Bennett's Bread & Pastries. I left the bodyguards in the car and entered alone.
A small bell rang above the door.
Warm air carrying the smell of cinnamon and fresh dough greeted me. The place was nearly empty. Behind the counter, Maya was wrapping a loaf of bread in brown paper.
When she saw me, her hands froze.
“You.”
“Good morning.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Buying bread.”
She looked at my expensive coat, my polished shoes, and the empty street behind me.
“You drove here to buy bread?”
“I've heard good things.”
“You've never been here.”
“Then I've been missing out.”
Her expression told me she had never encountered a man who could make a ridiculous statement sound like a business proposition.
From a table near the window, Ellie looked up from a coloring book.
“Mister Rourke!”
She ran toward me, almost colliding with the counter.
“Ellie, don't bother the customer,” Maya warned.
“He came back!”
“I noticed.”
Ellie inspected my hands.
“Did you lose your wallet again?”
“Not yet.”
She nodded solemnly, as though she would be prepared to rescue me a second time.
I ordered six loaves of bread, two boxes of pastries, and everything Ellie insisted was the best thing in the shop.
Maya wrapped the order with stiff, careful movements.
“You don't have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you need food from a struggling bakery.”
I placed several bills on the counter.
“I do need food.”
“You need somebody to deliver it to your office. Or a chef.”
“Both, actually.”
She pushed the money back.
“The order costs twenty-eight dollars.”
“Then keep the change.”
“No.”
Her answer came so quickly that I almost smiled.
“Your niece has been giving me lessons in generosity. I thought I'd return the favor.”
“Generosity isn't generosity when it makes someone feel indebted.”
For the first time, I understood why Ellie had refused my money.
She had learned from a woman who would rather struggle than owe a powerful stranger a favor.
I put the extra bills away.
“Twenty-eight dollars, then.”
Maya relaxed slightly.
I was about to leave when a black sedan stopped across the street.
Two men got out.
Maya saw them through the window, and the blood drained from her face.
One of the men pointed toward the bakery.
The other reached into his coat.
I recognized him.
Frank Delaney, Calvin Marlowe's personal enforcer.
He had once broken a man's hand for touching Calvin's glass. Years earlier, he had stood beside Calvin at my father's funeral, watching me from beneath a black umbrella.
I turned to Maya.
“Take Ellie upstairs.”
“Why?”
“Now.”
She didn't argue.
She seized Ellie's hand and hurried toward the rear staircase.
The bell above the front door rang.
Frank entered, followed by the second man.
His gaze moved from the shelves to the counter, then settled on me.
A slow smile appeared.
“Sebastian Rourke. I never expected to find you shopping in a place like this.”
“Then your expectations need work.”
Frank glanced toward the staircase.
“We're here for Clara Bennett's belongings.”
“The bakery is open for business. Try ordering something.”
His smile disappeared.
“This isn't your concern.”
I stepped closer.
“Then leave before it becomes one.”
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Frank's companion shifted his hand inside his coat.
I saw it. Frank saw me see it.
Then a small voice floated down from upstairs.
“Uncle Sebastian?”
I hadn't realized Ellie had heard us.
Frank looked at me.
Something changed in his expression.
It wasn't fear. It was recognition.
“You know the child,” he said quietly.
I didn't answer.
He adjusted his cuff.
“Calvin will be very interested to hear that.”
When they left, Maya appeared at the top of the stairs, holding Ellie so tightly that the child squirmed in her arms.
“Who were they?” I asked.
Maya looked at the door.
“Men who killed my sister.”
The bakery suddenly seemed colder.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
Maya's eyes moved toward the little girl beside her.
Then she looked back at me.
“No.”
She took Ellie's hand and started upstairs.
Before disappearing, she spoke one last sentence.
“If you truly want to know what happened to Clara Bennett, ask your dead mother.”
And with that, the woman shut the door between us.
I stood in the middle of the bakery, staring at the staircase.
May you like
My mother had been dead for eleven years.
Yet somehow, Maya Bennett was telling me that the answers to a murder, a missing secret, and a six-year-old girl's endangered life had begun with her.
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