CHAPTER 169: Kofi

POV: Maya Castellano

The man had left by the time Selene and Avalon arrived.

Kofi was standing at the kitchen window when they walked in, his back to the room.

Maya was on the couch.

She looked at Selene.

"Tell me what's happening," she said.

"Let Kofi tell you," Selene said. "All of it."

Kofi turned around.

He looked at Selene first. Then Avalon. Then Maya.

"Sit down," Maya said to him. "Please."

He sat across from her.

"How long have you known Thomas Reeves?" Avalon asked.

Kofi looked at him.

"Since before the coffee shop," he said.

The room went very quiet.

"What does that mean?" Maya said. Her voice was careful. 

"Thomas approached me eight months before the coffee shop," Kofi said. "He knew my work. He'd followed the school project in Accra. He contacted me through a mutual connection and offered me three commissions. Good ones. The kind that don't come to someone at my stage without a reason."

"The reason being," Avalon said.

"He wanted someone he could use," Kofi said. "Not permanently. Just occasionally. Someone in proximity to your lives who he could ask questions of or get a read on things."

"He recruited you," Selene said.

"He offered me work," Kofi said. "I knew what it was. I told myself it was just professional proximity, that I wasn't doing anything harmful."

"And then he asked you to sit down at Maya's table," Avalon said.

"Yes," Kofi said.

Maya stood up and walked to the window.

Nobody spoke.

"Maya," Kofi said.

"Don't," she said.

"Please let me—"

"Don't," she said again. Louder this time. "Give me a minute."

He gave her the minute.

She stood at the window, and Selene watched her sister's back and knew every version of what was happening inside her because she'd felt versions of it herself.

The specific recalculation of something you believed was one thing, discovering it was built on something else.

After a long moment, Maya turned around.

"The coffee shop," she said. "You sat down because Thomas told you to."

"Yes," Kofi said.

"And then what?" she said.

"And then you said a kidnapping had been the most remarkable thing about your year," he said. "And I forgot what I was supposed to be doing."

"That's what you said before," she said. "In the office. When you told me the truth about being there in the first place."

"Yes," he said.

"But you didn't tell me the whole truth," she said. "You told me Thomas sent you. You didn't tell me Thomas had been paying you for eight months. That you had a relationship with him and that you knew who he was to this family before you sat down."

"No," he said. "I didn't tell you that."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I was ashamed of it," he said. "The first part. I mean, taking his money and agreeing to be useful to him. By the time I understood what he actually was, it was already—" He stopped.

"It was already what," she said.

"It was already you," he said. "It was already something I wasn't willing to lose."

Maya looked at him.

"That's a very convenient thing to say right now," she said.

"I know," he said.

"It sounds exactly like what someone would say when they've been caught," she said.

"I know that too," he said.

"So why should I believe it?" she asked.

He was quiet for a moment.

"You shouldn't," he said. "Not because I said it. You should believe it or not believe it based on every other thing. Everything since the coffee shop. Every choice I made that Thomas Reeves didn't ask for."

"Give me one," she said. "One choice you made that he didn't ask for."

"Coming back to San Francisco," he said immediately. "He never asked for that. My commissions here were finished. The professional thing to do was to go back to Accra or take another project elsewhere. Thomas never suggested San Francisco. I chose it."

"Why?" she said.

"Because you were here," he said. "Because I wanted to build something in the city where you lived and see what happens."

Maya looked at him.

Then at Selene.

Selene said nothing.

This wasn't hers.

"The man who came today," Maya said. "From Thomas's office. What did he want?"

"To tell me Thomas had disclosed our arrangement to the federal prosecutor," Kofi said. "As part of his cooperation. My name is in the file."

"What does that mean for you?" Avalon said.

"I wasn't part of the fraud," Kofi said. "My work for Thomas was architectural. It was legitimate, and the commissions were real projects." He looked at Maya. "But my name is connected to his now. Publicly. That's going to follow me."

"How badly?" Selene asked.

"I don't know yet," he said.

"The Valencia Street arts centre," Avalon said. "The Oakland commission. Were those Thomas's?"

"No," Kofi said. "Those came independently. After I'd stopped taking Thomas's work entirely."

"When did you stop? Avalon asked.

"When Maya told me she thought our meeting wasn't an accident," Kofi said. "That first Thursday after the coffee shop. When she said she didn't think it was a coincidence." He looked at Maya. "I went home that night and ended the arrangement. I called Thomas and told him I was done."

"You didn't tell me that," Maya said.

"No," he said.

"You let me think you were just someone Thomas sent once," she said. "Not someone he'd been paying for eight months."

"Yes," he said.

"That's a significant thing not to tell me," she said.

"Yes, it is," he said. 

"We got married," she said. Her voice broke slightly on it. Kofi, we got married."

"I know," he said.

"And you've been carrying this the whole time."

"Yes," he said.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out?" she asked.

"I thought it wouldn't matter eventually," he said. "I thought if enough real things happened between us, the original thing would become irrelevant."

"That's what Avalon thought about Claire," Selene said quietly.

Everyone looked at her.

"The past became irrelevant because the present was real enough," she said. "It doesn't work that way."

Kofi looked at his hands.

"No," he said.

Maya walked to the kitchen and stood at the counter.

"I need to think," she said. "I need everyone to leave, and I need to think."

"Maya—" Selene started.

"Not you," Maya said. "You can stay." She looked at Avalon. "And you." She looked at Kofi. "You need to go."

Kofi stood up.

He looked at Maya.

She didn't look back.

"I'll be at the Valencia Street office," he said. "When you're ready."

He walked to the door and opened it.

"Everything I built here," he said. Without turning around. "The office, the courtyard and the plant I put in on the first day. All of it was for you. Not for Thomas or for anyone else." He paused. "I know that doesn't fix the lie. I just need you to know what was real."

He left.

The door closed.

Maya stood at the counter for a long time.

Selene sat on the couch and didn't say anything because Maya hadn't asked for words yet.

Avalon was very still in the chair.

Eventually Maya said, "He chose San Francisco."

"Yes," Selene said.

"Thomas didn't ask for that."

"No," Selene said.

"And the commissions here were independent," Maya said.

 "That's what he said," Selene said.

"Do you believe him?" Maya said.

Selene thought about it.

"I believe he sat down at your table and forgot what he was supposed to be doing," she said. "I believed it the first time he said it, and I still believe it now."

"Even knowing the rest ?" Maya asked.

"Especially knowing the rest," Selene said. "Because the rest makes the choosing harder. And he kept choosing anyway."

Maya looked at her water glass.

"I'm so angry," she said.

"I know," Selene said.

"I'm angry and I still—" She stopped.

"Both things," Selene said.

"Both things?" Maya said. "I hate both things."

"I know," Selene said.

"How do you live with both things ?" Maya asked.

"You just do," Selene said. "You hold both, and you decide what matters more. Not which feeling but what matters more."

Maya was quiet for a long time.

Then her phone buzzed on the counter.

She looked at it.

A text from Kofi.

She read it.

Her face changed.

"What does it say?" Selene said.

Maya held the phone out.

Selene read it.

The plant in the courtyard is called a peace lily. It grows toward light. I chose it specifically. I chose everything specifically. I'm sorry I didn't tell you all of it. I should have. I was afraid of losing the light.

Selene handed the phone back.

Maya looked at the text for a long moment.

Then she picked up her keys.

"Where are you going ?" Avalon asked.

"Valencia Street, to meet my husband," 

She walked out, and the door closed behind her.

Selene and Avalon sat in the empty apartment.

"She's going to him," Avalon said.

"Yes," Selene said.

"Is that right ?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. "But it's hers to decide."

She put her hand on her stomach.

Elena was still for once.

Like she too was waiting to see what happened next.

Her phone rang.

Margaret.

"The federal prosecutor's office just called me about Thomas," Margaret said.

"We know," Selene said. "We were there this morning."

"Not about the securities fraud," Margaret said. "Something else. Something that came out of his cooperation today."

"What ?" Selene asked.

"Thomas Reeves has been in contact with someone connected to the original Pierce Holdings displacement bond scheme," Margaret said. "Not Henderson. Someone from the original 1978 network. Someone who is still alive."

"Who?" Selene asked.

"That's why they're calling," Margaret said. "They need Avalon to come in tomorrow. They think he knows this person."

Selene looked at Avalon.

He looked back.

"Give me the name," she said to Margaret.

Margaret said it.

Avalon's face went completely white.