“In 2013, I bought the building.”
“The woman in this photograph is my mother.”
“And I own every chair in this room.”
“Including the one you’re standing next to.”
It was the sort of silence that has a sound.
I heard the fryer hissing in the kitchen.
I heard a spoon fall against a bowl.
I heard Krista say, very softly, “Oh no.”
Noelia, still holding her folded apron, had both hands over her mouth.
Hunter’s face went through every color a face can.
“Mr. Meza,” he said.
His voice had climbed half an octave.
“This is a misunderstanding.”
“We were testing the staff.”
“I had no idea it was you.”
“Hunter.”
“And you did it wearing a fourteen-thousand-dollar watch,” I said.
Then he found his footing, the way a cornered man will.
“You signed the pilot yourself,” he said.
“The Cardenas contract.”
“It has your signature on it.”
