No More Rooms Without You

I read Kane's message again, then called Miles.

"No more approaching him through intermediaries. I want him found. I want the people he's using kept away from Charlotte's company and Summer's school."

"We're already on it."

"And Arthur gets the full warning. He shouldn't be guessing what a favor to Kane will cost."

Charlotte sat beside me in the car, quiet while I spoke.

When I hung up, she said, "You sound different."

"I used to spend a lot of time making people understand me the first time."

"You could have tried that with me."

I looked at her.

"I was afraid of the answer."

She let out a tired breath.

"Take me home. Not to an office, not to a room where men keep interrupting. Summer will be asleep. I want to talk to you."

We returned to the safe house. Nora met us at the door, checked Charlotte's face, and asked whether the evening had gone badly.

"Parts of it," Charlotte said. "The fundraiser went well."

Nora looked at me.

"We need an exceptionally uneventful day soon."

"I'm working on it."

Summer was asleep with one foot outside the blanket. I covered it and stood watching her until Charlotte touched my back.

"She's all right."

"I know."

"Come with me."

In her room, Charlotte removed her earrings and set them beside the old ribbon. She remained in the dress, barefoot now.

"The Merchant of Death," she said.

I leaned against the closed door.

"A name people used because fear helped them bargain."

"Did you encourage it?"

"Sometimes."

She nodded slowly.

"I won't pretend I don't care about the answers. I also won't pretend I didn't see the man who kept Summer safe. Both are you."

"Yes."

"Which part follows us home?"

That was the question under everything.

"The power to protect you," I said. "The responsibility for what I've already done. But the arrangements Kane helped create end with him. I won't make you live around business you aren't allowed to question."

"I'm not asking you to become poor. Or harmless."

"I wasn't planning either."

She almost smiled.

"Good. I have no interest in marrying a man who needs to be told how every dangerous thing works."

I looked at her.

"Marrying?"

Her cheeks warmed.

"That was an example."

"A detailed example."

"Don't look so pleased. We haven't solved everything."

I came closer, stopping where she could decide whether to close the remaining distance.

"What haven't we solved?"

"Four years. You don't fix those by telling me about Owen."

"No."

"I kept the first ultrasound picture in my wallet. I used to take it out while I was trying your number. I wanted to show you before she looked like anything more than a little blur."

Her voice shook. She looked away.

I waited. There were things she had never been able to say to me, and she deserved the room to say them now.

"When the message came, I decided I wouldn't beg. Then she was born, and I started looking again because being proud didn't seem worth making her grow up without you."

I reached for her hand.

She let me take it.

"I should have asked you myself," I said. "Even if the report had been true. Even if you'd told me never to call again. You deserved to make that decision in your own voice."

"Yes."

"I can't give you those mornings back. I can stay for the ones ahead."

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

Then she stepped into my arms.

I held her while she cried quietly against my chest. I didn't tell her everything would be easy. I didn't try to turn the moment into a kiss.

Eventually she pulled back and wiped her face with the heel of her hand.

"I've ruined my makeup."

"You frightened an entire room while wearing it. It did its job."

A laugh escaped her, broken but real.

She rested her hands on my chest.

"I still want dinner with you. Breakfast too. Things that don't involve catching up after another disappearance."

"Then we'll have them."

"And I want to be angry without you deciding it means you should leave."

"I'll stay for that too."

She kissed me. Slowly this time, with nothing to prove to anybody watching.

Afterward, we sat on the bed looking through the photographs on her phone. Summer as a newborn. Summer laughing with cake on her face. Charlotte exhausted and smiling beside a hospital bassinet.

I learned the names of people who had helped her. I learned that Summer's first word had been more, which explained a great deal.

Charlotte laughed when I said so.

Near midnight, I kissed her forehead and began to stand.

She caught my wrist.

"Where are you going?"

"My room. I wasn't assuming—"

"I'm asking you to stay."

I looked at her.

"All right."

She lifted the blanket. I put my phone on the bedside table where both of us could see it and lay beside her.

Before she fell asleep, Charlotte took my hand and placed it against her cheek.

"You can be frightened in here," she whispered. "You don't have to perform for me."

I had heard people offer loyalty, money, and silence. Nobody had offered me that particular freedom.

I kissed her forehead and stayed awake long enough to feel her breathing settle against my chest. When I finally closed my eyes, I wasn't rehearsing how to leave.

We slept with the lamp off this time.

In the morning, Summer climbed onto the bed between us and asked why my room was empty.

Charlotte buried her face in the pillow.

"The mattress here is better," I said.

Summer bounced once to test it.

"It is."

Miles arrived after breakfast. He had found the property Kane was using near the port. Owen had supplied contact records after learning that nobody intended to protect his involvement in the threats.

Kane had sent a new message through him: a meeting, that afternoon, with the records he wanted.

"He thinks you still care more about those than anything," Miles said.

I looked at Charlotte, then at Summer drawing beside the window.

"Let him think it until I'm in front of him."

Charlotte rose.

"Before you go anywhere, I want to see that address. Hayes serviced that property last winter. There may be something your people haven't seen."