Chương 3
“Julian Morrow.”
Dahlia inhaled through her nose. “That name is familiar.”
“It should be,” Nathaniel said. “He spent nineteen years with the Providence Police Department.”
“Of course he did,” Wren murmured.
“He retired as a detective lieutenant. Now he advises private security companies, shipping firms, and people who prefer not to explain their problems in court.”
“People like you.”
“Yes.”
His answer came without defense.
Wren disliked him more for that.
Dahlia looked between them. “Why would a retired detective want to kill Wren?”
Nathaniel’s thumb moved over the bent medal. “Because she can identify him.”
“I saw his ring for two seconds four years ago.”
“You saw more than that.”
“I saw rain.”
“You gave a description to a patrol officer.”
“I told him there was another man near the car.”
“You said the man dragged his left foot. You described the ring. You remembered the first three characters of a license plate.”
Wren felt the vehicle tilt beneath her, though it had not changed speed.
“That statement disappeared,” Nathaniel continued. “The officer who took it said you were confused and refused to sign.”
“I signed three pages.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“My brother’s attorney found a scanned intake log last month. Your name appeared beside a report number that no longer exists.”
Dahlia turned to Wren. “You never told me any of this.”
“I told you I found an accident.”
“You said you held pressure on some guy’s chest until the ambulance came. You did not say a mafia dog tried to bite you.”
Brutus opened one amber eye.
“He didn’t bite me.”
“That’s the part you’re correcting?”
Wren rubbed her thumb against a water stain on the apron. The fabric had dried stiff over years of cheap detergent and long shifts. “The police told me it was a single-car crash. They said the driver lost control.”
Nathaniel’s expression did not change.
“It wasn’t,” she said.
“No.”
“You knew?”
“Not then.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect nothing from you yet.”
The SUV passed beneath the dark structure of Route 95. Light broke across Nathaniel’s face and disappeared.
Wren watched the steel watch at his wrist. It was expensive without being decorative. There was a faint white line beneath it, an old scar circling part of his arm.
“What happened to your brother?”
“Gabriel survived.”
The answer loosened something inside her before she could stop it.
She had wondered for years. Not often. Not in any way she admitted. But sometimes while washing glasses at closing, she had remembered the stranger’s blood under her fingernails and the way his eyes opened once in the ambulance.
He had said a name.
Not hers.
Nate.
“And the dog?” Dahlia asked, looking down.
Brutus exhaled heavily across Wren’s shoe.
Nathaniel’s mouth moved by a fraction. “The dog also survived.”
“Clearly.”
“He spent eleven days in veterinary surgery.”
Wren looked at the medal again. “Why was it still bent?”
“Gabriel wouldn’t let anyone replace it.”
The sentence rested among them.
Dahlia wiped at mascara under one eye with the heel of her hand. “How did you arrange tonight?”
Nathaniel shifted his attention to her. “Through a matchmaking consultant.”
Dahlia stared.
“You contacted her,” Wren said.
“I contacted a firm that contacted her.”
“My friend was used as a delivery system.”
“I was told Miss Moore regularly encouraged you to accept dates.”
“That is a disturbingly polished description of harassment,” Dahlia said.
Nathaniel regarded her. “Were you paid?”
“No.”
“Then you were persuaded.”
“By a woman named Celeste who said Nathan was a private investor with no social media because he had been through a divorce.”
“I have not been through a divorce.”
“Good. I’d hate for one detail to be dishonest.”
Wren turned toward the window. Providence moved past in wet fragments: brick buildings, traffic lights, people standing outside bars with phones in their hands. Somewhere, a couple laughed beneath an awning. A delivery cyclist passed them at an intersection, unaware that the man across from Wren could make police officers lower their weapons.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“A secure property.”
“No.”
“Your apartment is not safe.”
“You don’t know where I live.”
Nathaniel said nothing.
Dahlia closed her eyes. “He knows where you live.”
“I know where you work,” Nathaniel said. “I know where you live, what route you take home, and that your landlord has not repaired the rear lock despite three written requests.”
Wren felt heat climb her throat. “You followed me.”
“I watched for Morrow.”
“You watched me.”
“Yes.”
There was the answer again. Clean. Unashamed.
She leaned forward despite Brutus’s weight against her feet. “Did you know he would come to the restaurant?”
“I believed he might.”
“You used me as bait.”
“I chose a public location with controlled access, armed security, and reinforced glass.”
“He fired through it.”
“The glass diverted the round.”
“That is your defense?”
“No.”
The SUV slowed. They were turning away from downtown toward College Hill.
Dahlia whispered, “Wren.”
Wren did not look at her.
Nathaniel put the medal into his inside jacket pocket. “I needed Morrow to expose which of my security routes he still controlled. I believed he would observe before acting.”
“You believed wrong.”
“Yes.”
Again, no defense.
His calm did not soothe her. It made anger feel childish, as though he had already filed it among predictable outcomes.
Brutus lifted his head when Wren tried to move her feet.
She looked down at him. “You have terrible taste in men.”
The mastiff’s loose jowls shifted with another breath.
Dahlia laughed once, a short, startled sound. Then she began to cry.
Not loudly. Her shoulders folded, and she turned toward the window as if the darkness outside deserved privacy more than the people in the car.
Wren’s anger loosened.
She reached across Brutus and took Dahlia’s hand.
Dahlia squeezed hard. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I kept pushing.”
“You always push.”
“I said you needed one nice dinner.”
“The fish was nice.”
May you like
“It was untouched.”
“It looked nice.”
