Chương 5
Daniel met him in the foyer.
“You weren’t cleared to enter,” Daniel said.
Vincent smiled. “I installed the first security system in this house.”
“That one was replaced.”
“Everything gets replaced eventually.”
Marcus watched from the top of the staircase.
Vincent looked up. His expression did not change when he saw Emma beside Marcus.
The girl wore one of Lily’s old blue sweaters over a clean dress. Her hair had been washed and loosely combed. Without dirt on her face, the resemblance between the twins was more unsettling, not less.
Vincent’s gaze moved to the rabbit in her arms.
Then back to Marcus.
“I heard there was an incident,” he said.
“From whom?”
“Half the city has seen the photograph.”
“Half the city doesn’t know what fell out of the rabbit.”
Vincent removed his gloves one finger at a time. “Is that a question?”
Emma backed into Marcus’s leg.
He felt the movement.
“Daniel,” Marcus said, “take the girls to the kitchen.”
“I want to stay,” Lily said.
“No.”
Emma did not protest. She followed Daniel without turning her back on Vincent.
When they were gone, Marcus descended.
Vincent opened the portfolio. “Before emotion overtakes common sense, you should know that claims like this are common around wealthy families. Children are coached. Documents are manufactured. Physical resemblance can be exploited.”
“The DNA is confirmed.”
A brief silence.
Vincent closed the portfolio.
Marcus watched his hands. No tremor. No surprise beyond a single delayed blink.
“You knew there were two,” Marcus said.
Vincent’s gaze settled on him. “Grace told you that?”
“Did you know?”
“I knew she was unstable after the delivery.”
Marcus stepped closer.
Vincent did not retreat. “You were unconscious for eleven hours. There was an attack inside a maternity wing. Grace vanished. A second infant was listed among the dead. I gave you the information available.”
“You gave me ashes.”
“The hospital released them.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told Grace I agreed to hide one daughter.”
Vincent’s face hardened with what looked almost like disappointment. “And you believe a letter carried by a starving child because guilt has made you stupid.”
Marcus’s hand rose before he decided what to do with it.
The old version of the moment arrived easily. Vincent against the wall. A broken mouth. Men rushing in too late and pretending they had seen nothing.
Emma stood at the kitchen doorway.
Marcus saw her over Vincent’s shoulder.
She had returned without Daniel. The rabbit was pressed beneath her chin. Her green eyes fixed on Marcus’s raised hand.
He lowered it.
Vincent followed his gaze.
Something passed through the older man’s face then—not fear, but calculation.
Marcus stepped aside. “Leave.”
“We need to discuss the exposure this creates.”
“You have ten seconds.”
“Marcus, listen to yourself.”
“Nine.”
Vincent put on his gloves.
At the door, he paused near Emma.
“Your mother caused a great deal of pain,” he said gently. “Be careful which version of her you believe.”
Emma’s face emptied.
Marcus reached Vincent before Daniel returned from the kitchen.
He caught the older man by the back of the coat and drove him into the door hard enough to shake the glass.
Emma flinched.
Marcus released him immediately.
Vincent straightened his collar. Blood appeared where his lower lip had struck a tooth.
“There you are,” he said.
He walked out smiling.
Emma refused breakfast.
She sat beneath the kitchen table with the rabbit while Lily ate pancakes above her. Rosa Reyes, who had managed Marcus’s household since Lily was an infant, pretended that children beneath furniture were part of an ordinary morning.
She placed a plate on the floor.
Emma ignored it.
Rosa knelt with a sigh. “I am too old for this.”
“You don’t have to be down here,” Emma said.
“I came for my plate.”
Emma pulled it closer.
Rosa nodded. “Then I have achieved something.”
Marcus stood near the counter, unable to enter the room without changing it.
Lily cut a pancake into uneven squares. “Mr. Rusk is mean in a polite way.”
Rosa glanced at Marcus. “That is often the worst way.”
Emma picked up one square from the plate under the table.
Marcus waited until she swallowed.
“I shouldn’t have grabbed him.”
She did not answer.
“He said something cruel to you.”
“People say cruel things.”
“That doesn’t excuse what I did.”
Lily looked between them. “He deserved it.”
Emma took another piece of pancake. “Mama said deserving is how men start.”
Marcus felt Rosa watching him.
Emma’s voice remained flat. “First somebody deserves to be scared. Then they deserve to be hurt. Then you forget who decided.”
Marcus sat at the table.
Grace had taught a child to describe him without using his name.
He spent that afternoon removing weapons from the residential floors. Daniel supervised the inventory. Locked cases left bedrooms, offices, hidden compartments, and the security room behind the library.
When they reached Marcus’s desk, Daniel removed a pistol from the bottom drawer.
“You’ve kept that there since Lily was born,” he said.
“Move it.”
Daniel placed it in the case.
“What happened at St. Catherine’s?” Marcus asked.
Daniel closed the lid but did not latch it.
“I was twenty-nine. You had hired me six months earlier. Vincent was still giving orders through your father’s old structure.”
“What happened?”
“We received a report of gunfire near the ambulance bay. Vincent sent half the team downstairs. He told me Grace and the infants were being moved through the north service hall.”
“Were they?”
“When I reached it, the hall was empty.”
“You never told me that.”
“You were in surgery. By the time you woke, Vincent said Grace’s ambulance had been hit on the Kennedy. There was a burned vehicle. Bodies.”
“Did you see them?”
“No.”
Marcus stared at the empty drawer.
Daniel latched the case. “I saw Grace earlier. Before the attack.”
“With both girls?”
May you like
“No. She was in bed. One bassinet beside her. A nurse was carrying the other child back from testing.”
“Josephine Bell?”
