Chapter 2 - The Man Who Knew Her Mother’s Name
Josie did not sleep that night.
At 3:12 in the morning, she finally stopped pretending she might.
She dressed, walked through dark streets toward Hartley’s Corner, unlocked the roll-up door, and turned on the lights.
The old store seemed different.
Nothing had physically changed.
The baskets remained where she had left them.
The half-price table stood against the wall.
The cooler hummed.
But Enzo Ferrante’s last word had followed her home.
Yours.
Josie had paid rent on Hartley’s Corner since she turned eighteen.
Before that, Sylvia managed the property as her guardian.
At least, that was what Josie had always been told.
Margarite’s death had left two daughters.
Bethany was fifteen.
Josie was eleven.
Their father had disappeared from their lives years before, sending occasional birthday cards and even more occasional checks until the cards stopped too.
Sylvia Hartley—Margarite’s younger sister—became their legal guardian.
Bethany moved into Sylvia’s suburban home immediately.
Josie lasted nine months.
She fought with Sylvia.
Fought with Bethany.
Fought with teachers.
Fought with anyone who suggested that the store should be sold.
Eventually an arrangement was made allowing Josie to spend afternoons and weekends at Hartley’s Corner under supervision of an elderly manager named Mr. Talbot.
By sixteen, she could run the register alone.
At eighteen, Sylvia presented her with a lease.
Josie never questioned it.
The building, Sylvia explained, had passed into the Hartley family trust after Margarite’s death.
Sylvia controlled the trust.
Josie could continue operating the business, but businesses paid rent.
Eight hundred and fifty dollars a month.
Josie signed.
For four years she paid her aunt to remain inside the store her mother had built.
At 5:45 the next morning, Chef Rowan arrived.
Josie showed him the produce.
She showed him the invoices.
The cooler.
The delivery schedule.
The herbs.
The way she rejected tomatoes too soft for transport but set them aside for same-day sauce rather than wasting them.
Rowan asked eleven questions.
Josie answered all eleven.
At 6:28, he said, “I’ll give you thirty days.”
She blinked.
“The contract?”
“Trial contract.”
“You saw what happened last night.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“I run a restaurant, Ms. Hartley. I don’t buy rumors. I buy onions.”
For the first time in days, Josie nearly laughed.
Rowan gave her the order list.
“If your onions are bad, then we have a problem.”
At 8:10, Enzo Ferrante entered Hartley’s Corner.
He wore no tie.
His jacket was dark gray instead of black.
Two men remained outside.
Josie recognized one from stories whispered throughout Old Harrow.
Matteo Russo.
Ferrante’s security chief.
The other was younger and carried a leather folder.
Enzo walked past the regular display and stopped at the crooked-produce table.
He read Margarite’s faded sign.
Being misshapen doesn’t mean being ruined. Just take a bite and see.
His mouth tightened.
“She wrote that?”
“Yes.”
“She told me the same thing once.”
Josie looked up.
“When?”
“Nineteen years ago.”
“What did she think was misshapen about you?”
Enzo glanced at her.
“Most of me.”
The answer was so dry that Josie could not tell whether it was a joke.
The younger man opened the leather folder.
“This is Daniel Mercer,” Enzo said. “Attorney.”
“I don’t need one.”
“You might.”
Josie crossed her arms.
“I also don’t have money for one.”
“He isn’t billing you.”
“Then he isn’t my attorney.”
Daniel looked toward Enzo.
Enzo said, “I told you she would say that.”
“You discussed me?”
“We discussed property records.”
Daniel placed one sheet of paper on the counter.
It was an old map.
Old Harrow Market occupied most of a city block.
Hartley’s Corner sat at the eastern edge.
Daniel pointed toward the storefront.
“The market complex is owned primarily through Ferrante Market Holdings.”
Josie looked at Enzo.
“Primarily?”
“Forty-one of the forty-two commercial units,” Daniel said.
Josie stared at the map.
“And the forty-second?”
“Hartley’s Corner.”
“That makes no sense.”
“According to the original 2004 deed, it was purchased separately by Margarite Hartley.”
“My mother didn’t have that kind of money.”
Enzo spoke.
“She did after she sold me something.”
Josie looked at him.
“What?”
“A warehouse.”
“My mother owned a warehouse?”
“No. She owned twelve percent of one.”
Every answer created two more questions.
Enzo leaned against the counter.
“Your mother worked here before this became Hartley’s Corner. She cleaned offices upstairs three nights a week while she built her catering business.”
Josie had never heard this.
“One night she found a document somebody had dropped in a trash container.”
“What document?”
“Proof that one of my uncles had been stealing from me.”
Josie stared at him.
Enzo’s expression remained unreadable.
“She returned it instead of selling it to someone who would have paid her enough money to disappear.”
“So you rewarded her?”
“No. She refused.”
“Then how did she get the storefront?”
“I sold her a small ownership interest I held in a warehouse for what she could afford. Three years later the warehouse was purchased by a development company. She made enough profit to buy this property.”
Josie looked around the store.
Everything she had been told about its history had just shifted.
Daniel placed another record on the counter.
“Your mother owned this building outright.”
“Then why am I paying Sylvia rent?”
“That,” Daniel said, “is what we are trying to determine.”
Josie looked toward Enzo.
“You said Howard Brennan was looking for a record.”
Enzo nodded.
“Howard worked in title and probate law most of his life. He handled several of the market’s property transactions.”
“Why would he meet with me three times and say almost nothing?”
“Because Howard had one significant weakness.”
“What?”
“He was afraid of conflict.”
Josie laughed once without humor.
“That was worth twelve stitches.”
Enzo’s expression hardened.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
He did not argue.
Josie looked at the old map.
“Where is the deed now?”
“We don’t know.”
“What happened after my mother died?”
Daniel answered.
“A document was filed transferring the property into a guardianship trust controlled by Sylvia Hartley.”
“That sounds normal.”
“Until you read the second document.”
He placed it beside the first.
It was dated six months after Margarite’s death.
The paper stated that Bethany and Josephine Hartley relinquished beneficial interest in the property.
Josie stared at the signature.
Josephine Hartley.
She had never signed Josephine.
Not once.
Her school records said Josie.
Her state identification said Josie.
Even the birthday cards her mother wrote said Josie.
“How old was I?”
“Eleven.”
Daniel nodded.
“Which is why this document is unusual.”
“I couldn’t legally sign away property.”
“Correct.”
“What about Bethany?”
“She was fifteen.”
“So neither of us could.”
“Not without court approval that we cannot find.”
Josie looked at Enzo.
“Forgery?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“You think Sylvia stole the building.”
“I think somebody wants you out of it.”
The memory of the chainsaw returned.
The doubled rent.
The fake complaints.
The scandal.
The crowd.
Josie felt suddenly cold.
“Why now?”
Daniel pulled out a third sheet.
A zoning application.
“Alden Urban Development filed preliminary plans six weeks ago for a redevelopment project on the east end of Bellweather.”
Josie recognized the shaded area.
Old Harrow Market.
Hartley’s Corner.
A proposed hotel.
Retail.
Luxury apartments.
An underground parking entrance.
The entrance passed directly through the space where Margarite’s fig tree had stood.
“How much?”
Daniel hesitated.
“How much are they paying Sylvia?”
“Preliminary option agreement is four point eight million dollars.”
Josie looked at him.
Then laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
She had spent the previous week deciding whether she could afford seventeen hundred dollars in rent.
Sylvia was preparing to sell the building beneath her for nearly five million.
Enzo watched her carefully.
Josie reached into her apron.
Pulled out the crumpled calculation from the previous week.
Five weeks.
That was what she had written.
Five weeks before she lost everything.
She placed it on the counter.
“My aunt told me I had five weeks.”
Enzo looked at the paper.
“She may have less.”
Josie immediately stiffened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means my lawyer can request an injunction.”
“No threats.”
Daniel looked surprised.
Enzo did not.
“Excuse me?”
“I know who you are.”
Enzo’s face became still.
“Do you?”
“I grew up in this market. I know what people say.”
“And what do they say?”
“That people don’t tell Enzo Ferrante no.”
“I hear it regularly.”
“That people who cause problems for your business stop causing them.”
“People tell dramatic stories.”
“I don’t want Sylvia frightened into giving me the building.”
Enzo stepped closer.
“What do you want?”
Josie thought about the question.
“The truth.”
“That is usually more expensive.”
“I still want it.”
Enzo studied her for several seconds.
Then he nodded at Daniel.
“Court filings only.”
Daniel closed the folder.
“No pressure outside legal channels.”
Enzo’s eyes remained on Josie.
“If that is what she wants.”
“It is.”
“Then that is what happens.”
Josie expected relief.
Instead she felt something more dangerous.
Hope.
At noon, Sylvia arrived.
She came alone.
This time she entered the store.
She stood approximately six feet from Josie, which was farther inside than Josie had seen her stand in years.
“I heard Ferrante was here.”
Josie kept stacking apples.
“People seem to hear everything around here.”
Sylvia’s jaw tightened.
“You don’t understand men like him.”
“I don’t understand you either.”
“Don’t be childish.”
Josie set down the apple.
“Why am I paying rent on a building Mom owned?”
Sylvia went completely still.
That was the answer before she spoke.
“Who told you that?”
“Was it hers?”
“Property law is more complicated than Enzo Ferrante pretending to rescue a poor girl.”
“Was it hers?”
Sylvia’s eyes moved toward the front window.
“Your mother left chaos.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I cleaned up that chaos.”
“With a document signed by an eleven-year-old?”
Sylvia looked back sharply.
Josie knew.
For the first time, she knew something Sylvia did not know she knew.
The balance between them changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Sylvia’s voice lowered.
“You need to stop.”
“No.”
“You have no idea what your mother was involved in.”
“Then tell me.”
“You think Margarite was some saint because she handed bruised fruit to poor people and painted little sayings on wood?”
Josie’s hands curled against the counter.
“I think she was my mother.”
“She was reckless.”
“About what?”
Sylvia stepped closer.
“That market.”
“What about it?”
“She refused to understand that some things become bigger than one person.”
“You mean four point eight million dollars?”
Sylvia’s face changed.
Only for half a second.
Josie saw it.
“How do you know that?”
“I know enough.”
“No. You know whatever Ferrante wants you to know.”
“And what do you want me to know?”
“That I kept you alive after your mother died.”
The words landed hard.
Josie said nothing.
Sylvia’s voice softened.
“I fed you. I housed you. I dealt with your school suspensions. Your screaming. Your running away. Your obsession with this filthy little store.”
“I was eleven.”
“I know exactly how old you were.”
“Then why is my signature on a property transfer?”
Sylvia’s eyes hardened.
“You want gratitude to become an accounting problem?”
“I want the truth.”
“You sound exactly like Margarite.”
“Good.”
“No.”
Sylvia moved so close that only the counter separated them.
“That is not a compliment.”
Then she left.
That evening, Josie received fourteen new messages.
Someone had posted photographs of Enzo entering Hartley’s Corner.
The caption read:
Looks like she found another married man.
Enzo Ferrante was not married.
Facts did not matter.
By midnight the post had twelve thousand shares.
At 12:17, a brick came through Hartley’s front window.
Josie was in the cooler when the glass shattered.
She ran out and found the brick on the floor wrapped in a sheet of printer paper.
One word had been written across it.
HOMEWRECKER.
Josie stood among the glass for several seconds.
Then headlights swept across the broken window.
Two black vehicles stopped outside.
Enzo stepped from the first.
He saw the brick.
He saw the paper.
Something in his face became terrifyingly quiet.
“Who did this?”
“I don’t know.”
Matteo started toward the street.
Josie grabbed Enzo’s sleeve.
“No.”
Enzo looked down at her hand.
She released it.
“You promised.”
His jaw tightened.
“I promised court filings.”
“Then file something.”
“Somebody just threw a brick through your window.”
“And if you send people after them, what happens tomorrow? Another post saying I have a mafia boss attacking people for me?”
Enzo looked toward the dark street.
Josie stepped between him and the door.
“I don’t want people afraid of what happens if they hurt me.”
“Why?”
“I want them ashamed they did it.”
Enzo looked at her for a long time.
Then he turned to Matteo.
“Call the police.”
Matteo blinked.
“The police?”
“You heard her.”
By one in the morning, an officer was taking photographs.
At 1:26, Daniel Mercer filed an emergency request preventing any sale or transfer of Hartley’s Corner until ownership could be reviewed.
At 2:03, Enzo stood outside beneath the broken window while Josie swept glass.
“You should go home.”
“So should you.”
“I own this place.”
“You own forty-one parts of it.”
Enzo almost smiled.
Josie put the broom away.
As she passed the crooked-produce table, she noticed something.
The brick had struck the wall before landing.
The old wooden sign had fallen face-down.
Josie bent and picked it up.
One of the nails holding the backing strip had broken.
She turned the sign over.
For the first time in years, the back was exposed beneath bright light.
There were numbers written there.
Old.
Faded.
Almost invisible.
A date.
A parcel number.
And beneath it, in Margarite Hartley’s handwriting, six words.
Howard has the second copy. Trust him.
Josie stopped breathing.
Enzo read over her shoulder.
Neither spoke.
May you like
Howard Brennan was dead.
But somewhere, a second copy still existed.
