Chapter 10
My thumbprint still opened the penthouse door.
I held it while Kelsey went straight to the guest room. The boys were waiting there, asking questions all at once. She answered only what she could, gathered their coats, and brought them downstairs with her hand resting protectively on Cormac’s shoulder.
By the time I found them in the café across the street, they were crowded into a corner booth. Four paper cups steamed between them. Kelsey sat on the aisle, her back to the wall, watching the door.
Cormac spotted me first. “Are we going somewhere?”
Kelsey didn’t look away from me. “We are.”
I stopped beside the booth. “Where do you want to go?”
Her fingers tightened around her cup. “A motel. Somewhere ordinary, where nobody has a reason to come looking for us.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go.”
“I don’t want you choosing it for us.”
“I won’t.”
For a moment, her expression stayed guarded. Then she pulled out her phone and began searching nearby places. I waited while she compared them, the boys leaning against one another beneath their matching coats.
“Two nights,” she said at last. “I’ll decide what happens after that.”
“Okay.”
She looked up, almost as if she’d expected me to argue. I didn’t. What she needed from me now wasn’t a better promise. It was room to make her own decisions.
While she made the reservation, I called the building manager. He answered on the fourth ring, speaking over the distant clatter of a service elevator.
“Mr. Farrington. I was going to call you.”
“Why was Kelsey’s access code changed?”
A pause. Then a softer voice. “The request came from Mrs. Farrington’s office.”
“My mother ordered it?”
“She said access was to be restricted immediately. We weren’t given a reason.”
Kelsey had stopped typing. She listened without moving.
“And the bags?” I asked.
“The concierge had them moved to secure storage after the access change. They’re still here. We can release them to Ms. Lane.”
“Please do.”
“I’ll meet her in the lobby.”
I ended the call. Kelsey’s jaw worked once, as if she were biting down on something sharp.
“She knew we were there,” she said.
“She knew you had access.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.” I glanced at the boys, then back to her. “It isn’t.”
We returned to the building together. The manager waited near the service corridor, his face drawn with discomfort. He led Kelsey—not me—to a locked storage room and opened it. Her two battered duffels sat on a shelf beside a stack of delivery boxes.
Kelsey checked both bags herself. She tugged each zipper, counted the boys’ spare clothes, and touched the small pouch where she kept their documents. Only after she was satisfied did she let the manager close the door.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have called you before moving them.”
Kelsey lifted one duffel. “You should have called before changing the code.”
He had no answer.
I carried the other bag only after she gave a short nod. The strap bit into my palm. At the curb, she called the motel herself and confirmed the reservation. I stood back while she spoke, close enough to help if she asked and far enough not to turn her choice into mine.
My phone vibrated before she hung up.
Grant Mercer.
I answered. “What?”
“Your mother says you intend to create a scene tonight.”
“She changed Kelsey’s access code without warning and had her belongings removed.”
“Those are private building matters.” Grant’s voice was polished enough to make every word sound like it had been reviewed by committee. “The directors are watching. If you continue presenting Ms. Lane as a victim while retaining documents taken from the archive, the company may view it as an attempt to pressure the family into paying for your silence.”
Kelsey’s eyes met mine. She could hear him.
“Your firm routed money under her name,” I said. “She never received it.”
“Be careful. An accusation of extortion can cut both ways.”
“Then you should be careful too.”
I ended the call. For a second, the café’s door swung open behind us, spilling the smell of coffee and buttered toast onto the sidewalk. Cillian tucked himself closer to Kelsey. She rested a hand on the back of his head, steady and sure.
“You don’t have to carry his threats for me,” she said.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I looked down at the duffel in my hand. “I’m trying to.”
Her eyes searched mine, not for a declaration, but for the part of me that might turn her hardship into a reason she owed me. I kept my hands on the bag and said nothing else.
A message appeared on my screen from my mother.
The gathering at the estate will proceed tonight. Press will be present. Come and settle the rumors before someone else does.
I read it again. The words settle the rumors had the same tidy cruelty as a door closing softly.
Kelsey saw my expression. “What?”
I showed her the screen.
She read it, then handed the phone back. “She wants you there.”
“She wants a story she can control.”
“And if you go?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The boys were watching us now. Callan had both hands around his cup. Connor’s eyes moved from my face to Kelsey’s, waiting for one of us to say the word home.
“We’re going to the motel,” Kelsey told them. “We’ll get settled, then we’ll decide the next thing.”
Cormac nodded as if he’d been given an important job. “I can carry my backpack.”
“Of course you can,” she said.
The ride across town was quiet. At the motel, Kelsey checked the room before the boys entered, testing the lock and the window latch while they stood behind her. I set the bags just inside the door and waited.
“Thank you,” she said, though her voice held no invitation beyond the words.
“I’ll be nearby.”
“I’ll call if we need anything.”
I nodded and stepped back into the parking lot. The sun had dropped behind the buildings, leaving the sky the color of bruised peaches. I had just reached my car when Kelsey came out, her phone in her hand.
“What is it?”
She turned the screen toward me.
An anonymous number had sent a photograph of the boys entering the café. It had been taken from across the street, close enough to catch their faces beneath the awning.
May you like
Below it were five words:
Keep them out of this.
