Chapter 13: A Reasonable Man

Anton Moreau didn't ask for the ledger. He asked whether I had slept, and that was how I knew he was more dangerous than anything I had faced so far.

"You look tired, Miss Halvorsen," he said, smiling pleasantly from the leather armchair. "A girl your age should not be up all night. I hope the fire didn't frighten you too much."

My stomach turned, but I kept my face still. Beside me, I felt Hollis shift his weight half a step forward, putting his shoulder between me and the two men at the doors. Elias's fingers tightened around the handle of the briefcase. In it was the altered copy of the ledger. The real one was back in box 1138 under three locks, and the flash drive sat in my pocket, a small, hard weight against my hip.

"It was a strange night," I said evenly. "I imagine you'd know."

"I know a great many things." He uncrossed his legs and rested his hands on his knees like a kindly uncle. "I knew your grandfather, for instance. We shared a table once or twice. He never liked my wine, but he always respected my hospitality." His eyes slid to the brass key chain hanging from Mrs. Aldous's belt, and then to me. "Which makes it a shame that his granddaughter is so rude."

"Where is Nell?"

"Straight to business. How refreshing." He lifted two fingers, and one of the men by the doors crossed the lobby and handed him a phone. Anton tapped the screen and turned it toward me. "See for yourself."

It was a video call. A girl sat on a bare mattress in a dim, windowless room, her knees drawn up to her chest. She was thin, with tangled brown hair and a bruise darkening one cheekbone, and she was looking at the camera with the stiff, glassy stare of someone who had been told exactly what to say.

"Miss Halvorsen?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "Please. They said you could help me. Please tell my dad I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Nell," I said, and my own voice came out rough. "Nell, listen to me. Are you hurt?"

"I'm... I'm okay. I just want to go home."

The screen went dark. For a moment I couldn't speak. She was seventeen years old, the same age as the girl I had been when I first came home, and all I could think of was her father lying pale on a clinic table, whispering her name.

"You see?" Anton said gently, slipping the phone into his pocket. "She is perfectly fine. A little frightened, but unharmed. I am a reasonable man, Miss Halvorsen. Give me the ledger, the girl goes home, and your family and I go back to doing business as we always have."

"My family?" I repeated.

"Your father and I have a long and profitable history. I would hate to see it ruined by a misunderstanding." He spread his hands. "You have inherited a great deal very suddenly. I understand that you're angry. But anger is expensive, and it never pays the people who indulge it."

"Then you'll understand why I want the girl first."

He tilted his head, almost amused. "Everyone wants something first."

"Not everyone has something you need." I took a step forward, and Hollis moved with me, silent as a shadow. "Bring Nell to this bank, Mr. Moreau. Walk her through those doors and let her stand where I can see her. Then we'll talk about what you get."

For a long moment, he studied me. I had the feeling of being weighed by a man who made his living on the value of other people's fear, and for once I let him look. I thought of my grandfather, of the villagers who had told me a person could be small and still refuse to kneel, and I held his gaze until he blinked.

"You have your grandfather's spine," he said at last, almost to himself. "Pity it will cost you." He glanced at his watch, a slim gold thing that probably could have paid for the whole village. "I will give you twenty minutes to think it over. It is not yet noon, after all, and I try to be a man of my word."

"And if I say no?"

"Then my men will take that briefcase, and you will watch Walton's girl pay for it." He said it so gently that it took me a second to understand. "It's up to you, Miss Halvorsen."

Mrs. Aldous let out a small, strangled sound. Elias had gone very pale. Behind us, I could hear Hollis breathing, slow and controlled, the breath of a man calculating exactly how many steps lay between him and the men at the door.

I was opening my mouth to answer when the brass doors swung wide.

The two men guarding them stepped aside without a word. Daylight flooded across the marble, and with it came the sharp tap of heels and the heavy tread of boots. Three uniformed police officers entered first, spreading out across the lobby with their hands on their belts. Behind them walked my father, tall and rigid in a dark suit, his face drawn with exhaustion and cold, quiet fury.

And on his arm, pale and fragile in a cream-colored dress, her eyes red from crying, was Lydia.

My blood went cold.

Anton Moreau rose from his chair, smoothing his jacket with the unhurried grace of a man greeting an old friend. "Ah, Gregory," he said warmly. "Right on time."

My father didn't look at him. He didn't look at anyone. His eyes found me across the lobby, and what I saw in them wasn't anger anymore. It was something much colder, the look of a man who had already made a terrible choice and wanted the world to see that he had no regrets.

"Officers," he said, in a clear, carrying voice. "That is my daughter, Tessa Halvorsen. She has been unstable for some time. Last night she abducted our family driver, Mr. Walton, and she is now in possession of confidential documents stolen from my company's vault." He raised a hand and pointed at the briefcase in Elias's grip. "I want her arrested, and I want those papers returned."

The officers began to move toward us.

Beside my father, Lydia lifted her tear-streaked face and met my eyes, and in the silence of the lobby, her thought slid into my head, clear and sweet and triumphant.

You walked right into it, Tessa.