This Time, We Go Together

The tin smelled faintly of cinnamon.

I spread the recipe cards on Rico's desk. My mother's handwriting slanted to the left, untidy and impatient. There was flour in the crease of a card for soda bread.

I ran my finger over it.

For a moment, I remembered a woman's elbow nudging me away from a mixing bowl. A laugh. The smell of butter warming in a pan.

Then the study came back.

"Take your time," Rico said.

I lifted the paper lining.

A slim black drive lay taped to the bottom, beside a folded sheet.

My handwriting was on the outside.

If I'm wrong, I'll owe you an apology. If I'm right, please listen before you get angry.

Rico read the words over my shoulder.

He sat down.

The letter inside was short. I had made copies of Haven's financial records after finding false payments attached to people who could no longer be reached. Some money had passed through Northstar. I hadn't known whether Rico understood what that company was doing.

I had hidden a backup at home because I was afraid of what the meeting with Marcus might reveal.

At the bottom, I had written:

I want Leo to grow up somewhere we don't have to explain away what we did to keep him comfortable.

I read that sentence three times.

"Did you know?" I asked Rico.

"Not about Haven. Not about people being held or threatened."

"But Northstar wasn't clean."

He looked at the letter.

"No. I paid people to find information they shouldn't have been able to obtain. I didn't ask enough about how they got it."

I put the letter down.

There was no clean division between the world that had stolen me and the world he had built. Not complete identity, either. He hadn't ordered my disappearance. He had spent eighteen months looking for me.

But I understood why the woman who wrote that letter had been frightened to hand it to him.

"What happens if we give this to Julia?"

"She finds people who can verify it. It becomes evidence."

"And for you?"

His jaw tightened.

"That depends on what it shows and what I turn over with it."

"I'm asking because I need to know whether you're about to tell me we should keep it until you've fixed the parts that might hurt you."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he took his phone out and called Julia.

She came with a specialist the following morning. They documented where the drive had been found, made protected copies, and told us not to promise ourselves that one small object would settle everything.

Marcus's records could help establish what the files meant. My letter explained why I had kept them. Other witnesses would still need to be found and protected.

"Don't send any of this to a newspaper," Julia said. "There are vulnerable people in these records. Their names aren't a bargaining chip."

"They won't be," I said.

After she left, Rico closed the study door.

"Dante has a property outside the city," he said. "I'd like you and Leo to go there for a few days."

My stomach tightened.

"And you?"

"I'll deal with what comes next."

"Which part?"

"Kincaid knows we have you. He won't know whether we've found the records yet, but he won't wait forever."

"So you plan to stay here and make him disappear."

His silence frightened me more than an admission would have.

I stood in front of the door.

"What happens if you don't come home?"

"I will."

"You can't promise that."

His face hardened.

"I won't take you into a fight."

"Then don't arrange one. Give Julia what she needs. Let her bring in people who aren't on Kincaid's payroll. Come with us."

"That takes time."

"Killing someone takes time too. So does explaining to our son why his father isn't at breakfast."

He turned away, hands on his hips.

I went to him, angry and afraid and unwilling to let either of us pretend those feelings were wisdom.

"I know you're capable of hurting people. You don't have to prove that to me. I need to know whether you're capable of leaving with us when staying would make you feel powerful."

He looked at me.

The phone on his desk began to ring.

An unfamiliar number.

Rico answered on speaker after a glance at me.

"Moretti," a man said. "You've made a private matter needlessly complicated."

"Kincaid."

I felt the name in my teeth.

"I'd like to speak to Elena."

"I'm here," I said.

A pause.

"You sound well. Marcus told me you'd had a difficult recovery."

"He also told me what you did."

"Then he neglected to explain the alternatives. Your husband has enemies. You know that better than most people. The records you took won't distinguish him from the rest of us."

Rico watched the phone without moving.

"We've already given the copies to my attorney," I said.

Kincaid's breath caught, almost too quietly to hear.

"I suggest you think about your son before you make another mistake."

Rico reached for the phone.

I put my hand over his.

"Don't call me again," I said, and ended it.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then Rico called Julia and repeated the threat. He told her about Northstar too, without waiting for her to ask.

By late afternoon, the plan was different.

We would all leave for the property while Julia arranged a secure place for the next interviews. Rico would not meet Kincaid. He would turn over his records and deal with the consequences through counsel.

He looked sick when he said it.

I took his hand.

"I'm not asking you to be unafraid."

"Good," he said roughly. "Because that would be a problem."

Upstairs, Leo packed three dinosaurs and no underwear.

"An ambitious approach," I told him.

He considered the suitcase and added one sock.

Rico laughed from the doorway.

It was such an ordinary sound that I wanted to keep it somewhere safe.

Before we left, he gave Julia access to records from his own office. Dante loaded our bags. I checked Leo's car seat myself, twice, and climbed into the back beside him.

Rico sat in front with Dante. Another driver followed in a second vehicle.

Leo watched the house through the window.

"All going?"

"All of us," Rico said, turning so our son could see his face.

We had been on the road less than fifteen minutes when Dante looked into the rearview mirror.

His voice changed.

"Rico. We have a problem."

A van moved out from the curb ahead of us.

Dante braked.

The car behind us hit hard enough to throw my shoulder against the seat belt.

Leo screamed.