Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Then appeared again.
“I’m sorry,” the woman replied. “I thought this was Mrs. Evelyn’s number. She used to help me when things got difficult. I must have saved it incorrectly.”
A moment later, another message arrived.
“I’m sorry to bother you. Please forget I sent anything.”
Ethan looked out the window.
Beyond the glass, Manhattan glittered beneath the winter sky. Snow had gathered along the sidewalks, and people hurried past restaurants and hotels wearing thick coats and carrying champagne bottles.
He had grown up in a very different Manhattan.
His childhood had been spent in a cramped Queens apartment where the heating failed whenever winter became particularly cruel. His mother, Margaret, had worked double shifts cleaning office buildings, returning home with aching feet and a smile she tried to make convincing.
When Ethan was six months old, his father had disappeared from their lives.
Margaret never spoke bitterly about him. She simply worked harder.
