Chapter 5
Tom appeared from nowhere.
Tom existed in every place that mattered.
Two men in tuxedos whom I would have identified as waiters seized 1 of the approaching men by the arm without visible disturbance.
From a distance, the movement appeared almost gentle.
The 2nd man halted, stepped backward twice, and disappeared through a side door like smoke.
The entire event lasted less than 12 seconds.
Not 1 guest stopped watching the auctioneer.
Dante pushed me behind the column and placed both hands firmly against my shoulders, assessing me.
His breathing remained controlled with the precision learned through repeated danger.
Mine did not.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“Look at me.”
I did.
“You reacted too quickly.”
His eyes remained dark and completely fixed on mine.
It was not an accusation.
It was an observation, which made it more difficult to dispute.
“I’ve worked around dangerous people for a long time,” I answered. “As an outsider, you learn to read a room.”
He did not respond.
He watched me with a new calm, one that neither pressured nor yielded.
I saw the precise instant when he stored the explanation in another internal drawer beside the one containing the gray cabinet covered by wool.
He said nothing else.
He took my hand and led me to the car.
Inside the rear seat, silence was as heavy as wet cloth.
Tom drove with his usual composure, his hands relaxed and his speed constant.
I saw his eyes meet mine once in the rearview mirror.
Only once.
He did not smile or make a remark.
It was the look of a man who would open a file on me, assuming one did not already exist.
I turned toward the window.
Boston passed in blurred orange light. Wet pavement reflected the streetlamps from below.
I rested my temple against the cold glass and understood, with a clarity that turned my stomach, that I was tired.
I was not tired of lying in general. I had lived with professional deception for almost a decade, and it had never carried this weight.
I was tired of this particular lie told to this particular man.
With his hand covering mine on the dark leather seat, the deception had begun costing more than I had calculated when accepting Pierce’s contract.
I was tired of measuring each word before breathing.
I was tired of pretending not to know the Italian restaurant’s owner, the pattern of Dante’s Saturdays, or the name carved into a gravestone I had located for a February report.
I was tired of calling something discovery when it was memory.
Dante’s hand settled over mine.
It was not a squeeze.
It was a landing.
It was the hand of someone deciding to remain without announcing the decision.
“Marceline?”
“Yes?”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s the cold.”
It was another lie, perhaps the 1,000th of that evening or the 1,000th of the week.
He did not answer.
He kept his hand over mine and looked ahead toward Tom and the streets Boston continued opening before the car.
Between Dante and me, a 3rd living thing now existed.
The lie breathed inside my chest, its taste becoming less tolerable as it waited for the day I could no longer hold it on a leash.
The car entered my street.
Tom stopped at the corner without turning off the engine.
Dante lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles once.
There was no ceremony or performance in it.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Tomorrow.”
I went upstairs and closed my apartment door without switching on the light.
I rested my forehead against the wooden frame and listened in complete darkness as the car traveled away until silence consumed the engine.
For the 1st time since accepting Pierce’s contract, I allowed myself to form the thought plainly.
I would not be able to continue without telling Dante the truth.
May you like
The question remaining in the dark hallway frightened me more than the man beside the auction-hall column.
When would I tell him?
