Chapter 6 - The Badge
The rear window came down.
Margaret Whitmore was sitting in the back seat with her broken purse on her lap and her worn shoes on the floor mat, and she looked entirely different and exactly the same.
“Get in, sweetheart,” she said.
Emily did not move.
“Ma’am—”
“It’s raining, and you’ve had a terrible night, and I have a phone call to make.” Margaret’s voice was gentle and absolutely certain. “Get in.”
Emily got in.
The car was warm. The seat was leather. There was a blanket folded on the armrest, and Margaret picked it up and put it around Emily’s shoulders without asking.
“I don’t understand,” Emily said.
“I know.” Margaret took a phone out of her purse—not the cracked old thing Emily had seen at the table, but a slim black phone—and dialed a number from memory.
“Alexander,” she said. “It’s your mother.”
Emily heard a man’s voice on the other end, tinny and alarmed.
“I’m fine. Listen to me. I went to the Meridian tonight, the way we discussed.” A pause. “It went further than we planned. They fired Emily.”
The voice on the phone said something sharp.
“She defended me. She fed me. She lost her job for it.” Margaret’s hand found Emily’s and held it. “And then they accused her of stealing. Richard fired her after she asked to see the security footage. He refused to check the cameras.”
Another pause.
“Alexander. This has gone too far.” Margaret’s voice hardened. “You wanted to know what your staff does when nobody powerful is watching. Now you know. Tell me exactly what happened.”
She listened. Then she held the phone out to Emily.
“He wants to hear it from you.”
Emily took the phone.
“My name is Emily Vance,” she said. “I’ve worked at the Meridian for two years and eleven months. Tonight I noticed that the tips recorded at the register were less than half of what guests left. Mr. Collins signed the adjustments himself. When I asked about it, he accused me of stealing from the cash drawer. I never touched it. I asked him to check the cameras and he refused.”
The voice on the other end was quiet for a moment.
“Miss Vance,” it said. “I’m sorry. I’m going to fix this.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the man who owns the restaurant.”
Emily lowered the phone.
Margaret took it back. “Alexander. Preserve every security recording and transaction log from tonight. Nobody touches those files until your investigators review them. And Alexander—” She paused. “Don’t just punish Richard. Restore her name. She protected a stranger when she believed nobody powerful was watching.”
She hung up.
“Ma’am,” Emily said. “Who are you?”
Margaret Whitmore looked out the window at the rain.
May you like
“I’m a woman who was turned away from a restaurant twenty-nine years ago,” she said, “because I couldn’t afford dinner for my son. And tonight I found out what this city is still made of.”
The car pulled away from the curb.
