Heart-Shaped Hack(2)

“Sure,” he said, looking over her shoulder as if there was something very interesting across the room. “Take care, Kate.”



That had been yesterday, and so far only a few additional donations had trickled in. She and Helena spent the rest of the afternoon making calls to local churches and schools to set up additional food drives while continuing to monitor the donations page. Finally, at a little before three, Kate went into the back room to recount their inventory. It was the end of the month, and they were down to their last cases of infant formula and baby food. Almost all the canned vegetables had been depleted, and they were completely out of peanut butter and soup. If it was this bad now, Kate didn’t want to think about what might happen when budgets were stretched even thinner by holiday spending. Dejected, she was sitting on the floor, clipboard in hand, when Helena burst into the back room.

“I ran after him,” she said, gasping for breath. “But he was too fast. Boy, am I out of shape.”

“Who did you run after?”

Helena tossed a brown paper bag to Kate and leaned over, resting her hands on her knees as she took in giant gulps of air.

“The man who dropped off the money. Seriously, I may need supplemental oxygen over here.”

Money?

Kate looked into the bag and blinked several times. “Did you lock the front door?”

“Yes.”

She turned the bag upside down and watched in disbelief as hundred-dollar bills rained down on the concrete floor. She counted it quickly. “There’s a thousand dollars here.”

Their website listed four levels for donations with amounts ranging from ten to one hundred dollars. There were higher amounts for corporations, but this was the largest donation they’d ever received from one person, and it was more than enough to replenish their shelves. Kate was already picturing herself pushing a giant cart through Costco. “Did he leave his name?”

“No. He walked up to my desk and said, ‘Give this to Katie.’ He must have seen you on TV yesterday.”

“Young? Old?” Rich?

“Young. Early thirties maybe? Tall. Blondish-brown hair. He was in a real hurry to leave. I chased him out the door, but he jumped into the driver’s seat of an old blue car.”

“An old car? Are you sure?”

“I think it was old. It didn’t look like any car I’ve ever seen. It had stripes on the hood. And then he burned rubber.”

“Why would someone who drives an old car drop off a bag full of money?”

“I have no idea. But whatever the reason, he just saved us.”





CHAPTER TWO

It happened again the next month.

Kate was conducting a client interview when Brian, one of the high school kids who volunteered in the afternoon, approached her desk. “Uh, Kate? A guy said to give this to you.” He thrust the paper bag into her hands, and she stifled a gasp when she looked inside. She shoved the bag into her desk drawer and locked it.

“Thank you, Brian.”

It hadn’t occurred to her that the previous donation would be anything other than a onetime thing. In addition to the monthly allotment of food Kate received from food banks, which operated on a much larger scale than food pantries, they also received recurring donations each month. But they were smaller amounts and were typically comprised of food from can drives or other collection methods. Though she appreciated it all, cash donations were what Kate cherished most. She had a knack for hunting down bargains, and cash meant being able to buy in bulk, which helped the money stretch even further. Tomorrow she would make another trip to the discount warehouse and fill her four-year-old TrailBlazer to the roof.

Curiosity regarding the man’s identity consumed Kate. Was he some kind of philanthropist? A self-made man who owned a successful start-up? Maybe he’d developed an app or video game and sold it for millions. Maybe he was a lottery winner. Maybe he just liked to pay it forward on a grand scale.

She could hardly wait until the end of the day when all their clients were gone and she and Helena were alone. As soon as Kate locked the door, she turned around and said, “He did it again.”

“Who did what again?” Helena asked, picking up her purse and getting ready to leave.

“The man who dropped off the money last month gave us another thousand dollars. Look.” Kate handed her the bag of money, and Helena looked inside.

“Well, I’ll be darned. Are you sure it was the same person?”

“It’s the same amount. And it was brought in on the last day of the month, just like last time. It’s got to be him.”

“Looks like we’ve found ourselves a mysterious benefactor. If you don’t mind my saying, Kate, I think the skirt really helped.”





CHAPTER THREE

Kate and Helena worked out a plan. The first donation had arrived on August thirty-first and the second on September thirtieth. Today was October thirty-first. Kate had no way of knowing if he’d come again, but she and Helena had begun watching the door as soon as the food pantry opened. If their mysterious benefactor showed up while Kate was in the back room or with a client, Helena was to detain him and dispatch one of their volunteers to find her immediately.

“Maybe he won’t come since it’s Halloween,” Helena said.

Kate smiled. “Because he’ll be too busy haunting a house?” But she’d had the same concern, and when he hadn’t shown up by two thirty, her hope started to fade. When the food pantry closed at three, Kate sent Helena home and began to lock up.