Chapter 3 - The Cold Truth
Victoria stared at the crayon lettering on the envelope, the purple wax suddenly appearing like hot coal against her desk. Her heart slammed violently against her ribs. For ten years, she had built an iron wall around herself, treating every gesture of kindness as a calculated transaction, a trap, or an overture from someone who wanted a piece of Whitmore Properties. She had become so thoroughly conditioned by the cutthroat nature of corporate Chicago that she had looked at an innocent bundle of flowers and seen only an employee overstepping his station.
""Where is the envelope contents?"" she asked, her voice barely louder than a whisper, the authority completely stripped from her tone.
Patrick reached forward and carefully slid the folded piece of drawing paper from inside the envelope. He laid it flat before her.
It was a child’s drawing. Underneath a crooked blue sky drawn with jagged strokes, three figures stood holding hands in a field of green grass. On the left was a tall man wearing a blue maintenance uniform with a silver flashlight on his belt. On the right was a smiling woman drawn with enormous white angel wings extending into the clouds. And in the middle was a little girl with crooked pigtails, holding a bundle of white flowers. At the bottom, written in the same purple crayon, was a sentence that pierced right through Victoria’s armor:
Mommy said tulips open up to the whole world, so don't be sad today.
Taped to the bottom of the drawing was a wrinkled register receipt from a local corner market on 14th Street. It listed one bundle of domestic white tulips, followed by a total of $11.40 paid entirely in coins and one-dollar bills.
Victoria brought her hand to her mouth. The image of the stainless-steel trash can flashed across her vision, accompanied by the vivid, sickening memory of the brittle snap as the stems fractured against the bin. Forty-three people had seen her do it. Forty-three witnesses had watched their high-powered CEO ruthlessly discard an eight-year-old orphan’s tribute to her dead mother.
""Where is Graham now?"" Victoria demanded, standing up so abruptly that her leather chair rolled back and hit the wall.
""His shift isn't over, but he isn't in the building,"" Patrick said, shaking his head. ""He clocked out for an unpaid emergency break twenty minutes ago. Daniel Foster said Ellis went down to the service dock to collect his coat.""
""Did he say where he was going?""
May you like
""No,"" Patrick replied solemnly. ""Daniel asked him if something was wrong because his eyes were red. All Graham said was that he had a promise to keep, and he had to figure out how to tell an eight-year-old girl why her mother’s flowers never made it to St. Claire Street.""
Victoria didn't wait for Patrick to finish. Grabbing her coat and abandoning her afternoon schedule for the first time in her twelve-year tenure at Whitmore Properties, she rushed toward the private elevator.
