Dominic's POV
My brother has never been in a room without a window.
I realise it in the visiting suite at the Manhattan Detention Complex, at eleven on Tuesday morning, watching him walk through a steel door in an orange jumpsuit with a guard's hand on his elbow. Caleb has always lived in light. Beach houses, yacht decks, skylights, a loft with twelve-foot panes.
He blinks at the fluorescent tube like a man surfacing from deep water.
"Dom."
"Cal."
"They took my shoelaces."
"I know."
"They took my belt. I've been holding my trousers up since last night." A shaky laugh. "Do you know, I've always thought I looked quite good in orange."
"You look terrible."
"That's more like it."
The table between us is bolted to the floor. There's a plastic partition, scratched with initials, and a phone on either side, black and greasy. Behind him, the guard folds his arms. Behind me, Marcus stands by the door with a face like a gravestone.
I pick up the receiver.
"Tell me."
"They said it's money laundering." Caleb's voice is thin in the earpiece. "Four million dollars. A wire from an offshore account into my private one, eleven months ago. Marked as a consultancy fee. A man called Mercer."
"Rourke Mercer."
"I've never heard of him. I swear on Mother's grave."
"I know you haven't."
"Then why do they..."
"Because someone put it there."
"What?"
"Eleven months ago, someone wired four million dollars to your account from a trust connected to Edmund Vance. The same trust that paid the man who built the bomb." I keep my voice level. "It was a plant. It's been sitting there for a year, waiting for the day they needed you."
"Needed me for what?"
"To silence you. And to frighten me."
His mouth works.
"The bottle," he says.
"The bottle."
"They're going to say I knew."
"Yes."
"They're going to say I carried it down on purpose."
"They might."
"Dom..."
"I won't let them."
"You can't stop..."
"Cal." I lean forward. "Look at me."
"I got you out of one cell when you were nineteen. A drunk and disorderly in Newport. I got you out of the Foxwoods debt. I'm going to get you out of this one. I need you to do three things."
"Anything."
"Don't talk to anyone but Judith Weiss." Marcus's choice. A criminal lawyer from the Bronx, small and pale and ferocious, who once put a congressman in jail. "Don't talk to the cops. Don't talk to the chaplain. And don't talk to Edmund."
Caleb flinches.
"Edmund came at dawn."
"He what?"
"He turned up at the precinct in a three-piece suit. He said he'd be handling my defence. He said the family wouldn't want anyone else."
"What did you say?"
"I said I'd think about it."
"Cal."
"I didn't sign anything." His eyes fill. "I didn't know. I thought it was kind. I thought he was being a friend."
"Edmund's never been a friend."
"I know that now."
"Good."
"And Tessa?"
"What about her?"
"She came this morning."
I go very still.
"She what?"
"Before they moved me. In the holding cell. She stood in front of me with the guard, and she said, Caleb, I've done something terrible." He swallows. "She said she'd given Edmund an address. She said it was a fire."
"I know."
"She said, I'm going to fix it."
"How?"
"She wouldn't say." His voice cracks. "She kissed me through the grille, Dom. Like a woman saying goodbye. She said, Tell Dom I've gone to get what he needs."
"Gone where?"
"I don't know."
"When?"
"Six this morning."
I put down the phone.
"Caleb. Think. Did she say anything else? Anything about Edmund? A place?"
He frowns.
"She said... she said, I know where he keeps the originals."
"What originals?"
"I don't know." He closes his eyes. "Something about a safe. In his house. In the cellar. A box with the texts."
The texts.
The one from the yacht. Lower aft cabin until ten. The one from Caleb. Bringing the champagne down now.
The only two pieces of evidence that tied two innocent people to a murder.
And a woman who'd decided to walk into the lair of the man who held them and take them back.
"Marcus," I say.
"I'm already calling."
"Her phone."
"Dead since six last night."
"Find her."
"Boss..."
"Find her."
"Time," he says.
I stand.
I put my palm against the plastic. After a moment, my brother lifts his own, orange-sleeved and trembling, and sets it against mine on the other side of the scratched, greasy barrier.
"I'm sorry," he says.
"Don't."
"I mean it. I'm so sorry, Dom. I'm such a bloody mess."
"You're my brother."
"It's the same thing."
"It's not." I smile. It's the hardest thing I've done all week. "Hold on. Two more days."
"What happens in two days?"
"Torres," I say, "gets her subpoenas."
I don't have time to explain.
***
He stands by a pillar in a dove-grey coat, with his case at his feet, scrolling a phone with an expression of mild boredom. When he sees me, he tucks it away.
"Dominic. My dear fellow."
Marcus steps between us.
"It's all right," I say.
"Boss..."
"It's all right, Marcus. Wait by the door."
I walk toward the pillar.
I walk slowly. I can feel my heart, low and steady. I feel the bruise on my jaw, the crack in my rib, the burn under the bandage on my hand. I feel the weight of a ledger in a black tin box, and a hand in mine across a three-foot gap.
"You came to see my brother."
"Naturally."
"At dawn."
"I'm the family lawyer." He looks genuinely pained. "I was never going to leave him to a public defender."
"You took the shares in Marlin."
"Did I?"
"You sold his debt to a Larkspur shell."
"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."
"And you put four million dollars in his account."
Vance smiles.
It's a thin, patient smile. It makes the room feel colder.
"Dominic," he says gently. "You're upset. It's quite understandable. I'd be upset myself, if my brother were in a cell."
"You put him there."
"I did no such thing."
"You're the one who..."
"I'm the one who can get him out." The grey eyes rest on mine, clear and calm. "I've taken the liberty of speaking to the district attorney. A friend. A very old friend. The charges are serious, but they're not insurmountable. A word from the right person, and the whole matter could be reclassified. A clerical error. A mistaken transfer."
"What do you want?"
"What I've always wanted."
"The shares."
"The shares." He spreads his hands. "Your voting rights in the Hale Family Trust. Signed over to me, as trustee, effective Friday. A temporary arrangement. Eighteen months."
"And Caleb goes free."
"By Friday evening."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I'm afraid," says Edmund Vance, with every appearance of regret, "that your brother will be charged with something a good deal more serious than laundering."
I look at him.
At the narrow face, the mild eyes, the silver hair. I think of a champagne bucket on a workbench. A drill hole, neat and round.
I think: I could kill you with my hands.
I think: Seventy-two hours.
I make my face go slack and weary and defeated, the face of a man at the end of his rope.
"I'll think about it," I say.
"Of course."
"I need until Friday."
"Of course you do. Take whatever time you need."
"Thank you, Edmund."
"Not at all." He picks up his case. "Do give my love to Ms Lowell. I hear she was caught in a dreadful fire."
He walks away.
His footsteps fade down the long, bright corridor, past the metal detectors and the guard at the desk, and out into the grey October morning.
I stand where I am.
I'm shaking so badly that I put my hand against the wall.
Marcus is at my elbow.
"Boss. You're white as a sheet."
"Did you hear?"
"Every word."
"Torres said not to confront anyone."
"You didn't."
"I lied to a man's face." I laugh weakly. "I'm getting rather good at it."
"It's a skill," says Marcus.
"Find Tessa."
"I'm trying."
"Find her now."
"Boss," says Marcus slowly. He's looking past me, down the corridor, at the doors. "I don't think we'll need to."
I turn.
A small figure has come in through the metal detectors. A woman in a camel coat, with a battered leather case in her arms, and a face as grey as ash. Her hair is matted. There's a bruise on her cheek the colour of a plum.
She walks toward me, with the unsteady step of a sleepwalker.
"Dom," says Tessa, and falls.