Chương 6
My hair was cut short.
My coat was too thin for the cold.
I was laughing at something said by a young woman beside me.
Petty Officer Lena Ortiz.
My first real friend after leaving home.
The photograph had been taken from across the street.
For the first time that night, anger failed me.
Something worse took its place.
I looked at Conrad.
“How long?”
He said nothing.
I held up the report.
“How long did you watch me?”
Conrad stared at the photograph in my hand.
“For a while.”
“That is not a length of time.”
His jaw shifted.
“Two years.”
Julian swore under his breath.
Mara sat very still beside him.
Damian looked at my father as if even he had not known the answer.
“You told me it stopped after six months.”
Conrad did not look at him.
“I said it was no longer necessary.”
“That is not what you said.”
“No, Damian.”
My voice was quieter than his.
“Let him answer.”
Conrad leaned back in the chair.
The city lights beyond the window cut faint reflections across the glass behind him.
“I wanted to know whether you were safe.”
I held up the surveillance report.
“You wanted to know where I bought groceries.”
“I had no other way to know anything about you.”
“You could have called.”
“You changed your number.”
“I changed it after three months.”
“You refused every message sent through your friends.”
“My friends told me you were asking whether I was ready to apologize.”
“That was not all I asked.”
“It was all they repeated.”
Conrad looked irritated, as though other people had mishandled his communication.
I almost admired the consistency.
“Did you ever tell the investigator to make contact if I was in danger?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
“No.”
“I wanted information.”
“Not intervention.”
“I did not believe intervention would be necessary.”
“You had reports saying I was living alone in a city where I knew almost no one.”
“You were employed.”
“In the military.”
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
His face hardened again.
“I found out.”
“When?”
He looked toward the envelope.
“Within months.”
I turned to Damian.
He shook his head before I spoke.
“I didn’t know that part.”
Julian picked up another sheet.
“What about this?”
Conrad’s eyes followed the paper.
“What is it?”
“A payment ledger.”
Damian stood and crossed the room.
Julian turned it so he could see.
My brother’s face lost color.
The ledger listed monthly charges from Halpern Strategic Services.
The amounts rose and fell.
Hotel reimbursements.
Travel.
Vehicle rental.
Photography.
Information acquisition.
The final payment appeared twenty-six months after I left.
Then nothing.
Julian tapped the last entry.
“What changed here?”
No one answered.
I scanned the dates.
A memory surfaced with unnerving clarity.
Twenty-six months after leaving home, I had received orders transferring me overseas.
My destination had not been publicly available in advance.
My movements became less convenient to follow.
I looked at Conrad.
“You lost access.”
He gave no sign that I was wrong.
Damian sank back onto the sofa.
“So you kept going until you couldn’t.”
“I kept going until it became impractical.”
Mara stared at him.
“You say that like you were discussing shipping.”
Conrad finally looked annoyed.
“What would you prefer I say?”
“The truth would be interesting.”
“Mara.”
Julian touched her knee.
She pulled her hand through her hair and immediately frowned when her fingers caught on pins.
“Sorry.”
“No,” Julian said.
“You’re right.”
Conrad turned to me.
“If I had intended to harm you, Elise, you would know it.”
That sentence changed the room.
Damian’s eyes snapped up.
Julian went rigid.
Mara’s expression sharpened.
I studied my father.
He seemed not to understand how it sounded.
Or perhaps he understood and expected us to accept the distinction.
“I do know it.”
His brow furrowed.
“You think I harmed you?”
The question was so sincere that for a moment I had no answer.
Not because I doubted myself.
Because I was suddenly looking at the architecture he had built inside his own mind.
He had separated love from coercion so cleanly that he could no longer see where one contaminated the other.
“You interfered with employment.”
“To bring you home.”
“You blocked financial access.”
“To make you reconsider.”
“You paid strangers to follow me.”
“To make sure you were safe.”
“You never once contacted me simply to ask whether I was safe.”
His mouth tightened.
“You would not have answered.”
“You never tried.”
He looked away first.
Damian stood and walked to the window.
For several seconds, he watched traffic move far below.
“I did,” he said.
I turned.
He kept his back to me.
“When?”
“About eight months after you left.”
Conrad’s face changed.
“Damian.”
My brother laughed once.
“You might as well know.”
He turned around.
“I called the number Tessa gave me.”
I remembered the apartment.
The cheap yellow kitchen.
The corded phone mounted beside the refrigerator.
Tessa’s habit of answering every call with, “Speak.”
I searched my memory.
No conversation with Damian came.
“I never spoke to you.”
“I know.”
“What happened?”
“Tessa answered.”
I stared at him.
“She told me you were at work.”
“That sounds like Tessa.”
“I asked her to tell you I called.”
“She never did.”
“She did something better.”
A faint smile touched his mouth, gone almost immediately.
“She told me that if I wanted to talk to you, I could try again when I had enough courage not to call from Dad’s office.”
Mara actually laughed.
Julian covered his mouth.
Even I felt something break loose in my chest.
“That sounds exactly like Tessa.”
“She scared the hell out of me.”
“She was five foot two.”
“She had presence.”
“Why were you calling from his office?”
Damian’s smile vanished.
He looked at Conrad.
“Because I didn’t have the courage she was talking about.”
My father stood.
“This is becoming ridiculous.”
“No,” Damian said.
“You don’t get to leave yet.”
May you like
Conrad stopped.
The words surprised all of us.
