I heard the crack from inside the laundry corridor at Veils, his restaurant on Walnut Street, but I did not know what it was yet.

Dominic Vale’s phone hit the curb before his body did.

Outside, November traffic growled through a wet Philadelphia afternoon. Horns bounced between brick buildings. A delivery truck rattled across a pothole. Tires hissed through the thin film of rain left on the asphalt, and cold wind pushed the smell of exhaust, roasted garlic, wet wool, and the lemon cleaner we used on the service doors into the narrow hallway where I was folding dinner linens.

Then someone shouted.

Not a man.

Norah.

My granddaughter.

Four years old.

One minute earlier she had been sitting on an overturned milk crate beside the service entrance because her daycare had closed after a heating failure and I had nobody else to call.

I had told her three things.

Stay on the crate.

Hold Rabbit.

Do not chase pigeons.

I had gone inside for less than two minutes to sign the laundry delivery sheet.

When I came back out, the folded linens slid from my arms and hit the floor.

Norah was crouched beside Dominic Vale.

His black overcoat was spread across the damp sidewalk, one sleeve folded beneath him. His silver-streaked hair was still combed perfectly back, but his face had gone gray enough that even I understood something inside his body had stopped cooperating.

His phone glowed in Norah’s tiny hand.

Rabbit, her stuffed animal, hung from the other by one worn ear.

“Norah.”

My voice broke.

She looked at me.

“Grandma, he won’t wake up.”

A man’s voice barked through the phone.

“Boss?”

Norah lifted it closer to her mouth.

“The black-coat man fell.”

A black-suited driver came running around the SUV.

“Move back.”