Chương 14
Mr. Peloquin replaced every lock in Wren’s old building and raised the rent.
Providence House reopened the private dining room with new glass.
Dahlia stopped arranging blind dates.
For a while, she stopped arranging anything at all. She asked before visiting. She apologized when she gave advice. The restraint made her miserable.
Wren finally told her, “You can be annoying again.”
Dahlia looked relieved. “I have a list.”
Their friendship did not return to what it had been. It became something less easy and more honest.
Gabriel testified for six days.
He described financial records, meetings, and years of family pressure. He admitted his own role in illegal accounting. He did not make himself innocent.
Nathaniel listened from the defense table.
The brothers rarely looked at each other.
Wren testified after Gabriel.
Morrow watched her with an expression almost bored. His shoulder had healed poorly, and his left foot dragged more noticeably.
His attorney asked about the twenty dollars she had taken from Gabriel’s wallet.
Wren admitted it.
The attorney asked whether she had considered selling her story.
“No.”
“Did Mr. Vale offer you money?”
“Yes.”
A murmur moved through the courtroom.
“What did he offer?”
“To pay my debt.”
“And you refused?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because then you would ask this question differently.”
The judge instructed the jury to disregard the implication.
The prosecutor hid a smile.
The defense attacked her memory for two hours.
Wren’s grip tightened beneath the witness stand. Her shoulders froze. She breathed shallowly and answered only what she knew.
When she did not remember, she said so.
When she was uncertain, she said so.
When the attorney raised his voice, she lowered hers and made him lean closer.
Morrow was convicted of the restaurant shooting, the safe-apartment attack, witness tampering, and conspiracy. The jury could not reach a verdict on the attorney’s death.
Doyle received four years.
Nathaniel accepted a plea agreement months later. He admitted bribery, obstruction, and directing illegal shipments. In exchange for evidence against other officials, prosecutors dismissed the broader racketeering count.
He was sentenced to six years in federal prison.
People argued that the sentence was too light.
Wren agreed.
Gabriel said nothing publicly.
On the morning Nathaniel surrendered, he came to the café before opening.
He wore a charcoal coat instead of the black suit. No bodyguards entered with him, though Wren saw a car waiting across the street.
Brutus came through the door first.
The mastiff had gained weight. His collar had been repaired, but the Saint Francis medal remained bent.
He crossed the empty café and placed his head firmly in Wren’s lap.
Her water glass struck the table.
This time, it did not spill.
Nathaniel stood near the door.
“You trained him to do that,” Wren said.
“No.”
“He has developed a sense of timing.”
“He has always had one.”
Wren rubbed the deep folds behind Brutus’s ears.
Nathaniel looked around the café. Chairs were still upside down on the tables. Morning light lay pale across the floor. The pastry case hummed.
“You look tired,” he said.
“You look convicted.”
“I am.”
She glanced toward the car outside. “What time do you have to report?”
“Ten.”
“It’s seven.”
“I was awake.”
“So you came for coffee.”
“I came for the dog.”
Brutus pressed harder against her knees.
“Clearly.”
Nathaniel sat across from her.
Without the steel watch, his wrist still looked strangely unfinished. He folded his hands on the table.
“I sold Providence House,” he said.
“That was not necessary.”
“It was losing money.”
“That makes more sense.”
“The new owner offered your former manager a position in Connecticut.”
“Did the manager accept?”
“No.”
“Good for Connecticut.”
A faint smile touched Nathaniel’s face.
Wren poured him coffee. He drank it black.
For a minute, neither spoke.
Outside, a delivery truck blocked half the street. A cyclist shouted at the driver. Someone upstairs dragged furniture across a floor.
Ordinary sounds.
Nathaniel turned the cup slowly between his hands. “Gabriel intends to take Brutus to Vermont.”
“He told me.”
“He has purchased a house with stairs.”
“That seems poorly planned.”
“I said the same.”
“Did he listen?”
“No.”
“Family trait.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
“I don’t expect forgiveness,” he said.
“Good.”
“I wanted to say that before I left.”
“You already apologized.”
“It was insufficient.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
The acceptance contained no request.
Wren studied him. Prison would not make him good. Testimony had not erased the people harmed by his decisions. Six years would not balance a decade of power.
But he had stayed.
Not for noble reasons alone. Strategy, guilt, his brother, the dog, exhaustion. Human motives rarely arrived one at a time.
“What happens when you get out?” she asked.
“My attorneys prefer that I focus on getting in.”
“Wise.”
“I will be forty-five.”
“That is how arithmetic works.”
“I may open a restaurant.”
She stared at him.
He lifted one shoulder. “Legal this time.”
“You can’t operate the coffee machine in your own apartment.”
“I have six years to learn.”
Wren looked down so he would not see her smile.
Brutus’s collar shifted beneath her hand. The bent medal clicked against the brass fitting.
Nathaniel heard it too.
His expression changed, not dramatically. A pause. A breath. The memory of rain, perhaps, and a younger brother trapped in a car while a stranger in repaired shoes refused to keep walking.
“I’ll take care of him,” Wren said.
Nathaniel’s eyes moved to Brutus. “He will take care of Gabriel.”
“He can do both.”
“Yes.”
A horn sounded outside. The driver across the street checked his watch.
Nathaniel stood.
At the door, he stopped.
“Wren.”
She looked up.
He seemed to search for a sentence and reject several.
“Thank you,” he said.
Not for saving Gabriel.
Not for stopping him on the stairs.
Not for testifying.
Perhaps for all of it. Perhaps for something smaller.
Wren rested one hand on Brutus’s head.
“You should go,” she said.
Nathaniel nodded and stepped outside.
He did not look back.
The car carried him away through morning traffic, stopping at the first red light like everyone else.
Wren remained at the table until it disappeared.
Then she straightened the chairs, unlocked the front door, and turned the sign to OPEN.
Brutus followed her behind the counter.
May you like
His medal struck the cabinet when he lay down beside her repaired black shoes.
She left it bent.
