로그인CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND SEVENGABRIEL'S POVAt twenty past two in the morning, I stood behind my desk with my hands folded and watched a woman I had trusted for six years tell me a story.Morrow stood before me in her gray cardigan. Her hair was down, and she had not troubled to put on shoes. Reyes held the door, a black shape against the corridor light."What did you tell her?" I asked."That I was sorry.""For what?""For the night after the boathouse." She said it without a flicker. "She was bleeding and alone. The first hospital's emergency room was short of staff, and I happened to be there on a favor to the night charge nurse. I examined her under sedation. She never gave consent. I wanted her to hear that from me.""You examined her.""A uterine evaluation. It's in the chart.""I have not seen the chart.""You would not have. It was a small thing, and I thought it did not matter." She paused. "It mat
CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND SIXRILEY'S POVI could not sleep.It was two in the morning, my second night at the Pavilion, and I lay on my side with my knees drawn up and my thumb pressed against the underside of the bed rail. Under the lip, in small rough letters, I had scratched four things. MORROW. 2:10. LILIES. MATERNAL REF. I read them again with my skin and felt nothing but cold.The hall light made its yellow line under the door. Beyond it, Cole's chair creaked. I could hear him breathing, slow and tired. Somewhere deeper in the building a machine clicked on and off.At two-oh-six the door opened without a knock.I did not move. I let my breath stay even, and I opened my eyes a slit.Dr. Morrow came in alone. She wore a gray cardigan instead of scrubs, and her hair was down. She held a small black remote in her right hand. She pressed it once, and the red dot under the corner camera went dark."Don't sit up," she said,
CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND FIVELOGAN'S POV"Kane! Laps! Another ten!"Coach's whistle cut across the ice, and I put my head down and pushed. The extra laps were my punishment for leaving practice two days ago, and they were fair. My legs burned. My bandaged hand throbbed in the glove with every stick-handle, a dull, hot beat that kept time with my heart.At the far end of the rink, Jax skated alone, running the same short pass against the boards again and again. He had come in an hour late, with Coach's nod and no explanation, and he had not looked my way once. I understood why. Neither of us could afford to.Derek fell into line beside me on the fifth lap."Hey.""Hey.""What really happened to your hand?""Car door.""Right." He skated three strides without speaking. "I slammed my hand in a car door once. Broke two fingers. Cried the whole way to the hospital." He glanced at me. "You didn't cry.""I did it
CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND FOURELI'S POVI sat down next to Calvin because there was nowhere else to sit.The booth was red vinyl, cracked along the seam. Gabriel García faced us with a slice of lemon pie between his hands and a clean napkin spread over his knee. Reyes stood at the door. Bishop stopped behind my shoulder, close enough that I could smell his aftershave.I had known Alejandro's voice in the dark, in the back of a car, saying a name and a street. Gabriel had the same voice with the edges sanded off. That was what made him worse. Alejandro had shouted. Gabriel never needed to."You have not touched your coffee," Gabriel said to Calvin."I don't take it from men who check my collar.""Fair." He nodded at the little recorder by the sugar dispenser. "Please. Take it back. It's empty."Calvin didn't move."You switched it off yourself when I mentioned it," Gabriel said. "A kind of handshake. Mrs. Benn
CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND THREEJAX'S POVI slept in my clothes on the second bed of a motel room by the river, and I woke with my boots still on.Calvin had not slept at all. He sat at the little table by the window with a legal pad in front of him, writing in a small, square hand. A paper cup of old coffee sat at his elbow. The curtain was open an inch, and a gray light came through it."What time is it?" I asked."Six-forty.""You didn't lie down.""I don't sleep before a meeting." He turned a page. "Noon, at the diner. I'll go alone.""I'm coming.""He said one man. He'll count." Calvin did not look up. "If he sees you, he stops talking. If he stops talking, I have nothing.""If he sees you alone, he has you.""He has had me for eleven weeks, Eli. I've been walking around in his pocket." He set the pen down. "I'm the one he can't threaten. I don't have a son in a school Gabriel's men can find."Tha
CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND TWOGABRIEL'S POVI turned off the lamp in Procedure Room 3 myself. It clicked with a small sound I had learned to hate. The room was cleaner than any room I had ever owned, and it still smelled of lilies. That was the one thing I had never been able to change. Morrow insisted on them, and I had never asked why."Wait outside, Reyes," I said.He nodded and shut the door. My daughter stood in front of me with her arms folded across her chest. She looked tired, and she looked thin, and she had her mother's face when her mother was afraid. At eight she had held a baby in her arms and looked at me with exactly that face, and I had told her it was a dream."Why this room?" Scarlett said."Because you have been in it before."Her face went blank. She was good at that. I had made sure of it."I bought this building the week after the crash," I said. "I could not bear the thought of you waking in a stranger's ho







