Nine Days

Damian read the folder twice.

Emily had died at twenty-one, eight months earlier. The public fundraiser was still online. Tessa had written its updates herself, each one a little shorter than the last.

Paul had printed the final message.

Thank you for loving her with us.

Damian put that page facedown.

"Eighty-six thousand, nine hundred and forty dollars," Paul said.

"All medical?"

"Treatment, travel, rent while she couldn't work. Credit cards. A private lender named Victor Hale. That part's thirty-eight thousand. His collector has been showing up at her diner."

Damian recognized Hale's name. A small operator who stayed outside Costa territory because he valued his teeth.

"Has anyone threatened her?"

"I haven't found a report."

"That's not what I asked."

"It's what I know."

Damian closed the folder.

On the monitor, Tessa struggled to open a carton of milk with one hand. Rosa took it from her and said something that made her laugh.

"Anything in the locker?"

"A bus schedule. Spare socks. Half a sandwich."

Paul waited.

"No jewelry," he added.

"I heard you."

"Did you?"

Damian looked up. Paul had known him for nineteen years. He had earned a degree of insolence other men wisely avoided.

"That's enough."

Paul left.

Over the weekend, Damian flew south to handle a dispute that had become inconveniently public. He spent two days in hotel rooms with men who lied badly and one evening making sure they would not try again.

He opened the east wing feed once.

His mother was asleep. The chair was empty.

He put the phone away and called Leah instead.

By Wednesday, the ninth day since the bowl had struck the doorway, he had arranged a meeting with Mrs. Alvarez about Tessa's schedule. He told himself the plan was practical. His mother benefited from familiar company. Tessa needed reliable income. There was no reason either problem should remain a problem.

At two fifteen he went upstairs.

Tessa was reading beside the bed. A pencil held her place where the paperback's binding had split.

"This man has now failed to notice three separate clues," she told Beatrice. "If he gets murdered, I refuse to be surprised."

His mother made a sleepy, dismissive sound.

"Exactly. You'd have solved it by breakfast."

Damian knocked on the open door.

Tessa looked up, and the smile remained on her face for half a second before she remembered who he was.

He wanted that half second back.

"Can we speak?"

Her eyes flicked to the clock. "Is there a problem?"

"Not here."

He led her to the sitting room. She stayed near the door.

"Your hand?" he asked.

"Healing. Leah checked it this morning."

"Good."

He had negotiated with men holding guns under tables. He had never before needed to consider how to begin an offer of employment.

"I'd like you to spend more time with my mother. As part of your paid work. Mrs. Alvarez can reassign the heavier cleaning."

Tessa blinked.

"Doing what?"

"What you've been doing. Reading. Keeping her company. The nurses would remain responsible for her care."

She considered it. He watched calculation replace anxiety.

"How many hours?"

"We can discuss it."

"And the pay?"

"More than you make now. Enough that you wouldn't need the diner."

Her face changed.

"I didn't tell you about the diner."

Damian paused.

It was only a second, but she saw it.

"Who told you?"

"Paul checked your background."

"You already checked my background when I applied."

"More thoroughly."

She glanced toward the ceiling. Through the sitting room door, the black camera above his mother's dresser was visible.

"You've been watching me."

He could have made it sound routine. There were routines in his house that excused almost anything.

"Yes."

"How long?"

"Nine days."

She stared at him.

"While I read to her. While I fed her."

"Yes."

"What were you waiting for me to do?"

"I didn't know."

Her mouth tightened. "Steal something? Ask you for money?"

He did not answer quickly enough.

She looked down at her injured hand, then toward the doorway.

"You could have asked me a question. Like a person."

"I did ask."

"After how many hours of watching?"

There was no useful answer.

"What else?" she asked.

"Tessa."

"What else did you have checked?"

He held her gaze.

"Your locker. Your debts. Your sister."

She went very still.

He wished immediately that he had stopped before the last word. That wish was almost unfamiliar to him.

"You had no right to bring Emily into this."

"I needed to know who was in my house."

"Then fire me."

"That isn't what I want."

"I'm beginning to understand that what you want takes up a lot of space here."

Her voice shook on the last word. She clasped her hands, winced, and separated them again.

Damian took a step toward her.

She took one back.

He stopped.

"My sister was sick for three years," she said. "I worked. I borrowed. I kept thinking the next treatment would be the one that worked."

She drew a breath through her nose.

"The fundraiser didn't cover it. Insurance didn't cover it. People kept handing me forms while she got smaller in the bed. So yes, I owe money. It isn't a secret mission. It's just what happened."

He looked at the mark her fingers had left on her bandage.

"I'm sorry about your sister."

"I don't want you to be sorry because a man put her photograph in a folder."

The room fell silent.

In the bedroom, Leah quietly closed a drawer.

Damian thought of the two sisters outside the hospital. Tessa had been smiling in that picture, too, with one hand braced behind Emily's back.

"Is that why you stay with my mother?"

Tessa's eyes shone. She looked furious about it.

"I like your mother. She's funny when she wants to be. She hates being fussed over. Sometimes she talks about the garden."

A tear slipped down her face. She wiped it away impatiently.

"And yes. Sometimes sitting beside her is easier than going home to an apartment where nobody needs me anymore. Are you satisfied? Is that a good enough motive?"

"No," he said softly. "I'm not satisfied."

He wanted the exhaustion gone from her face. He wanted Hale's name out of her life. He wanted to go backward nine days and meet her without a lens between them.

Only two of those things were possible.

"I'll pay the debt. All of it."

She shook her head immediately.

"No."

"You wouldn't owe me anything."

"You don't know how to mean that."

The words hit hard enough to silence him.

She picked up her bag from the chair where she had left it.

"If I say no to your money, Mr. Costa, do I still get to come to work tomorrow?"

He looked at the door behind her, the hallway beyond it, the house in which no one ever asked him that question because everyone already knew the answer.

Tessa waited for his.