Chương 8
A weekend in Boston.
His hand at her back crossing crowded restaurants.
The stupid photo he took of her trying to fix a hotel coffee machine.
He had not needed her to betray her father.
He had needed the world to believe she could.
Arthur said, “I’m sorry.”
Evelyn’s eyes opened.
“For what?”
“All of it.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“I should have told you we were investigating him.”
“Yes.”
“I should have told you Halcyon was active.”
“Yes.”
“I should have trusted your judgment.”
She leaned back.
There it was.
The sentence she had wanted.
It gave her less relief than expected.
“You don’t trust my judgment.”
“I do.”
“No. You trust my judgment after Noah checks whether it’s safe.”
Arthur was silent.
Evelyn looked out at traffic.
“When Mom died, you turned everything into security.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s accurate.”
“Your mother was sick.”
“And somehow that made you install three people outside my college dorm.”
“You were nineteen.”
“I was furious.”
“You were also being followed by a photographer.”
“For two days.”
“I couldn’t know it would stop.”
“No. You can never know anything will stop.”
Her voice softened despite herself.
“That’s the problem.”
Arthur did not speak.
Evelyn remembered her mother in the last month of her life, sitting at the kitchen table in Connecticut while Arthur argued with a doctor over treatment schedules.
After he hung up, Caroline Reed had looked at her daughter and said, Your father thinks uncertainty is a personal insult.
At twenty-three, Evelyn had laughed.
Now she rubbed one thumb over the phone screen.
“Dad.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not coming home.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You were going to.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
She smiled despite herself.
“I need space.”
“I know.”
“And no team outside my hotel.”
Silence.
“Dad.”
“One person.”
“No.”
“Across the street.”
“No.”
“Evelyn.”
“Noah can have my location. No one follows me unless there’s a specific threat.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It has to be.”
Arthur’s breathing changed.
She pictured him at home, probably still in yesterday’s shirt, one hand around coffee he had forgotten to drink.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“Then we have a problem.”
They sat in silence.
Finally Arthur said, “Forty-eight hours.”
“What?”
“No physical team for forty-eight hours. Noah keeps passive monitoring on the pendant if you wear it.”
“I might not.”
“That’s your choice.”
She almost said thank you.
Stopped.
“Forty-eight hours isn’t permanent.”
“No.”
“But it’s something.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn looked at the pendant.
“Okay.”
When the call ended, she sat still for several minutes.
Then she laughed softly.
She had just negotiated bodily autonomy with her father like a labor contract.
Her mother would have found that funny.
At nine, Vanessa texted.
I gave police everything I have.
Then another message.
There’s something else.
Evelyn did not answer.
A minute later:
Not asking you to trust me. Just please meet Morales before you talk to Damian again.
Evelyn stared at the screen.
Talk to Damian again.
As if that were inevitable.
At nine-fifteen, Damian texted.
I’m sorry.
She blocked him.
At nine-sixteen, an email arrived.
No subject line.
Evelyn,
I handled last night badly. I believed there had been a theft and reacted in a way I regret. I never intended to frighten you. There are things about the Halcyon situation you do not understand, including actions taken by people close to your father. Please don’t let them turn a personal mistake into something it wasn’t.
D.
Evelyn read it twice.
The phrasing was precise.
He regretted how he reacted.
Not what he did.
He believed there had been a theft.
He never intended fear.
Personal mistake.
Her anger sharpened.
Then she noticed something else.
Actions taken by people close to your father.
Noah?
Arthur?
Someone else?
She almost replied.
Instead she forwarded it to Morales.
At eleven, she met the detective at a coffee shop three blocks from the hotel.
Morales wore jeans and a navy jacket. Without the badge visible, she looked younger.
“You didn’t have to come yourself,” Evelyn said.
“I wanted coffee.”
“It’s terrible here.”
“You’re rich. Your standards are damaged.”
Evelyn stared.
Morales smiled.
It was the first joke anyone had made to her all day.
Evelyn ordered tea.
Morales slid a printed photograph across the table.
Caleb Martin.
Mid-forties. Close-cropped gray hair. Broad neck.
Evelyn recognized him.
“That’s Damian’s security director.”
“Former security director as of six this morning.”
“He fired him?”
“Through counsel.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Yes.”
Morales opened her notebook.
“Vanessa gave us messages.”
“What kind?”
“Between her and Damian.”
Evelyn did not want to see them.
She also wanted to see every word.
Morales read her expression.
“I’m not showing you unless it becomes necessary.”
“Thank you.”
“One message from four weeks ago refers to getting close enough to ‘make Arthur nervous.’”
Evelyn stared at the table.
“Me.”
“We think so.”
“Think.”
Morales nodded.
“Vanessa replied that you were ‘not like him.’”
“Meaning?”
“Unknown.”
“Can I guess?”
“You can.”
“She thought my father was ruthless.”
“Maybe.”
Evelyn picked up the tea.
It was too hot.
She put it down.
“What else?”
“Two nights ago Damian asked Vanessa whether you still carried ‘the green thing.’”
The room seemed to narrow.
“My pendant?”
“Likely.”
Evelyn touched the bare space at her throat.
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“He knew it was security.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Noah?”
“I don’t know.”
Morales watched her.
That hurt.
The fact that Evelyn could no longer say with confidence what Noah would or would not do.
Morales continued.
“There’s also a payment from Cross Meridian to a consulting company owned by Caleb Martin’s brother.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred fifty thousand.”
“For?”
“Security consulting.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t believe or disbelieve bank transfers.”
Evelyn leaned back.
“You must be exhausting at home.”
“My wife says that.”
A waiter dropped a spoon behind them.
Both women looked.
May you like
Morales returned to the notebook.
“Vanessa also told us Damian knew the pendant could send an emergency alert.”
