Chapter 6
My voice turned colder.
“To help him?”
“I don’t know what he told you.”
“I asked a simple question.”
“And there is no simple answer.”
I almost ended the call.
Patrick leaned forward.
“Ask him about Daniel Cross.”
I looked at him.
“Who is Daniel Cross?”
Lorenzo heard.
His next breath caught.
“Where are you?” he asked again.
Patrick spoke loudly enough for the phone to carry his voice.
“Still alive.”
Lorenzo said nothing.
The car moved through the snow.
Finally, he whispered, “Patrick.”
My brother’s face gave away nothing.
“You sound disappointed,” Patrick said.
“No.”
“Afraid, then.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprised all of us.
Lorenzo’s voice steadied.
“Daniel Cross is dead.”
Patrick looked at me.
“That is what he said eleven years ago.”
I turned onto Lake Shore Drive.
“Who is Daniel Cross?” I asked.
Lorenzo answered.
“The man who ordered Patrick’s disappearance.”
Patrick leaned back.
Beatrice stared at him.
“Then why did you go back with him?” Patrick asked.
This time, Lorenzo’s silence lasted so long that I thought the call had ended.
“I didn’t know it was him,” he said.
“You stood beside him.”
“I thought I was bringing you to safety.”
“You brought me to a train station where two men tried to put me in a car.”
“I was trying to get you out of the city.”
“With them?”
“With people I trusted.”
Patrick laughed quietly.
There was no humor in it.
“That was always your problem, Lorenzo.”
My house appeared in the distance only in my memory.
We were driving in the opposite direction.
Toward the townhouse my mother had left me.
Toward the only place I could think of that belonged to the Vale family without belonging to the Vale empire.
I spoke into the phone.
“Do not follow me.”
“Adrian—”
“If you do, I will assume you are not alone.”
Then I ended the call.
For several minutes, none of us spoke.
At last, Beatrice said, “Do you believe him?”
“No,” Patrick said.
“Yes,” I said at the same time.
We looked at each other.
“I believe he thinks he was helping,” I clarified.
“That is not the same as helping.”
“No. But it matters.”
Patrick turned toward the window.
“Intentions mattered a great deal to people who never paid the price.”
I felt the accusation beneath the words.
Not just against Lorenzo.
Against me.
“You think I didn’t pay?” I asked.
Beatrice closed her eyes.
Patrick’s voice remained quiet.
“I think you paid differently.”
That answer left no easy place for anger.
He had lost his freedom, his health, his name, and twelve years.
I had lost him.
Pain was not a competition.
May you like
But grief often behaved like one.
We reached Evanston shortly before midnight.
