"Yes."
"He’s going to find out."
"He’s going to find out from me.After."
"And if Nikolai gets to her…" His voice trails off.
"Nikolai is not going to get to her."
Dimitri nods. He doesn’t press any further. He stands and puts a hand on my shoulder, which is a thing Dimitri doesn’t do. He leaves it there for one second and then walks out the back door without saying goodbye.
The door closes.
I sit at the kitchen island with a glass of bourbon I am not going to drink, and I do something I have not let myself do in three years.
I let myself remember the gala.
? ? ?
I finish the bourbon by pouring it down the sink. I rinse the glass. I set it upside down on the drying rack. I turn off the kitchen light.
I walk down the hall and stop outside Maeve's door.
I do not, in any way, do anything that would register on the other side as a presence asking for something. I stand in the hallway in the dark for sixty seconds, breathing.
On the other side of that door is the woman I got lost in and never forgot.
On the other side of the door,ourdaughter is asleep.
Chapter 12
Maeve
The Case File
Petrov is in the brownstone kitchen at 9:00 in the morning, holding a list and a face that suggests this is the third list he’s been given in twenty-four hours, and he’s on a tight schedule.
The list is the things from my apartment.
I have been making it for two days. I have made it on the back of a legal pad, with the careful precision of an attorney who is itemizing what she’s lost in a settlement, and I have given it to Petrov this morning because Lex has decided, with the agreement of three Konstantinos brothers and one Walsh patriarch, that I am not going back to the Brookline apartment for the duration of this protective custody. The apartment will be packed by Petrov's team. Lex's team. Mine, possibly. The pronouns are getting blurry.
Nikolai’s note said Friday. Friday is almost upon us now, and I still do not know what “you have until Friday” is meant to be — a deadline for something he will do, or something he expects of me, or only his way of putting a date on my life. So I make lists. A list is something a person can finish. Very little else is, right now.
"Books," Petrov reads. "You have written here three books."
"Yes."
"Specific books."
"Yes."
He waits, his brows raised.
"The Pride and Prejudice on the third shelf, hardcover, blue spine. The Cormac McCarthy on the second shelf, the small paperback of Suttree. And whichever of the children's books Nora picks if you bring her a photograph of the shelf and let her choose."
"All right."
"Petrov?"
