“Don’t they have to wait for the autopsy?”
“Nicholas apparently, in his will, requested that there wouldn’t be one.” She pauses. “That’s not uncommon. Certainly not at his age. And I have it from a reliable source that his bodyguard was the one that found him.”
“His regular bodyguard?” I say. And I think of Seth. Seth, who has always been the one Nicholas wanted with him. There would be comfort in knowing that he was there.
“I’ll find out,” she says. “It was confirmed that no one entered or exited the property at any point last night.”
Last night. How was this all just twenty-four hours ago?
I look at my computer screen—click on theFamilyphoto album. I flip through until I land on a photograph of Nicholas. It’s an old photograph (at least two decades old), a far-younger Nicholas enjoying dinner with Kate and Charlie when they were still children at a beachfront restaurant in Hawaii. It’s a beachfront restaurant that I recognize because Nicholas took us all there the year before last—Charlie and his boys; me and Bailey. It was the last trip we took with Nicholas before we all knew about his heart condition, before Bailey and I worried about him the way we have worried since.
It makes me smile, despite myself, remembering that vacation. And looking at a photograph of the much-younger version of Nicholas in the same place—his young children flanking either side of him: Charlie on one side, Kate on the other (Kate looking so much like Bailey), Nicholas looking so happy, his large arm draped over her shoulder.
The photograph captures a moment in which Nicholas feels so much like himself, a moment that encapsulates him—his arms around the people he loved most in this world, trying to hold them as tightly as he can.
It was almost as though I could feel Nicholas consider it just as the photograph was being taken. It was buried behind his smile: the knowledge that, one day, he wouldn’t be able to hold them like this anymore.
“Word at the paper is that CNN is going to use Nicholas’s death as a reason to do a special on the organization. A look back at theirhistory and how they evolved into a where-they-are-today kind of thing. Focusing on Frank’s legacy, the changing of the guard.”
“The changing of the guard?” I ask.
“From what I’m hearing, Frank has taken a step back and is in the process of officially handing over the reins to his children,” she says.
I think of what Nicholas has shared with me about Frank’s children. There are six of them, in total. The youngest four, apparently, are spread out around the country—not particularly involved. But the oldest two are still in south Florida. A daughter named Quinn, and her younger brother Teddy.
“The daughter, especially, has apparently started playing a larger role.”
That doesn’t land correctly for me. If Frank had stepped back, and Quinn had stepped in, wouldn’t Nicholas have known? Wouldn’t he have shared that with me? Or had he known and chosen to keep it to himself? Maybe because he was worried too—that the man responsible for Bailey’s and my safety was no longer the only boss?
Maybe because, like how I tried to do with Bailey, Nicholas was trying to shield me from some of that fear.
Grady’s words pop to the forefront of my mind:Everything has changed.
And what he said next:The organization isn’t honoring the deal you two made… that you and Bailey would be safe….
“That must play into this,” I say.
“Into what?” Jules asks.
“I had a visitor last night,” I say. “An unexpected visitor. Which may be leading to my making a potential shift. To the plan.”
She’s quiet. Because she knows what I’m not saying. That the visitor was Owen. I don’t have to explain beyond that. Jules understands, better than anyone, that there is only one reason I would shifteverything I’ve been planning. There is only one reason that I would choose a different path in the eleventh hour. Because the eleventh hour could possibly take us back to Owen. Could possibly take my kid back to her father.
“What do you need me to do?” she asks.
“I may need to come back here,” I say. “I need this window to stay open.”
“Of course. I’ll take care of that.” She pauses. “When?”
“A day or two. I just don’t know yet.”
I don’t answer her beyond that. I don’t need to. She’ll let her friend know I may be back. She’ll let her friend know no details beyond that, until and unless it becomes absolutely necessary.
“Keep me close, okay?” Jules says.
“Always,” I say.
Then we hang up.
