Chapter 7 - The Empty Street
Ethan didn't wait for his driver.
He grabbed his keys, jumped into his Maybach, and tore through the Charlotte streets like a madman, breaking every speed limit in the city.
He arrived at the alley garage where Hannah stored her cart at 1:00 AM.
The iron gates were locked. Her truck wasn't there.
He drove to her small apartment on the east side of town. He sprinted up the three flights of narrow stairs and pounded frantically on her weathered wooden door.
"Hannah! Please! Open the door!" Ethan called out, his hands trembling violently. "Hannah, let me explain! Please!"
Inside the apartment, there was absolute silence.
No light shone under the door frame.
Ethan sat on the top step outside her apartment until the sun began to rise over the city skyline, casting long, cold shadows across the brick hallway.
At 5:00 AM, he drove straight to the corner where Brooks Street Kitchen usually stood.
The sidewalk was empty.
The faded yellow awning was gone. The folding chair was gone.
Standing in the empty spot where her cart had been for two years was a small cardboard box.
Ethan stumbled out of his car, his expensive suit rumpled, his tie loosened, his eyes bloodshot and desperate. He dropped to his knees on the cold concrete sidewalk and picked up the box.
Inside were ninety thirty-dollar bills—exactly two thousand seven hundred dollars. Every single penny Ethan had earned working for her over the last six weeks.
And laying on top of the money was a handwritten note in Hannah’s clear, elegant script:
Mr. Caldwell,
Here is your money back. I paid you thirty dollars a day because I thought you were a man who needed help.
I didn't know I was entertaining a billionaire who was playing a game with my life.
My bakery was crushed by your company two years ago. I thought that was the worst thing Caldwell Meridian would ever do to me. I was wrong. What you did over the last six weeks was far worse.
You made me trust you. You made me love a lie.
Do not come looking for me. Do not call me. Leave whatever is left of my life alone.
May you like
Hannah.
Ethan pressed the paper against his face, a ragged, heartbroken sob breaking from his chest as he knelt alone on the empty street corner in the morning light.
