Page 101 of His Wall

"I have worked for this for twelve years. Do you have any idea how many people I have had to keep quiet about this? How much money has had to move so that other people would forget the name they used to know? I am this close." He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "And you are not going to ruin it for me."

He gestured at the documents on the coffee table.

"Sign the Vanguard over. Clean transfer. Your partners get paid out. You get paid out. Everyone walks away."

I looked at the documents.

I looked at Conrad.

The man who had chosen me before my mother had died. The man who had used my grief as the opening because he had been waiting for an opening. The man who was sitting on my couch in his tailored suit with a glass of my whiskey in his hand and calling it faith.

"And if I don't."

Conrad turned his head a quarter-inch.

He looked at the man by the window.

The man stepped forward.

He pulled the gun from the holster. He drew the slide back. The metallic click was the loudest thing in the room. He lifted the barrel and aimed it at the center of my face.

Conrad set his whiskey down.

"Let's try that again, shall we, Julian?"

NINETEEN

LEAH

I was in the car with the keys still in my hand and Harlow's voice still in my ear.

The passport flag was a decoy. Conrad never left the city. Surveillance just picked up activity at a shell-company address six blocks from Cross's apartment.

I dialed Julian.

It rang.

It rang.

It rang.

His voicemail. The greeting was recorded on a Tuesday morning in March in his office while I had been sitting at my desk pretending not to listen. "You've reached Julian. Leave a message."

I dialed again.

Voicemail.

Again.

Voicemail.

I had pulled out of my building's garage and turned south on the avenue without deciding to. My hands were tight on the wheel. I was breathing too fast. I had the windows up, and I was driving down Sixth at a speed that was not legal in a residential area.

I forced myself to pull over at Twenty-Second.

I put the car in park. I put my hands flat on the wheel and I made my breathing slow. I made it slow.

I was not the woman whose boyfriend was not picking up his phone.