"Margaret. Why did you keep it?"
"Because every night since that night, I have woken up at 3 a.m. and remembered the face of the baby I sold. The application is what I have. It is yours. It has been yours."
"Thank you."
"Do not thank me, Detective."
She closes her eyes.
She does not open them again.
The monitor's tone changes.
A nurse appears at the door.
I am still sitting in the chair holding the key.
I do not remember walkingout.
I remember Nadia against a kitchen wall.
Her hands in my hair.
Her voice breaking when I made her come.
Stop being careful.
Christ.
My life has apparently become a series of catastrophic family revelations interrupted by thoughts of a woman I should absolutely not want this much.
I am in my car in the lot before I have decided to leave.
The bad guys want you angry, Seanie. They feed off it. Get angry on a full stomach if you have to. Never on an empty one.
He was teaching me how not to get into fights at school. I was thirteen.
He was teaching me how not to get into other kinds of fights, too.
I drive south. I do not sleep. I do not stop.
I do not think about the woman in the alley.
I think about her anyway.
The Apple Bankon Fordham Road opens at 9 a.m.
I am there at 7:55.
I do not go in. I park. I walk the block. I sit in a Greek diner two doors down and watch the bank’s back door because it’s the one I would have used.
The private entrance opened before the lobby did.
A black Range Rover pulls out of the alley at 8:43.
The driver is Italian, dark-haired, and wearing a leather jacket. I have already had my hand inside.
Nadia.
