I checked the toilets and then rushed to the entrance. There’s no sign of them.
Jett barely looked up when I ran into his office.
“They left,” I said. “Table twelve. They didn’t pay.”
He exhaled through his nose. “Maybe they’re in a bathroom or smoking a cigarette?”
“Check the cameras. You will see them leave.”
“I don’t have time to review the images during the dinner service” Finally he looked at me. “You know politics. “Stakes come out of the server’s pocket”
“It’s four hundred dollars.”
“Then take it as a lesson.”
A lesson.
Like I’ve been invited to steal from me.
“Then take it as a lesson.”
I paid the bill at the end of my shift with trembling hands. When I came out, the anger had hardened into something heavier.
Four hundred dollars had disappeared, my mother was still missing and I had no idea how she would explain either of my family.
Jett called me at eight the next morning.
“Can you go in?” He asked.
I hadn’t slept more than three hours and my eyes were still burning from so much crying. “My shift doesn’t start until five.”
“I know.” His voice sounded tense. “Come as soon as you can.”
“Can you go in?”
Twenty minutes later, I walked into Bellamy’s house wearing yesterday’s jeans and waiting for another conference. Instead, I found Jett waiting next to the table twelve.
It was nothing like the derogatory man who had taken my money the night before. His face was pale and his neck was still rubbed.
“Ce s-a întâmplat?” I asked.
