It's on Fifth. There's a red awning. I've been sitting here for 2 hours and I don't I can't call anyone Mr. Walker. Do you understand?
There's nobody I can call. Nathan went still. Victoria Harrington ran a company worth 11 billion. She had a personal assistant, a driver, a security detail, a board of directors, 400 employees, a fiance plastered across the business section of every newspaper in the country. She had more people than anyone Nathan had ever met.
And she'd called the maintenance supervisor. I need you to come get me, she whispered. Please, I don't have anyone else. He didn't ask why. He didn't ask how she got his number or where her driver was or why a woman with everything was sitting alone in the corner of a restaurant at midnight begging a man who fixed her building's air conditioning to come and take her home.
He just said, "Don't move. I'm on my way. " He grabbed his jacket. Then he stopped. Lily, he couldn't leave her. He walked down the hall as quietly as he could and pushed the door open.
She was asleep on her side, one arm thrown over the stuffed rabbit she'd had since she was two, her mouth open just slightly. 7 years old. The whole reason he got up in the morning, he couldn't take her out into the rain at midnight to go collect his drunk boss. And he couldn't leave her alone. He stood there for a long moment, jaw-tight, running through the short, sad list of people he could call.
Then he pulled out his phone and dialed the one name on it. "Mrs. Alvarez," he said quietly when the old woman across the hall answered. "I'm so sorry to call this late. I know it's Yes.
Yes, ma'am. Something's come up. A work thing. I hate to ask. Could you come sit with Lily just for an hour?
Maybe two. I'll leave the door unlocked. " The old woman didn't hesitate. She'd raised four kids of her own and buried a husband. And she understood better than most what it meant when a good man asks for help at midnight. "Go," she said.
"I'll be there in 2 minutes. Go on. " Nathan drove too fast. He knew he was driving too fast, and he made himself ease off the gas twice because a wreck wouldn't help anyone, but his hands wouldn't stop gripping the wheel like it might get away from him. The wipers couldn't keep up with the rain. The city smeared past his windows in streaks of red and gold.
The whole way there, one thought circled his head like a bird that wouldn't land. She called me. 3 years he'd worked in that building. 3 years he'd nodded at her in the elevator when she happened to be in it. And she'd nodded back the way you nod at furniture that moves.