Chương 13
“If he searches me?” Lorenzo asked.
“The device is designed for that risk,” an investigator said.
“If he moves the meeting?”
“We adapt.”
“If he has Lily’s location?”
Shaw’s expression did not change. “He doesn’t.”
The answer was too immediate.
Lorenzo looked at Nora.
She understood before anyone spoke.
“You moved us,” she said.
Shaw nodded. “Within the last hour.”
“Where?”
“I cannot tell you while Mr. Calder remains operationally exposed.”
Nora stood. “He is not the only person in this room allowed to be angry.”
“No,” Shaw said. “But anger does not alter security protocol.”
Nora gathered her coat.
Lorenzo followed her into the hallway.
“You argued for the meeting,” he said.
“I know.”
“You understood they would protect you.”
“I did not understand protection meant being treated like luggage.”
“You wanted institutions instead of men like me.”
“I wanted choices.”
“This is what choices cost.”
She turned on him. “Do not explain cost to me.”
Lorenzo stopped.
Nora’s eyes shone, but she did not cry. “Mara called me from the pharmacy parking lot. She said she thought a car was following her. I told her she was exhausted. I told her to come over after she picked up her prescription. She asked me to collect Lily instead. I said no because I was working late for your father.”
The hallway ventilation hummed above them.
“I could have picked her up,” Nora said. “I could have left the office. I could have said one sentence differently.”
“That would not make you responsible.”
“You don’t get to decide which guilt is rational.”
“No,” Lorenzo said. “But I recognize the useless kind.”
She wiped beneath one eye with the heel of her hand.
“Does yours feel useful?” she asked.
“Sometimes.”
“That’s what makes it dangerous.”
Marco contacted Vale the next morning and received instructions by afternoon.
The meeting would occur at a closed ship-repair warehouse on the Mystic River at eleven thirty that night. Lorenzo could bring Marco. No one else. The drive had to be in his possession.
Agents prepared a duplicate containing selected real files and tracking software unlikely to matter if Vale never connected it to a device. Bell rehearsed permissible questions with Lorenzo until both men became hostile.
“You cannot say, ‘Tell me why you killed Mara,’” Bell warned.
“Why?”
“Because it assumes the fact and invites denial.”
“He will deny everything.”
“Then make him correct you. People reveal more when protecting their version of events.”
Danny sat nearby, listening.
“Anthony hates being misunderstood,” he said. “Even when he’s lying.”
Lorenzo looked at him. “What would offend him most?”
“Saying Sloane acted without permission.”
“Good.”
Bell pointed a pen. “You are not improvising revenge theater.”
“I’m having a conversation.”
“You have never simply had a conversation in your life.”
Before leaving, Lorenzo was permitted a brief call with Nora and Lily from the safe location. An agent connected them without revealing the number.
Lily answered.
“Mr. Quiet?”
“Yes.”
“Nora says you’re doing dangerous work.”
“Nora says many things.”
“I’m here.”
Nora’s voice came through. “Don’t make me regret defending the meeting.”
“I’ll try to limit your regrets to previous decisions.”
“That was almost a joke.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
Lily reclaimed the phone. “Did you protect the whale?”
“It’s in a book.”
“Books aren’t water.”
“This one is.”
“What color?”
“Brown.”
“That’s dirty water.”
Lorenzo looked at the tracking equipment laid out on Porter’s conference table.
“Lily.”
“Yes?”
“I may not speak to you for a while after tonight.”
“Because of work?”
“Because I have to answer for things I did.”
She was quiet.
“Are you going to jail?” she asked.
Nora said something in the background, but Lily had already heard enough adults avoid questions.
“Probably,” Lorenzo said.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you have food?”
“Yes.”
“Green food?”
“I assume so.”
“You should eat it.”
“I’ll consider it.”
Another pause.
“Are you scared?” she asked.
Everyone in the conference room pretended not to listen.
“Yes,” Lorenzo said.
“Me too sometimes.”
“I know.”
“You can hold somebody’s hand.”
His throat tightened unexpectedly.
“There may not be anyone there,” he said.
“Then close yours.”
The warehouse stood behind a chain-link fence near a row of silent cranes. Puddles reflected security lights from neighboring industrial lots. Marco drove. Lorenzo sat in the passenger seat without a weapon for the first time in twenty years.
“You could still turn around,” Marco said.
“No.”
“I could.”
Lorenzo looked at him. “You won’t.”
Marco gave a nervous smile. “You always say things like you arranged them.”
At the gate, Paul Dacey emerged from a guard booth. He searched both men, checked beneath the vehicle, and removed their phones. His broken nose made him recognizable even before he took off his cap.
Lorenzo kept his breathing slow.
Dacey’s hands passed within inches of the recording device and moved on.
Inside, the warehouse smelled of river water, oil, and cold metal. A stripped boat hull rested on supports beneath hanging work lights. Four men stood near the rear wall. Vale waited beside a folding table wearing a dark overcoat and leather gloves.
“You look tired,” Vale said.
“My father died.”
“He was my friend.”
“No. You were useful to each other.”
Vale’s eyes moved to Marco. “Did he tell you to say that?”
Marco placed the duplicate drive on the table. “We brought what you asked for.”
Vale did not reach for it.
“Where is Nora?” he asked.
“Safe,” Lorenzo said.
“From whom?”
“You.”
Vale sighed. “This has become unnecessarily personal.”
“A woman was killed.”
“Women are killed every day in Boston. Most do not trigger federal raids.”
“Mara Carter did.”
Vale’s expression revealed irritation at hearing the name, not grief or fear.
“You have let an assistant and a child confuse you,” he said. “Vincent worried this might happen.”
“He worried I would protect them.”
“He worried you inherited your mother’s softness.”
The old insult found its place.
May you like
Lorenzo looked around the warehouse. “Peter Sloane acted without your permission.”
Vale’s gaze sharpened.
