Chapter 4 - The Confession in the DarkBlake walked back over to the pillar and lowered himself to one knee again. He needed to know the whole truth, no matter how much it burned.
"Maya," Blake said softly, reaching out a hand, palm up, letting her see he meant no harm. "Look at me. Did you call the police? Did you tell anyone?"
Maya shook her head, pulling her knees up to her chest. "My mom told me to run. When the men in the yellow hats started yelling and the walls started cracking, she shoved me out the back window into the alley. She gave me her coat and this notebook. She said, 'Run to the big glass tower downtown where the bad building man works. Show him what they took from us. Make him look at it.'"
She held out the plastic-wrapped notebook.
Blake carefully took it from her small, cold hands. He peeled back the duct tape and the plastic layer. Inside were dozens of hand-drawn pictures in crayon and colored pencil.
Page one: A smiling family of four standing in front of a brown brick building with a green door. Page two: A vegetable garden growing in old wooden crates in a backyard. Page three: Massive yellow bulldozers with glowing red eyes crushing the green door into splinters. Page four: A blank page with a single sentence written in shaky, childish handwriting: Where are we going to sleep tonight?
May you like
Blake’s vision blurred. A hot, unfamiliar sting pricked behind his eyes, and a single tear broke free, tracking down his cheek to land softly on the cover of Maya’s notebook. The titan of Chicago real estate—the man who had never shed a tear in boardrooms or over multi-million-dollar losses—was completely undone by a child's crayon drawings.
"I'm so sorry, Maya," Blake whispered, his voice breaking completely. "I swear to you... I am going to make this right."
