Chương 2
“Where is she?”
“Street level. Officer Grant stayed with her.”
Eleanor tapped her cane once, more softly this time. “The woman caused a disturbance.”
“She was trying to stop your people from taking us,” Eli said.
His voice was small, but he did not look away from her.
For the first time, Everett saw the likeness that had been hidden beneath the tangled hair and exhaustion. The boys had Claire’s mouth. Their pale blue eyes, however, were his own, and so was the stubborn crease forming between Eli’s brows.
Noah remained attached to Everett’s trouser leg as if he had made the decision without understanding it.
Everett put one hand lightly on the boy’s shoulder.
Noah stiffened.
Everett removed it at once.
“We’re going to the hospital,” he said.
Eleanor stepped forward. “Everett, you need to consider what this looks like. Two children appear in your office with a photograph and a story, and you immediately call them your sons. That is not rational.”
“No,” he said. “It’s five years late.”
“You have shareholders. Employees. A board meeting in forty minutes.”
“My children’s mother is in surgery.”
“You do not know that they are your children.”
He looked down at Noah’s fingers twisted in the wool of his trousers.
“I know you tried to keep me from finding out.”
“That letter proves nothing.”
“It proves enough to leave.”
Eleanor’s hidden panic showed itself in the shallow rise of her chest. “Claire Bennett was not who you believed she was.”
“Then you’ll have an opportunity to explain that to Daniel.”
Daniel placed the Cedar file on the desk but kept one hand on it. “I would recommend that no one explain anything until we understand which communications are privileged, which records belong to the company, and which conduct may require outside counsel.”
Eleanor gave a brittle laugh. “Listen to him. He has been waiting years to speak to me like that.”
Daniel’s gaze did not shift. “I have been waiting eleven minutes.”
Everett held out his hand to Eli. The boy took it. Noah followed because Eli moved, not because he trusted Everett.
At the door, Everett stopped beside Marcus Bell.
“Bring Ms. Alvarez upstairs. No restraints. No one speaks to her without Daniel present.”
Marcus nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The other officer glanced at Eleanor.
Everett noticed.
“What is your name?”
“Peter Rusk.”
“Mr. Rusk, surrender your access badge to Officer Bell.”
Rusk’s mouth opened, then closed. He unclipped the badge and handed it over.
Eleanor watched him do it. Something passed across her face—not defeat, exactly, but recognition that obedience had begun to change direction.
The executive elevator descended in silence.
Eli stood on one side of Everett, Noah on the other. Daniel faced the doors with the Cedar file tucked against his ribs. The soft movement of suits and the hum of the cables filled the enclosed space. The boys smelled faintly of cold air, laundry detergent, and the syrup from a breakfast neither of them appeared to have finished.
Everett looked at the top of Noah’s head.
“How long has your mother been at the hospital?”
“Since nighttime,” Eli said.
“Rosa took us home after they made Mom sleep. Then Mom’s friend called and said something went wrong.”
Daniel turned slightly. “What friend?”
“Miss Tasha. She works there.”
“Did your mother tell you to come here today?”
Eli shook his head. “She told us yesterday. She said if she didn’t wake up, Rosa had to bring us to the tall building where our dad worked.”
Noah whispered, “She said not to tell Grandma Silver.”
The elevator passed the thirty-second floor.
Everett’s fingers curled once at his side.
Daniel glanced at him but asked the next question gently. “Did your mother call Mrs. Lawson Grandma?”
“No,” Eli said. “I did. Mom got mad.”
“Mom doesn’t get mad,” Noah murmured. “She gets quiet.”
Everett had known that quiet. It had once lasted through an entire dinner at a restaurant in Lake Geneva after he canceled a trip they had planned because Eleanor claimed a merger required him in New York. Claire had folded the paper wrapper from her straw into smaller and smaller squares while Everett explained revenue exposure.
Two days later, he had sent flowers.
He had never asked what she did with them.
When the elevator doors opened, Rosa Alvarez was standing between two lobby guards. She was a short woman in her fifties with a winter coat thrown over blue scrubs and one shoe untied. Anger had flushed her face.
The twins ran to her.
She dropped to her knees and wrapped both arms around them, speaking rapidly in Spanish before switching to English.
“Never do that again. Never leave me like that. I don’t care who tells you to run.”
“They were taking us,” Eli said into her shoulder.
“I know. I know, sweetheart.”
Rosa looked up at Everett. Her expression carried no awe, only exhausted suspicion.
“You’re him.”
Everett was accustomed to being recognized. This felt different.
“Yes.”
She stood without releasing the boys. “Claire told me you might not believe them.”
“She was wrong.”
“She was wrong about you before.”
Daniel shifted the file beneath his arm. Everett did not answer.
Outside the revolving doors, hurried footsteps struck stone as Marcus caught up with them. Morning traffic moved along Wacker Drive, horns muffled by the glass. People glanced toward the cluster of security uniforms and expensive suits, then continued toward work.
Everett’s driver opened the rear door of the black sedan.
Noah backed away.
“No,” he said.
Eli tightened his grip on Rosa’s hand.
Rosa looked at Everett. “They don’t get into cars with men they don’t know.”
Everett almost said that he was their father. The words rose automatically, carrying the authority he used to settle arguments. He stopped them.
“What do they get into?”
“My car. It has booster seats.”
May you like
Everett looked toward the old gray Honda parked crookedly at the curb with its hazard lights flashing.
Daniel rubbed one finger against his eyebrow. “I’ll go with Marcus. You should go with them.”
