I knew the name. Tessa had mentioned him as a colleague who understood art sales better than anybody she'd met. I'd shaken his hand at a gallery opening eight months earlier. More recently, I'd seen that same name flash across her phone at breakfast and watched her dismiss the call without answering. She had just told me that Adrian was the man she wanted instead of me, though she had waited until after I'd packed half my bag to say it aloud.
The first sentence of his message made the room seem to tilt around me.
She didn't bring you to Chicago to break up with you. She brought you here so you'd be five hundred miles away when they emptied your father's workshop.
I read it twice. Then a third time, slower. My father had been dead for six years, and his workshop was the one place in Pittsburgh I still sometimes entered expecting to hear him humming over a piece of walnut. I hadn't told Adrian how much the place meant to me, and I couldn't understand why he was messaging me now. Then another message appeared.
I'm at the loading dock. Her brother has a truck. They have paperwork with your signature on it, but I don't believe you signed it. Call Nora and get someone to the building now.
Across the room, Tessa was watching my face. Her expression had gone from irritated to concerned in a matter of seconds. "Who is that?" she asked.
I turned the phone facedown against my thigh. "A message."
"From whom?"
"Why?"
"Because you look like somebody died."
I wanted to tell her that somebody had, six years ago, and that apparently she'd decided even his memory had a price. Instead I opened my contacts and called my sister. Nora answered after the fourth ring, her voice thick with sleep.
"Daniel? Everything okay?"
"I need you to listen carefully," I said. "Are you home?"
"Yes. What's wrong?"