Chapter 3 - The Blackwood Tower
By two o'clock in the afternoon, Sarah Miller found herself sitting in the back of a luxury SUV, her daughters sleeping soundly with their heads resting on her lap. Beside her sat Wesley Davis, his laptop open, his fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard as he conducted business in complete silence.
Sarah looked down at the black card in her hand. It bore no numbers, only a silver emblem of a stylized geometric tower and the name QUANTUM PRIVATE RESIDENCES.
"Mr. Davis," Sarah said quietly, afraid to wake the girls. "I don't understand what’s happening. Where are you taking us?"
Wesley didn't look up from his screen. "To the Blackwood Apartments on 5th Avenue. Quantum owns the building. The top three floors are kept furnished for visiting executives and international guests. You will stay in Suite 3102 until your housing situation is permanently resolved."
Sarah felt a surge of panic. "I can't pay for a place like that! I make twelve dollars an hour at a commercial bakery. My savings account has eighty-four dollars in it!"
Wesley closed his laptop with a soft click. He turned his head to look at her, his dark gray eyes steady and unreadable.
"I didn't ask for your money, Ms. Miller. I am offering you shelter. The apartment is empty. It costs me nothing to let you sleep there, and it costs you nothing to accept."
"Nothing is free," Sarah said, her voice dropping into a hard, protective edge. "I’ve lived in this city long enough to know that when someone dressed like you gives something to someone dressed like me, there’s always a price attached later."
Wesley didn't look offended. In fact, a faint, almost imperceptible shadow of respect crossed his face.
"You're right," Wesley said. "Nothing is free. The price for staying in Suite 3102 is that you allow my legal team to handle your Housing Authority dispute. My head of corporate litigation is currently filing an injunction against your landlord for wrongful termination of lease and failure to report employment data."
Sarah stared at him, her mouth slightly open. "Why are you doing this? You don't know me. You don't know my girls."
Wesley looked down at Bella’s yellow bow, which was slipping from her curly hair as she slept.
"Your daughter asked me a question in my lobby today," Wesley said softly. "She asked me where she could buy a father."
Sarah swallowed hard, a fresh wave of color flushing her neck. "I’m sorry... she doesn't know what she’s saying. Their father left before they were born. He... he took everything in our account and moved to California. He hasn't sent a dollar in four years."
"I know," Wesley said.
"How could you know that?"
"Because thirty years ago, I asked my mother the exact same thing," Wesley said, looking out the tinted window as the tall glass spires of Manhattan rolled past. "And nobody had an answer for me either."
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The SUV pulled up to the private entrance of the Blackwood Tower. A doorman in a dark navy uniform and gold buttons stepped forward immediately, opening the door and holding a large umbrella over them to block the light rain that had begun to fall.
As Sarah stepped onto the covered pavement carrying Daisy, with Wesley holding Bella in his left arm, a camera shutter clicked from behind a park bench seventy yards away. A young man in a heavy rain jacket adjusted his long telephoto lens, capturing six crisp images of the city's most elusive billionaire CEO carrying a child into his private residential tower alongside an unknown woman in a faded green coat.
