Chương 7
“Get your things,” he said.
Nora did not move. “Where are we going?”
“My house.”
“No.”
“Then Porter’s home becomes the next obvious address.”
The attorney’s expression turned cold. “Do not involve my family.”
“I’m trying not to.”
Porter looked at Nora. “He’s right about the immediate risk.”
Nora gave a humorless laugh. “That’s a terrible sentence to hear.”
Lily held up the whale drawing again. She had filled the house with blue water.
“Now it can breathe,” she said.
Lorenzo’s Beacon Hill house had five bedrooms, four fireplaces, a wine cellar he never used, and nothing intended for a child. Nora stood in the entry hall with Lily’s backpack on one shoulder and looked at the marble staircase as though it were part of an elaborate trap.
“No guards inside,” Lorenzo told her.
“How many outside?”
“Enough.”
“That isn’t a number.”
“Six.”
“Are they all loyal to you?”
“I would have said yes yesterday.”
Lily walked directly toward a bronze sculpture on a side table.
“Don’t touch that,” Nora and Lorenzo said together.
Lily stopped with her finger an inch from it and looked between them.
Lorenzo removed the sculpture and placed it on a higher shelf.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A horse.”
“It doesn’t look like one.”
“It was expensive.”
“That doesn’t make it a horse.”
Nora covered her mouth, perhaps to hide a smile.
He showed them to a guest room facing the rear garden. Lily bounced once on the bed before Nora stopped her. Rainwater still clung to the windows. A crew in orange vests pumped water from a basement across the street.
Lorenzo had a guard retrieve their luggage from the hotel. He ordered groceries without knowing what five-year-olds ate and received yogurt, apples, cereal, chicken nuggets, juice boxes, and a family-sized package of cookies shaped like zoo animals.
Nora unpacked in silence.
“I need your phone,” Lorenzo said.
“No.”
“It may be compromised.”
“It has Mara’s photographs.”
“Back them up.”
“I have.”
“Then turn it off.”
“I need to communicate with Lily’s school, her caseworker, the court, and my office.”
“Use a new phone.”
“You do realize ordinary people can’t abandon their lives because you say so.”
“Ordinary people aren’t being followed by Vale’s driver.”
She folded a small white dress and placed it in a drawer. “That’s because ordinary people don’t work eight years for Vincent Calder.”
“You stayed.”
“I had reasons.”
“Money?”
“At first.”
“What later?”
Nora looked toward the bathroom, where Lily was singing to herself while washing marker from her hands.
“Your father could be kind,” she said. “Not often enough. Not when it cost him enough. But sometimes in ways that made leaving feel like betrayal.”
Lorenzo knew the trap of rare kindness. Vincent had used it on employees, politicians, priests, and his son.
“You loved him,” he said.
Nora’s expression hardened. “Don’t simplify it.”
He left her to unpack.
In his office downstairs, Lorenzo called Danny. The call went to voicemail.
He called twice more.
Then Vale phoned.
“I hear you were asking about me last night,” Vale said.
Lorenzo stood at the window overlooking wet brick walls and narrow gardens. “Boston has become a town of gossip.”
“Grief loosens people’s judgment.”
“Is that your diagnosis?”
“I’m concerned about you.”
“You sent Paul Dacey to follow Nora Hart.”
Vale paused just long enough.
“I sent Paul to make sure she reached home safely.”
“She didn’t go home.”
“Then perhaps he was right to be concerned.”
Lorenzo watched one of his guards take position across the alley. “Call him off.”
“Of course.”
“If I see him again, I’ll assume you have forgotten who speaks for this family.”
Vale’s voice cooled. “Your father spoke for the family.”
“My father is buried.”
“And all of us are adjusting.”
The line went dead.
Lorenzo remained at the window.
He could have ordered Vale killed that afternoon. The organization contained men who would act before dinner and ask nothing except where to send proof. Vincent had anticipated the impulse because Vincent had installed it.
A body would simplify the immediate danger. It would also frighten every uncertain captain into choosing sides, scatter records, invite retaliation, and make Nora refuse cooperation. Worse, it would leave Lorenzo no closer to knowing whether Vale had ordered Mara’s death.
He called Marco.
“I need you to stay near Vale,” Lorenzo said.
“Near him how?”
“Agree with him.”
“That shouldn’t be hard. You’ve been acting strange since the funeral.”
“Good. Tell him that.”
Marco was quiet. “What are we doing, Ren?”
“Finding out who wants my chair.”
“Everyone wants your chair. It’s a good chair.”
“Then find out who thinks it’s empty.”
Marco sighed. “You know he’ll ask what Nora gave you.”
“Tell him you think it was something personal from my father.”
“What if he doesn’t believe me?”
“Be offended.”
“I am offended.”
“Then don’t act.”
By evening, Lily had spread colored pencils across Lorenzo’s dining table. Nora sat opposite her working through guardianship forms on a borrowed laptop. Lorenzo ate standing at the kitchen island while reading security reports.
Lily looked at his plate. “You only have meat.”
“It’s fish.”
“Fish is meat.”
“Yes.”
“You need something green.”
“I had coffee.”
“That’s brown.”
Nora said, “Please stop inspecting his dinner.”
“He inspected my hotel.”
Lorenzo looked at Nora.
She stared at the laptop. “I may have said that.”
Lily pushed three peas from her plate toward the edge. “You can have these.”
“I don’t want them.”
“They’re green.”
“I’m aware.”
She carried them to him balanced on a spoon.
Lorenzo accepted the peas because refusing required more effort.
He had almost finished eating when one of the exterior guards entered.
“Danny’s here,” the man said.
Nora’s chair scraped softly against the floor.
“Where?” Lorenzo asked.
“Front steps. He came alone.”
Lorenzo instructed Nora to take Lily upstairs and remain there.
“I don’t like being ordered around,” she said.
“Dislike it quietly.”
May you like
Lily gathered her pencils. “Come on, Nora. He’s being dangerous.”
Lorenzo waited until they reached the stairs before opening the front door.
