Chapter 1 - The Glass at One A.M.
Word count target: ~800 words
At one in the morning, Ferris Street Coffee held nothing but Marin and the fading hum of the espresso machine cooling down.
She turned each chair upside down on its table in the same order she’d followed for four years—farthest corner first, working toward the door—because that way she never had her back to the glass for more than a few seconds at a time. Outside, the first snow of the season had been falling since early evening. Thin, wet Boston snow that melted the moment it touched the pavement but lingered just long enough to gather on the roofs of the cars parked along the curb.
She wiped the steam wand. Rinsed the drip tray. Shut off the water valve.
The good thing about the night shift near the harbor was that no one talked to her. The bad thing was the same thing.
Estelle had left at nine, leaving a note taped to the register reminding her to lock both the upper bolt and the lower one, as though Marin had forgotten even once in four years.
She opened the drawer beneath the counter and took out the metal tin box. She poured the tips onto the wood, pushing the coins into a separate pile, and smoothed each bill flat with the edge of her hand. Forty-one dollars. A dockworker on the morning shift had left five because she remembered he took his coffee without sugar. Three college boys had stayed until midnight, ordered two drinks, and left a single dollar next to an upside-down paper cup.
She added it all in her head. No paper, no pencil. It was the habit of someone who had once counted gauze pads and surgical needles in a room where being off by one meant somebody had to reopen an incision.
She slid the bills into an envelope already marked MARLO RIDGE — DECEMBER in her own bold, decisive handwriting. Then she counted it once more.
She was still three hundred and forty dollars short.
Eleven days remained before the payment was due. Three extra shifts at the laundromat down the street would bring in about two hundred. If the weather held, the week’s tips might cover the rest. Maybe that would be enough. Maybe it wouldn’t. She had lived by calculations like these long enough that they no longer frightened her. They only made her tired.
She switched off the lights over the main counter, leaving one small bulb glowing behind the espresso machine, and went through the side door toward the stairs.
The loft above the shop had been storage once. The ceiling was so low she had to bow her head under the exposed copper pipes. She rented it four hundred dollars under the going rate in exchange for the perpetual smell of roasted coffee that seeped into everything and the sound of delivery trucks moving in and out of the harbor at five in the morning. She never complained. Fourteen steps from work was a luxury she had learned to price correctly.
She opened the bottom drawer of the cabinet beside her bed. On top sat the stack of Marlo Ridge bills, arranged by month, thinning toward the back—each page proof of another time she had found a way through. She laid the new envelope on top.
At the very bottom of the drawer, beneath all of it, lay an ivory-colored envelope that had browned at all four corners. No writing on it. It had sat in that same place since the day she moved out of her old apartment. Before that, it had lived in a shoe box. And before that, for two straight weeks, it had stayed in the pocket of her winter coat.
Marin looked at it for about three seconds. Then she pushed the drawer shut and listened to the small lock click into place. She hadn’t opened it in three years.
Downstairs, the front window shattered.
It wasn't the sound of a rock or a stray bottle. It was the violent, heavy explosion of reinforced storefront glass being struck by a crowbar.
Marin froze. Instinct took over before fear could. She dropped to her knees, slipping off her shoes, her breath catching in her throat. Heavy, unhurried boots stepped through the broken frame, grinding glass into the tile floor.
Two men.
"Check behind the counter," a low, gravelly voice said.
May you like
Marin pressed her back against the bed frame, her heart pounding against her ribs like a trapped bird. She reached into her pocket for her phone, but her hand found nothing. She’d left it on the counter downstairs next to the register.
"She’s here," the second voice said from the bottom of the stairs. "The snow outside... her footprints end at the front door."
