Not impatient.
Certain.
I go still.
Nobody visits me without warning. Nobody knocks on my door at this hour unless something has gone catastrophically wrong.
I look through the peephole.
Sean is standing on the other side of my door.
His coat is the same coat.
The dressing on his side is already bleeding through again.
He is not holding a gun.
He does not need to.
I do not open the door right away.
He waits.
"I want to know what was in that box, Nadia."
I stare at the door.
"And I want to know now."
I open it.
He steps inside.
10
SEAN
She opens the door and steps back once.
That is the invitation.
I come inside. The door closes behind me with the soft metal slide of the deadbolt, and for one second, neither of us moves.
I followed her from the bank.
That is the part she does not know yet.
I am standing in the entryway of her apartment on West 12th, and she is standing twelve feet from me at the kitchen counter, and the math she is doing in her head right now is the math of a woman trying to figure out where she lost the operation.
She lost it on Fordham Road at 8:42 a.m. I was parked across the street.
She did not check her mirrors.
That is the part I will be thinking about for a long time. Nadia Ferraro does not get into a Range Rover that is not registered toher without checking her mirrors. Unless she has just opened a piece of paper that has done to her what the paper has done.
She did not check her mirrors because she could not.
I speak first.
