PART 18:

She kept her hands flat on the table. Don’t let him make it. Caruso was quiet for a long time, long enough that the light through the windows shifted slightly as a cloud moved across the afternoon sun. Then he picked up his pen. The material request, he said to Ellis, goes back to pending indefinitely.

He wrote something on the legal pad without looking up. Tell Delaney I want a full briefing on the Vos Meridian testimony by 6 tonight. He looked at Ava. You should know, he said, that this doesn’t close the veil investigation. Nothing you’ve said today closes it. I know, she said. We’re going to continue working that case through legitimate channels.

Whatever documentation your father provided, we’re going to evaluate it independently before we decide what to do with it. That’s all I’m asking, she said. Caruso nodded once and stood and left the room with Ellis without another word, which was fine, which was the right ending to that particular conversation.

Patricia let out a breath that was not quite a sigh. Don’t ever do that again, she said. Did it work? Today it worked. Patricia gathered her things. Come on, you look like you need to sit down somewhere that isn’t a government adjacent conference room. They were in the elevator when Ava’s phone finally rang. “Lucienne.

” She stepped to the back of the elevator and answered. “I’ve been calling you for 4 hours,” she said. “I know.” His voice was level. Whatever had been happening for the last 4 hours had been processed and filed in whatever interior space he maintained for things that had happened and couldn’t be unhappened. My phone was with Brennan when they pulled him. I just got it back.

Brennan’s out an hour ago. They didn’t have enough to hold him past the initial questioning. A pause. I heard what you did with Caruso. She blinked. How? I have a person in the building. A brief silence. Ava, don’t. She said, not on the phone. No, I know. She could hear him breathing.

Tonight, whenever you’re ready, I’ll come to you,” she said. The elevator reached the lobby. She went to him. They sat in the kitchen where they’d been that morning. The same table, the same view of the river, the same city doing its indifferent thing outside the windows. And she told him everything from the point where his text message had cut off to the moment she’d stepped out of the elevator on Park Avenue.

He listened the way he listened without interrupting, without the small verbal affirmations people used to signal attention, just complete still focus that she’d always found simultaneously unnerving and rare. When she finished, he was quiet for a moment. Caruso, he said, he’s not going to stop. I know. The investigation continues. Whatever I’ve been doing, legally or otherwise, he’s going to keep building.

I know that, too, she said. I didn’t go in there to close your case. I went in there to stop my father from using it as a weapon today. He looked at her. That distinction matters, she said. I need you to understand that I know the difference between what you are and what I needed today.

I’m not confused about it. No. He said, “You’re not confused about anything.” He said it not as a compliment exactly, but as an observation, the specific recognition of a person seeing something clearly for the first time. You weren’t even in the subway station, even with your lips split open and your ribs done. You were scared, but you weren’t confused.

She looked at the table. My father is going to be indicted, she said. The trust case is solid enough now that his lawyers can slow it, but they can’t stop it. Voss Meridian is going to fall apart when Lacier testifies. Daniel Ferris is probably already looking at his options. She paused.

Henry Ashworth’s family is going to spend the next two years in congressional oversight. Seline, she stopped. Seline, Lucian said carefully. She looked at the river. Seline knew, she said, 3 years. And she chose the wedding over telling me. She felt the shape of it. Not the hot anger from this morning, but something colder and more permanent, the specific weight of understanding that settled once the adrenaline finished.

She’s not a criminal. She was afraid and she made the choice afraid people make. A pause. I understand it. I I don’t know if I can forgive it yet. Lucienne didn’t offer her anything about forgiveness. She was grateful for that. Your mother called this afternoon. He said, “While you were with Caruso, she left a message with my building.” Ava looked at him.

She said she needed you to know that the article this morning was your father’s decision, not hers. He paused. She said she told him not to do it. She sat with that. Do you believe her? Ava said. I don’t know your mother. Do you believe people who didn’t stop something get credit for not wanting it to happen? He was quiet for a long time. No, he said, not by itself.

No. She nodded. I’m going to the bakery tomorrow, she said. Mara has been running it since last night, and there are three orders due by end of week, and the kulache dough needs to be started by 6:00 in the morning. She looked at the table. I need to go back to work. I know whatever happens next, the case, the family, all of it.

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