Chapter 18: The Van

Declan's POV

I texted her before I left, because I had signed a paper at her kitchen table.

"Rule six. I'm going to see the server from the gala. Alone. She won't open the door to two of us. Back by ten."

Cora wrote back inside a minute.

"Take the good coat. And Declan, don't promise her anything you can't pay."

I looked at that for longer than I should have.

The girl lived in a brick two-flat on the south side, with a ramp built up to the front porch.

In the drive stood the white car Romy had described.

It was a van with a lift on the side, and a folded wheelchair in the back.

I knocked.

She opened the door on the chain.

She was perhaps twenty-three, in a hotel uniform with the name tag taken off, and she looked at my face for a long time.

"You're him," she said. "The one who got thrown out of the tower."

"I'm Declan Kirkbride."

"I know who you are. Everyone's seen the video." She didn't open the chain. "I can't talk to you."

"I won't come in."

"I signed something."

"I know. I'm not going to ask what's in it."

She stared at me.

"I want to know about the van," I said.

Her face changed.

It was the face of someone who has been waiting for a question, and been given the wrong one.

The chain slid off.

She stood in the doorway with her arms wrapped around herself, and told me.

Her mother had a spinal injury, two years old.

Her mother needed a lift to get to dialysis three times a week.

The bus line had been cut, and the transport service had a six-month wait.

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