Chương 10
Lily saw Nora and began crying.
It was the first time Lorenzo had seen her afraid.
Nora dropped to her knees and pulled the child against her. Lily’s crying remained quiet, breath catching in small embarrassed bursts. She kept saying she was sorry for spilling her drink in the car.
“You did nothing wrong,” Nora whispered. “Nothing. Do you hear me?”
Lily buried her face in Nora’s coat.
The security officer described the man who had approached the door. Mid-forties. Dark cap. Surgical mask. Gloves. The gray SUV had stolen plates. The driver abandoned it four blocks away.
Police took statements and security footage from nearby businesses. No one mentioned Vale. Bell advised them not to make accusations without evidence. Lorenzo stood behind the conference-room glass, watching Lily’s shoulders shake.
Danny came beside him.
“Paul Dacey,” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“Anthony uses him when he wants something to look unplanned.”
“Where does Dacey stay?”
Danny gave him an address in Quincy.
Lorenzo called two guards.
Bell heard him and stepped into the hallway. “What are you doing?”
“Locating a man.”
“No.”
“You don’t command me.”
“No, but I can leave, call the prosecutors myself, and explain that my prospective client responded to an attempted child abduction by dispatching armed associates.”
Lorenzo’s hand tightened around the phone.
Beyond the glass, Lily lifted her head. Her face was wet and blotched. Nora wiped chocolate milk from the sleeve of her school sweater with a napkin.
“Call them back,” Bell said.
Lorenzo ended the call before the guards answered.
Every muscle in his body resisted the decision. It felt like cowardice. It felt like allowing the man who reached for Lily’s door to keep his hands.
Bell studied him. “This is the part your father could not teach you.”
“What part?”
“Waiting for a consequence you don’t personally deliver.”
Police assigned additional patrols near the Calder house. Porter contacted a federal prosecutor through established channels and arranged an emergency meeting for the following morning. A state child-welfare caseworker questioned whether Nora’s guardianship arrangement exposed Lily to unacceptable danger. Nora answered for forty minutes while visibly restraining herself from shouting.
By the time they returned to Beacon Hill, Lily had stopped crying.
She refused dinner and sat beneath the dining table with her stuffed rabbit.
Nora crawled under with her.
Lorenzo remained in the doorway, useless.
After several minutes, Lily asked, “Did the car hit us because of Mr. Quiet?”
Nora’s eyes closed.
Lorenzo crouched, though his knees objected.
“Yes,” he said.
Nora looked at him sharply.
Lily hugged the rabbit. “Are bad people mad at you?”
“Yes.”
“Because you did bad things?”
“Some of them.”
“Did you say sorry?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He could hear Vincent’s voice telling him never to explain weakness to a child. Children repeated things. Children misunderstood. Children needed certainty.
Lily waited.
“Because sorry doesn’t repair everything,” Lorenzo said.
“It repairs some things.”
“Sometimes.”
“You should try it before you know.”
Nora stared at the underside of the table.
Lorenzo lowered himself to the floor and sat outside the small shelter they had made.
“I’m sorry you were frightened,” he said. “It happened because someone believes I have something they want. I should have arranged better protection.”
Lily considered this with the solemnity of a judge.
“Okay.”
Nora brushed hair from Lily’s face. “It isn’t okay.”
“I know,” Lily said. “But he tried it.”
That night, Lorenzo slept for forty-three minutes in a chair outside the guest-room door.
At seven in the morning, Nora opened it and found him there.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“So do you.”
“I’m not wearing a four-thousand-dollar suit.”
“Neither am I.”
She glanced at his black sweater and trousers. “You own casual clothes.”
“I’ve been accused of it.”
Nora leaned against the doorframe. Lily remained asleep behind her, one hand hanging over the side of the bed.
“The caseworker may move her,” Nora said.
“Where?”
“Emergency foster placement, if they decide I can’t keep her safe.”
“No.”
“That isn’t your decision.”
“It can be prevented.”
“With money?”
“With security.”
“She doesn’t need more armed strangers. She needs a life where no one tries to open her car door.”
Lorenzo had no answer.
Nora rubbed both palms over her face. “Mara trusted me. She named me in her will. I told the court I could give Lily stability.”
“You can.”
“Look around.”
The hallway held two guards at the far end and another at the stairs. A radio murmured beneath someone’s jacket.
“This isn’t stability.”
“No,” Lorenzo said.
Nora lowered her hands. “What happens at the meeting today?”
“We give them enough to act against Vale.”
“And you?”
“I negotiate.”
She searched his face. “For immunity?”
“That won’t happen.”
“What are you willing to lose?”
The question offended him because he had spent three days thinking only in those terms.
“My freedom,” he said.
Nora looked surprised.
“I’m not offering it eagerly,” he added.
“I didn’t think you were.”
“I need Lily protected. You too. Danny and his brother if they cooperate. Tenants in the affected buildings need relocation and medical screening paid from assets before the government freezes everything.”
“You’ve thought about this.”
“I didn’t sleep.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
She sat beside him on the floor.
For a while they listened to the house. Pipes ticked behind the walls. A guard whispered into his radio downstairs. Somewhere outside, a truck reversed with a repetitive electronic beep.
Nora said, “Vincent used to complain that your meetings ended too quickly.”
“He complained mine began too slowly.”
“He said you watched people until they talked themselves into mistakes.”
“That was usually him.”
“He was proud of you.”
Lorenzo looked toward the closed guest-room door.
“He had an unusual way of expressing it.”
“He had an unusual way of expressing everything.”
“Except disappointment.”
May you like
Nora nodded. “He was fluent in that.”
The federal meeting took place in a secure conference room inside an office building where no sign identified the agency occupying the floor. Bell, Porter, Lorenzo, Nora, and Danny sat across from two prosecutors and three investigators. Everyone surrendered phones and watches at the entrance. Lorenzo disliked removing his father’s silver watch and nearly refused.
