Page 68 of His Wall

He pulled back. His forehead came to rest against mine.

"Come to work late with me. Breakfast first."

"I need to go to my apartment to change, Julian."

"We'll get you something on the way. There's a place I know."

"Julian — "

"There's a place I know."

I closed my eyes.

"Okay."

We got dressed. I pulled on last night's jeans and the gray sweater. He stood in the bedroom doorway in dark trousers and a clean white shirt with the sleeves not yet rolled and watched me sit on the edge of his bed and pull on my boots.

"I like you in my apartment."

"Don't get used to it."

"Too late."

He was smiling. The small private one. The one for me.

I laced the second boot.

The files I had photographed. The judge. The map. The theory document in his handwriting. The time I had spent on a frame the Bureau had given me — Julian Cross is Conrad Weiss's inside man at the Vanguard, and his job is to keep the original architecture available for Conrad's continuing operation.

Last night he said, "I'm in trouble. I'm not who you think I am, and I'm not sure I'm who I think I am either."

He had not said it like a man managing a conspiracy. He had said it like a man drowning.

What if I had been wrong?

The thought went through me cold.

I had built a frame for five months. The frame had photographs in it. The frame had a man kissing me in a hallway and lying to me at a gala and walking Conrad Weiss into an elevator alone. The frame had every reason to be the right frame.

The frame did not have last night.

The frame did not have a man on a couch telling me about his mother. It did not have a man saying he was in trouble and asking me to stay. It did not have a five-page theory document protecting partners he loved.

I straightened. I shrugged my coat on. He was at the door waiting with his keys in his hand.

"Ready, Claire?"

"Ready."

We left the apartment. The hallway was quiet. He hit the elevator button and pulled me in against his side while we waited and kissed the top of my head.

"What."

"Nothing."

"You went somewhere."

"I'm here."