Baywood Gardens
Chapter 04 - Baywood Gardens
Marisol Alvarez was not at the courthouse.
She was sitting on the curb outside Baywood Gardens with a canvas grocery bag between her feet, waiting for a locksmith she could not afford.
The building behind her was six stories of yellow brick, old fire escapes, window air conditioners, and small lives stacked carefully on top of one another. Someone had planted marigolds in coffee cans near the entrance. A faded American flag hung from 2A. On the third floor, a child’s paper snowflakes still clung to a window though winter had been gone for months.
Marisol’s front door lock had been changed while she was at work.
Her phone had twelve missed calls from Sophie’s school and none from the management office that had done it.
She was calling the police non-emergency line when a black town car pulled up.
Robert Sterling stepped out first.
Marisol rose so quickly the grocery bag tipped over and oranges rolled into the gutter.
Sophie jumped from the back seat. “Mom!”
Marisol caught her daughter against her body with a sound that was not quite a sob. Her hands went over Sophie’s hair, shoulders, face, counting without counting.
“Where were you?” Marisol whispered. “Baby, I told you to wait at Mrs. Patel’s.”
“I returned a wallet,” Sophie said into her mother’s coat.
Marisol looked over Sophie’s head at Robert. Fear came first, then recognition, then the hardening of a woman who had been cornered by too many polite men with paperwork.
“Mr. Sterling,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Robert said.
She blinked. Whatever she had expected, it was not that.
“I did not authorize your eviction,” he said. “I did not authorize your lockout. I did not authorize the sale of this building.”
Marisol’s mouth tightened. “Then someone is very comfortable using your name.”
Robert nodded once. “Yes.”
Behind him, Nora arrived carrying a laptop bag and wearing sneakers with her business suit, the way she did whenever Robert’s day had turned from meeting to war.
“Police are on the way,” she said. “Legal too.”
Marisol bent to gather the oranges. Sophie helped. Robert did too, which made three neighbors stop pretending not to stare.
“You don’t have to do that,” Marisol said.
“Yes,” Robert said, picking up an orange with a dark bruise on one side. “I do.”
The locksmith arrived before the police, a nervous man who kept looking at Robert’s car as if expecting a camera crew. He confirmed the lock had been changed by a contractor with a work order from Sterling Urban Renewal.
Nora opened her laptop on the hood of the town car.
“The work order is signed by Marisol,” she said quietly.
Marisol’s eyes flashed. “No, it isn’t.”
“I know.” Nora turned the screen toward Robert. “The signature matches an electronic relocation agreement filed last month.”
“I didn’t sign anything,” Marisol said.
Robert looked at the signature.
It was neat. Too neat. The kind made by a stylus, copied from somewhere else.
“Where would they have gotten her signature?” he asked.
Marisol looked suddenly tired. “School forms. Clinic forms. Work forms. Pick one.”
Sophie pressed against her mother’s side.
A police cruiser pulled up. Then another car. Then a silver SUV Robert knew too well.
Chase Hawthorne stepped out wearing a charcoal suit and a concerned public face.
He did not look surprised to see the locked-out mother, the child, the police, or Robert.
He looked annoyed.
“Robert,” Chase called, arms spreading as if arriving at a family picnic. “This is a misunderstanding.”
Marisol went very still.
Sophie whispered, “That’s him.”
Robert heard it.
So did Chase.
For one second, Chase’s face slipped.
Then he smiled at Sophie with perfect teeth and said, “Little girl, you’ve caused quite a day.”
Robert stepped between them.
“No,” he said. “You have.”
Nora’s phone buzzed. She read the message and looked up sharply.
“Robert,” she said, “the buyer of Baywood Gardens is not an outside company.”
Chase’s smile disappeared.
May you like
Nora turned the laptop around.
“The buyer is a trust in Vivian’s name.”
