“Two blocks from the mall. Empty.”
Misha reached for his father’s sleeve. “Is Nina hurt?”
The man glanced at Mikhail, not answering.
Mikhail placed the kitten back into Misha’s hands and lowered his voice.
“We do not know yet.”
“But you’ll find her.”
“Yes.”
“You promise?”
Mikhail hesitated for less than a heartbeat.
“I promise I will do everything I can.”
Misha stared at him.
He was old enough to know that was not the same as a promise that everything would be all right.
I came around the counter without thinking.
“Misha,” I said gently, “does Nina have a phone? Maybe she lost it. Maybe someone helped her like I helped you.”
He clung to that possibility. “Maybe.”
Mikhail looked at me, and I could tell he appreciated the kindness even if he could not afford to believe it.
The man at the door spoke again. “There’s something else.”
Mikhail’s eyes narrowed.
The man looked uneasy. “The car was locked. No sign of forced entry. Her purse was inside.”
Mikhail said nothing.
“And her phone.”
Misha’s mouth opened.
I felt the air go cold.
Ray whispered, “That’s not good.”
Mikhail’s gaze sharpened toward him.
Ray raised both hands. “Sorry. Thinking quietly from now on.”
Mikhail turned back to his son. “We are leaving.”
Misha looked at me. “Can Anna come?”
The question startled all of us.
“No, sweetheart,” I said quickly. “I have to close the diner.”
“Then we can help her close.”
Ray made another strangled noise.
Mikhail studied his son. “Why do you want Anna to come?”
Misha looked down at the kitten.
“Because Nina said if I was ever lost, I should find the blue bell.”
The room became very still.
Mikhail’s face changed.
“What did you say?”
Misha seemed confused by the reaction. “The blue bell. She told me once. If something bad happens and I can’t find her or you, find the blue bell.”
My eyes moved toward the front window.
The old neon sign outside flickered weakly in the storm.
BELL’S DINER.
Beside the words was a faded blue bell, painted by my father when I was little. I remembered him standing on a ladder in the summer heat, his shirt stuck to his back, blue paint on his cheek, whistling some old song my mother loved.
I had always thought the bell was just a sign.
Just a name.
Mikhail slowly turned toward it.
His voice was quiet. “Nina knew this place?”
Misha nodded. “She said the blue bell was safe.”
A strange pressure built behind my ribs.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “I don’t know anyone named Nina.”
Mikhail looked at me.
“Did your father?”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
I almost laughed. It came out wrong. “My father served pancakes and coffee. He knew postal workers, nurses, mechanics, half the neighborhood, and one retired magician who never paid on time. He did not know people who travel in black SUVs.”
Mikhail did not smile.
“What was his name?”
“Thomas Bell.”
The change in his face was unmistakable this time.
Not just recognition.
Impact.
Like a door inside him had opened and he had seen something he had tried very hard to keep closed.
Ray saw it too. “Anna…”
I looked from him to Mikhail. “What?”
Mikhail’s voice lowered. “Your father was Thomas Bell?”
“Yes.”
“From this diner?”
I folded my arms, though suddenly I felt cold. “Obviously.”
Mikhail looked toward the wall behind the register.
There were photos there, dozens of them in mismatched frames. My parents cutting the opening-day ribbon. Local kids in Little League uniforms. My father holding a giant pancake shaped like Illinois. My mother laughing with whipped cream on her nose. Customers who had become family, some long gone now.
Mikhail walked toward the photographs.
I followed him, unease crawling up my spine.
His eyes moved over the wall until they stopped on one frame near the end.
It was old, the colors faded warm and yellow at the edges. My father stood outside the diner at night, one arm around a younger man I had never recognized. The younger man wore a dark jacket and had sharp cheekbones, tired eyes, and a faint smile, as if smiling had once been easy but no longer was.
I had asked my father about that picture when I was a teenager.
“Just someone who needed a friend,” he had said.
At the time, I had accepted it. My father had been that kind of man. He collected people who needed a friend.
Mikhail lifted one hand but did not touch the glass.
“Viktor,” he said.
The word was barely audible.
Misha looked up. “Uncle Viktor?”
My heart thudded.
“You know him?” I asked.
Mikhail did not answer right away.
His eyes stayed on the photograph, and for the first time since entering my diner, he looked younger than his power, older than his age, and unbearably tired.
“He was my brother.”
Rain beat against the windows.
The little diner seemed to shrink around us.
“Your brother knew my father?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Mikhail’s mouth tightened. “That is not a simple story.”
“I’m not asking for simple.”
His gaze moved to mine. “Tonight may not be the safest time to tell it.”
A laugh escaped me, small and humorless. “A missing nanny told your son to find my father’s diner if he was ever in trouble. Your brother is in a photograph on my wall. You recognized my father’s name. I think safe left a while ago.”
Ray came out from behind the counter and stood beside me.
“Anna’s right,” he said. His voice shook a little, but he didn’t back down. “You owe her some kind of explanation.”
Mikhail looked at him for a long moment.
Then at me.
Then at Misha, who had gone very quiet.
He seemed to make a decision.
“My brother Viktor came to Chicago many years ago,” Mikhail said. “He was younger than me. Too trusting in some ways, too proud in others. He got involved with people who did not forgive mistakes easily.”
I felt Ray stiffen beside me.
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